What to Do Instead of Checking Your Phone or Going Online

List What You Want to Do Instead of Using Digital Media

One you begin your digital detox, you will instantly have a lot more time (especially if you’ve been spending hours each day on your phone and being online). This means you’ll now finally be able to do all those things that you’ve been ‘too busy to get to.’ Instead of saying “Oh, I wish I had time for that,” you’ll now say, “I can easily do that this week.”

So what have you been putting off? What do you want to do?

Everyone is different. Only you know what you love. Or maybe, it’s been so long you’ve forgotten what you enjoy outside of e-media. Either way, here is your chance to dream up some fun things to do that will bring you joy.

Create a list of all the cool things you want to do, now that you have your life back. For example, you may enjoy reading, going on hikes, listening to music, swimming, spending time with friends and family, going to the theater, getting more sleep, taking a road trip, writing in your journal, doing nothing and just looking up at the clouds, etc.

What we are aiming for here are things that really bring JOY and satisfaction to you.

The ideal situation is that everything on this list makes your life better. It leaves you feeling nourished.

My suggestion is that you spend as much time as possible in nature where you see NOTHING BUT nature, and no man-made structures around. I personally spend hours each day in nature, where the only thing in my field of view is 100% natural scenery that probably looks the same as it did 4,000 years ago. Get away from the man-made environment and immerse yourself in pure nature and, perhaps, go for a swim in the ocean, rivers and creeks (provided they’re clean).

Here are some questions to ask yourself while creating your list:

Who would you like to spend more time with?

What would you like to do with them?

Where would you love to go?

What nature spots could you hike to?

Are there any high-quality restaurants you’d like to eat at?

Would you like to go to a friend’s home for a meal? Or have friends over?

What other activities do you enjoy that you’d like to do more of (e.g. painting, drawing, etc.)

Would you love to get more sleep?

Would you enjoy making your home more beautiful and comfortable?

What books would you like to read?

What magazines would you enjoy reading?

What music would you like to listen to?

What high-quality theater or movies could you go see at the theater or arts cinema that would be fun?

The possibilities are almost endless.

Match Each Digital Habit with an Offline Replacement

Another way of creating a joy list is to consider what you need to do that will replace your old digital lifestyle with new and healthy things offline.

Most of us have used the Internet and e-media as a distraction from ourselves and our lives. We’ve used it as a quick fix or easy solution to problems. When you remove one thing, you create a void. That void needs to be filled with something else. If you just leave it to chance, you’ll probably start craving e-media again and get caught up in dysfunctional or time-wasting things, instead of fully enjoying and embracing the joys of life.

Here is your chance to replace the Internet and e-media distractions with other things that bring you real nourishment.

When you go fully offline, you have to face yourself, deal with your own problems and get what you are really looking for. The Internet gives us a way to avoid what is truly important. It gives us a dopamine high and distracts us from dealing with things because we can just ignore them. Obviously, this is not a long-term solution to having a great life.

So to make sure you get the most out of your time, you can fill in the chart below so every time you start feeling wheezy and restless, you know what you can do instead. For example, instead of watching movies, go read a book or learn something; or replace Facebook with quality time with real people.

Ask yourself, what are the main triggers that can pull you back into the trance? How can you avoid or reduce them? Remember, our will power is not enough to break us free.

For example:

NOTE: You may need to add to your list some “healthy distractions.”

Let’s be honest. If you’re used to getting your little fix again and again, you’ll probably freak out a bit when you go cold turkey. So to manage those moments when you’re itching for some distraction (and you can’t handle letting go), you need alternatives. That’s where the healthy distraction list comes in. This list is for things that are healthy-ish, maybe a little toxic, but better than doing something stupid or running off to find your phone.

For example, if you’re used to watching movies or TV every day and you go cold turkey, you may feel the need to watch something else or distract yourself in some other way.

Use the Time Away from Technology to Finish a Project

Doing a Highly Productive Digital Detox can be a perfect way to get an important project finished. Before I pulled the plug and re-claimed my life from the tyranny of e-media, I had a hard time actually getting anything finished. I would start lots of projects, but because I was always distracted I had lost the power to stay focused. I would start one thing, then get bored and start something else and then start another thing. And in-between, I was always going online to distract myself from my work. It was a real mess.

To get anything done, we need time and focus. Quality work depends on uninterrupted times where we dedicate all our energy to what we want to do. This is how books get written and wonderful ideas come to life. The digital world destroys this capacity to create quality and so most people can’t actually finish anything. Instead of writing, they tweet or update Facebook or watch YouTube videos.

