How I spend 3 days a week offline.

Because there's more to life than screens.

It seems more and more that people are looking to find ways to tune out and turn off so I thought it could be helpful to share the ways I do that and the support structures I've created to help me (because willpower ain’t got shit in the face of million dollar algorithms designed to steal your focus).

I decided to write on this topic after seeing a buzzy article here by a woman talking about her “low screen life”. When I saw that her screen time was higher than mine I had the realisation that I too had a low screen life and it could be worth sharing about.

My Venus is in Aquarius so I have a life long love affair with all things tech and technological advances. I love my gadgets, especially my Peleton bike, pneumatic compression boots, red light mask and Kindle with all of the accessories. So as a self-confessed gadget-head I never intentionally viewed my life as “low screen”.

I use a laptop and desktop computer in my work and for book writing, but I also use a Remarkable type folio for writing without distraction (because you can't surf the net on it - yes I used that phrase). I'll do my Restorative Yoga classes on my iPad perched beside me. I'll use my Apple watch as a timer for client calls and as a gentle reminder for the next task in my workdays. I get such an immense amount of joy from being rugged up under the covers while my Kindle is held on a stand in front of my face and I'm turning pages with my clicker under the cover (I still do read 80%+ bought from a local indie for anyone raging right now).

But I also spend Fri-Sun off of social media and emails, only watch tv/movies on average 1-2 hours per week, I spend maximum 15 minutes a day on social media and my emails are locked outside of business hours (yes this means I need to prepare more: for instance screenshotting the movie ticket beforehand rather than relying on opening it up from my email app). My clients can only contact me 11-5pm Mon-Thur when I'm working (as opposed to my 1-4 weeks off per quarter) and I've worked hard to establish clearly defined boundaries around all of these things.

I have a few reasons for doing all of this that I want to get into before going into how I do it.

Firstly, 2 of my highest personal values are around cultivating a peaceful/beautiful life and solitude. So having a calm, quiet and regulated space is one of the most important things to me. I tend to find even a few minutes scrolling puts me in a mood that I can't describe other than "clenched".

I've spent enough time offline to be able to notice the subtle changes in my energy when I'm online scrolling. I feel ever so slightly rushed and zoomed in, it's a distinct shift from my ideal and most authentic energy which is more grounded and spacious.

I had developed a habit a few months ago of scrolling on TikTok on my iPad as a way to “relax” and it took a couple of weeks of this behaviour to recognise it wasn't relaxing at all (I say this as someone who firmly loves TikTok as an app). And so I cut it out quickly, I much prefer to spend that time reading or birdwatching in the garden. Which is not to say anyone who does love a regular 45 minute scroll is bad, it just doesn't serve me.

Secondly, Being in silence is hugely regulating for me (I'm Autistic and was practically mute until about 4 years old, sometimes I genuinely wish I never started speaking and frequently consider going back into it, not to say that life is easy at all but I'd be lying if I said I didn't wonder). I need a lot of time in my own energy/aura, maybe because of my neurodivergence and/or because I have a Cancer Moon and open head centre in Human Design. I tend to take on others' moods and energies much more than I'd like to and I get quite effected by others' bad behaviour (working on it!).

All of that has boiled down to valuing time with no input, from any sources other than nature, a book or my immediate environment. I not only value this but can safely say I require it in order to feel like myself.

Lastly, I have a ton of creative ideas and creative energy. I want to produce these things - be it trying a new recipe, painting on silk, writing a book or learning a new knitting stitch. Being productive creatively is where I light up and frankly if I'm spending all of my energy inducing others creativity, the channels will become clogged when I get to my own. Not to mention the literal time that is wasted in doing that as opposed to more intentional inspiration seeking or experimentation.

I also have a life long love affair with reading and feel best when I'm reading a shit ton so I need to time for these creative practices as well as taking immaculate care of myself.

