Something I started doing, and in hindsight I should have known better, is playing my daily NYT games (Wordle, Connections, etc.) while in bed if I happened to be awake after midnight. This has been a problem for several months now. I’ll go to bed late, can’t fall asleep, see the time, and play. Then my brain is awake because I’m trying to get a daily habit done early.
It also doesn’t help that I installed a scissor-arm mount near the head of my bed so I can hold my phone above me without fear of dropping it on my face. I really should take it down and put it back on my hobby desk and get my old tablet running again. (Then I just need to make sure my phone isn’t next to me when I lay down.)
These days, technology is prevalent in our everyday lives to such a degree that we (those of us who were raised in the 80’s and 90’s) often forget what life was like without it, and most kids growing up these days will never know different. Screen time, whether that is from the cell phone I’m typing this on or the various computers and laptops I may or may not use throughout the daily work routine, is impossible to avoid.
So how DO I manage my screen time if it’s basically in front of my face 24/7? A couple different ways.
At work, I can get up and go for a walk. My office has space where people can walk laps (not originally designed for that purpose but it was bound to happen) so all I have to do is put on a short podcast or just listen to music, and walk for 15 minutes or so. To help me stay consistent with that, though, I also have calendar reminders in my Outlook two walk twice each day.
Outside of work is a different story altogether. My primary hobby is video games, so how the heck do I balance THAT? Well, I also like to cook, so occasionally I just set my phone down to make dinner and just whip something up on the fly without looking at my phone. See what I come up with and make enough for leftovers.
I also love playing Magic: The Gathering, and I have several Commander decks I’ve built, and my roommate and I will work out a time for a couple of our friends to come over and we’ll sling spells for a couple hours. The same group of us also play tabletop board games, and we had a regular cadence going for a while to play Gloomhaven, but we’ve been done with that for a while so now we’re just working out time to dig into Frosthaven.
I could come up with other ways to reduce my screen time, but those are the ones that come to mind as the most consistent. Walking, cooking, and non-digital tabletop games.
The Dragon's Grove 