One of the best things that happens when you do a digital detox is you create big chunks of time for deep work. Times where you can get a lot done and make some real headway with your projects. So why not use this time as an opportunity to double or triple your productivity?

Here’s how to do it:

1. Pick a project that you want to finish (or make some serous headway with).
2. Pick a time of day where you have the most energy and focusing power to work on it (e.g. 5-7 a.m.).
3. Create a deadline for you to finish whatever you are doing.

Once you have this information, you’ll have something like this:

I am going to work on finishing the first draft of my book.

I will work from 5-7 a.m. each day.

The first draft needs to be completed by the 23rd of <month>.

Having this level of clarity makes an idea come alive. It turns abstract things like “I’ll finish it soon” into tangible reality: “This project will be finished by the 23rd!”

Take the time to consider this carefully and make sure it’s realistic and possible. Then, once you feel good about it, set up accountability to make sure you actually do it and your digital detox will yield wonderful results!

Just imagine how much you’d get done if you do this every month!

Make a List of People You Want to See or Call

Erika uses social media to connect with her friends. Even though she has real 3D people all around her, she prefers to go online and chat on Facebook, WhatsApp and text messages. She finds it more fun, less serious, and it takes her mind off the things she doesn’t like about her life. Sadly, because she spends so much time online each day, her husband feels he has lost his wife and her kids don’t feel like they have a mother. Her family have been relegated to second-rate citizens compared with her virtual friends who get her full attention whenever she has a moment.

But despite Erika’s 4,999 Facebook friends and all those on other sites, she still feels lonely—deeply lonely. Even though she texts all the time, she is always wanting something she doesn’t have. If she is honest, Erika doesn’t have the connection she craved either online, or offline. She is living in no man’s land, neither here nor there, and never satisfied. And the more dissatisfied she becomes, the more time she spends online creating a vicious cycle of loneliness and incessant checking.

How many Erikas are there out there?

Social media gives the impression of us having many hundreds or even thousands of friends, but in fact, most of them are not friends at all. They don’t really know you and you don’t know them. A friend is someone with whom you share depth. Someone who gets you and with whom you may want to go out or invite for a meal. A real friend is someone you can trust; someone we’d let stay in our home while were away; someone we would let borrow our car; and someone who could pick you up from the airport, or call when in need.

If you cast your mind back to Facebook friends, how many of them qualify as a real friend? For most people you can count real friends on one hand, while the list of pretend friends on Facebook would fill a small book. If you want to have quality and not quantity, then it’s time to find your real friends and abandon the fake ones that masquerade as the real thing.

When I pulled the plug on Facebook, I told those I was in regular contact with my new number and/or email and told them they could email or call me if they still wanted to connect. Hardly anyone did. I expected as much, so I wasn’t devastated. In fact, I was relieved. It made me realize how unnecessary and pointless most of these so-called friendships really are. It also made me think that perhaps many of these friendships are really just “dopamine-buddies.” In other words, maybe we are simply using each other to get a little quick fix from the messages and keep these conversations going to feed a mild addiction.

If this is not the case, and these people really do want to talk, then why do so few of them actually pick up the phone and call for a deeper, more meaningful conversation?

It seems that while we can maintain many months of superficial back and forth banter on text and instant messages, most people will do just about anything to avoid a real conversation in real time. We prefer to hide behind our little screens where we can fabricate our responses from our own comfort, rather than being spontaneous and dealing with the silences and possibly awkwardness that may appear in real time.

What I suggest you do is create a list of 10-20 people who you feel add massive value to your life and with whom you would love to connect and give them your landline number. Consider this a fun experiment to see how committed these people are to your friendship. If they really care about you, then they will call you (or you will call them). If not, then nothing will happen and it’s fine either way.

Send them a message saying, “By the way if you ever want to talk sometime in person, you can just call me on my landline. Here is my number <landline number>.

And pull the plug.

IF they are really wanting to talk to you in person, then they will call you. If not, and you are simply a source of dopamine and trivial entertainment for them, they won’t. Either way, it’s all good.

Create Your Personal

Design a Day That Is Not Built Around Screens

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,

Your thoughts become your words,

Your words become your actions,

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

Changing the world starts with you. And it starts TODAY, by making today, your BEST DAY EVER.

What does it mean to have an amazing life? Your life is a series of years, months, weeks and days. If you want to have a truly remarkable life, start with making today a remarkable day. What creates a remarkable day? Remarkable moments. So if we want to have an amazing, remarkable life, we simply need to have remarkable moments.