I don't mean to sound arrogant when I say that if you have a lot you want to get done in this life scrolling for 4 plus hours a day is just not conducive.

As someone whose full-time job is mentoring creative women I have also had a lot of first hand experience in seeing the correlations between excess screen time, feeling like you never have enough time, anxiety and underwhelming results.

It's entirely not uncommon that the women who tell me they have no time are also the women who average 8 plus hours a day on Instagram. Now I cannot actually fathom how that's physically possible but there you have it. I know this because I ask my clients to share their screen time with me when we start working together, to weed out the excuses from their reality in terms of how they're choosing to spend their time.

Therefore, I average a little less than 1.5-2 hours screen time per day (not including computer work) also while managing an online business - yes, that's right - it's more than possible, I've been doing it for years. Most of this time is spent on listening to podcasts (mostly bookish ones and I admit my podcast listening is probably higher than average), audiobooks, Pinterest (which is my most used app for over 13 years - someone give me a badge for that), checking and rearranging my Google Calendar and watching vlogs on Youtube while working on an elaborate jigsaw puzzle which is a favourite pass time.

Rather than scrolling I start my days meditating or in hypnosis, journalling, walking my dogs in nature, on the Peleton bike (which yes, does technically have a screen) and moving slowly.

I spend my lunch breaks sitting in my garden or reading a book - which is a huge upgrade from when I used to scoff food while scrolling social media - I always had a sore and sensitive tummy which might be related.

My evenings are spent reading in the garden, walking my dogs again, doing restorative practices or crafting. If I do watch tv it's either a specific show that I'm excited about like Great British Bake Off, recently Paradise, Tell Me Lies or the Kardashians (yes shoot me). I never watch tv mindlessly and I never binge it, not because I think there's anything wrong with that just because it doesn't match who I am. Sometimes we'll watch a movie on the weekend but never more than one. Usually I'm too wrapped up in the book I'm reading to spend any more time in front of another screen. I lived for many years in my 20s without a tv, refusing to let housemates bring them into a shared space and am known to refer to them as TV for Time Vortex.

There we have all of my whys, let's get into how I actually do it.

I think it's important to do your research and I found through reading all of Cal Newports books and this great little one on digital realms (that also outlines how our increasingly digitised environments have made our brains evolve into ones that operate more like ADHD wiring - if that hasn't perked your ears I'm not sure what will). So learning more about what's happening is the best place to start.

I've also looked into the effects of screen time on decision fatigue and as someone who already has clinical executive dysfunction that has cost me thousands of dollars I just know that I need as much support as possible to make healthy choices, if I use them up on which app to check I'll be making shitty ones for the rest of the day.

I don't keep my phone in my bedroom.

I do use it as my alarm, purely because I've tried other devices and I haven't loved them (always open to suggestions on this one).

I have my phone on grey scale whenever I'm not doing design related work that requires me to see colours.

I have all notifications turned off par my credit card, Google Cal (that's how I manage my time) and for my CRM so I know when a new client has scheduled or paid (this too will be turned off after we make a few more tweaks to this automation software).

Because I've very few notifications I have had to communicate clear parameters with clients, ie. they can only contact me via 1 specific app and I only check it at specific times of day, kind of like office hours. If they send me an email I'll respond to it on this app and ask them to stop emailing me.

I also use Project Management software to communicate with my team so I'm not getting random communications throughout the day, causing me to task switch and lose optimal productivity.

I do not rely on willpower or discipline in my relationship with my phone, I use a paid App blocker (about $50USD per year) to lock social media and emails. Therefore, I cannot physically access any social media apps or emails between 4pm and 9am Monday-Thursday and I can't open them at all Fri-Sun. I also have that handy 15 minute time limit across all social media apps. I use what they call Strict Mode which means you cannot bypass these locks, unlike the ones that iPhone have built in.

If I do need to respond to DMs throughout the workday I do so on my desktop computer which tends to not have the same rabbit hole vibe of social media on your phone, I have a specific purpose and it feels more like emails.

As a business owner I often have to post previously scheduled content (yes we use an automatic scheduler but I might have to add a question box or link to a story or a trending sound to a TikTok), these notifications are set to between 9am-9.15am only by my team. So I know I need to spend a few minutes on socials to do them when required - only Mon-Thur, we ensure all content Fri-Sun doesn't require any manual work.

A big part of this is also humility, I'm a business consultant and I work with people in set time frames, usually booked out 6-9 months in advance. You can sign up to work with me on my website and all of the info you could need is easily available to anyone who wants to find it. I say this to mean I'm not performing brain surgery. There should be no rush or immediacy required in my job so there's no reason to be frantically checking things outside of business hours.

I have business social media accounts, a book account that I have neglected and a finsta that I use specifically for only following THE MOST inspiring people to me. Never competitors or people who have the same kind of business as me, often makers, artists, designers or fashion bloggers whose style lights me up. So if I spend time on social media I'm usually just looking at the stories of that account only, I find a few minutes 4x per week is just enough to give me that juicy inspiration without overloading my system with other peoples' lives and ideas. But I frequently unfollow from that account too if I no longer find the content inspiring!

I also find that having more regulating and calming practices like meditation, hypnosis, reading, journalling or restorative yoga help me to shift into healthier ways to spend my time when I'm reaching for my locked phone. If I didn't have this little menu of alternatives I can see how scrolling could be a default tune-out moment.

I also never allow my phone in the bedroom my partner does enjoy a long black and the NYT games app most mornings but I'm not here to micromanage his habits, this is about creating a safe and nourishing space for my own energy.

I think that's all - I think that's how I do it and if I think of anything else I'll pop it in the comments.

An important piece of this is that I enjoy social media (especially my inspo instagram story scroll 4x per week), I sometimes even look forward to that jolt of creativity outside of my own. But as a general rule I do not miss social media but not being able to access it all the time or in a no-holds-bar way. My 3 day weekends feel like a breath of fresh air and I feel present in my life, not fragmented by having my attention divided throughout the day. I enjoy and benefit from both - the time I am online and the time I am unreachable - this is my point, the binary and dogmatic conversations I keep seeing here don't leave much room for genuine enjoyment and a lot of us do enjoy aspects of social media.

Probably a significant difference is that my social media doesn't define my mood or my self-worth, those things are not interlinked with my profiles. I've got to the point that low views, no likes and losing followers doesn't make me feel anything apart from a little bit of interest, like "hmm what's happening here?" for about 3 seconds and then I move on.

I also don't post friends or my partner very often at all, not because I don't want to showcase them but because I want the time I spend with them to be sacred and present, not photographed and open slather.

There was also a popular TikTok in the last week about creating more real world social importance by not having social media. While I can see the arguments that that idea is slightly far fetched, I can attest that if you have more time you're likely to develop new hobbies, skills, interests and probably read or ingest more art. These things are what will make you a more interesting person, it's not about the absence of social media but rather how you spend your time and focus instead of it.

Something that is important to note is that I have found and my clients have also reported that when you start taking a few days off of social media in a row you hit a bit of nervous system shut down. What that feels like is a wall of extreme exhaustion, like cannot keep your eyes open in the afternoon, the only thing you can do is nap. This tends to happen just the first couple of times and once your body gets used to not running on external stimuli you tend to be able to access even more energy on your weekends, that's been my experience anyway. So if you do this and you feel like you've been hit with a killer flu know you haven't been poisoned your body is just coming down from being constantly upregulated.

I've seen a lot of posts on here lately about people deleting social media (all while posting on a social media app about it ... I mean cognitive dissonance much?) and for some of us, like business owners that's just not entirely possible. But life doesn't need to be so black and white, there's lots of tools and measures we can take in order to still be connected without being ruled by our devices. I hope this gives you some inspiration to make gentle and aligned changes if and where you need them.