How long is a moment? It’s not even a second. Or a split second.

Moments come and go even while we become aware of them. Just reading this sentence, millions and billions of micro-moments have already passed, while you—the eternal presence, the conscious being—have been witnessing it all, stable and powerful.

To change the world, our main mission is to be here now, in this moment, and make this moment the best it can be. And from there, we can create the best moment ever, the best hour ever, and the best day ever. Fast-forward, and we end up having the best week ever, the best month ever, the best year ever, and the best life ever.

When you look at life in this way, changing yourself and changing the world is easy. It’s just one moment, one breath, at a time. The Eternal Now flows from one moment to another, as a river flows into the ocean.

Forget about changing the whole world and focus on making the most of this moment. Then this moment. Then this moment…

And to be fully present, we need to set up our lives and daily routines in the most supportive way possible. While in theory it doesn’t matter what happens around us (many spiritual teachings say we should be happy all the time no matter what), in practice, what we do and how we live our lives does affect us. In reality, unless we are already enlightened, we need to look after ourselves and create a situation where we can most easily have the best day ever.

Over the last 20 years of coaching and mentoring thousands of people, I’ve discover that most people can have at least 80% of their best day ever RIGHT NOW if they re-arrange a few things. This is a shocking reality check. We often blame circumstances and say things like: “If it wasn’t for ____ I’d be able to do _______. I’d be so much happier, more relaxed, more productive if_________.”

But on further inspection, most people can experience far greater joy and infinitely better days TODAY, if they are willing to shift things around and do things a little differently.

Are you willing to create your best day possible?

Are you willing to take full advantage of all your opportunities and make your life epic?

Are you willing to come back to the present moment and be happy?

What makes up your best day ever?

Do these exercises to discover how you can make your life as close to your best life ever RIGHT AWAY.

1. Your best day ever needs to be DIRECTLY connected to:

• Your dharma (values, passions, talents, skills, mission, vision, etc.)
• Your plan (what you do in your day that directly moves you forward in your success)

2. According to the 80/20 Law, only 20% of what you do leads you to 80% of your success. It’s essential you keep checking that you are spending your time doing the 20% that MATTERS MOST TO YOU! Avoid the trap of running around doing things that don’t lead you to success.

What this means in real life is that each day, you choose to invest as much time, energy and money into thoughts, words and actions that bring you closer to what you truly desire. And you remove all the other things that are sabotaging you. It sounds simple. And it is. But putting it into practice at each moment is where the magic happens.

Are you willing to remove things that are NOT aligned with your vision and invest that time into what really matters?

How to design your best day ever

Be honest and answer these questions to discover your personal best day ever. Some of these questions are similar to the previous ones. You can use those answers here. Now’s the time to make this practical.

STEP 1: What brings you the greatest joy?

Write down the things that bring you the most joy (and are more connected to your dharma) in the various categories of your life.

• People who uplift you
• Activities that inspire and elevate you
• Foods that nourish and make you feel good LONG TERM
• Things you do to relax and rejuvenate
• Work that’s aligned with your dharma
• Anything else you love that makes your life wonderful and is aligned with your dharma

STEP 2: Top 20% that’s working

Look at this list and pick the top 20% that brings you the greatest positive impact on your life with the least effort. Find the vital few things that make your life truly remarkable.

STEP 3: What’s NOT working for you in your life?

Write down all the things that stress you out and drain your energy.

• People who drain you
• Activities that cause you stress and make you feel weak afterwards
• Foods that sabotage you
• Work that’s NOT aligned with your dharma and feels wrong
• Anything else you do that makes your life miserable

STEP 4: What is the top 20% that’s NOT working?

Look at this list and pick the top 20% that brings you the greatest negative impact on your life with the least effort. Find the vital few things that make your life truly miserable that you can change.

STEP 5:- What’s the 1% most significant triggers?

To have the best day ever is easy when you focus on the one main thing that makes the biggest positive difference and avoid the one main thing that trips you up and puts you in a bad mood. This sounds simple, but once you do it you’ll realize how profanely powerful it is.

Find the positive triggers

What is the ONE big thing that you commit to doing each day that will make you more likely to do the other things? What one thing will have the biggest positive impact on your day? How we start our day affects the entire day. What can you do first thing in the morning to make your success inevitable?

Remove the potential sabotage

What’s the ONE big thing that can screw up your life? What’s the ONE thing to AVOID doing that could potentially screw up your day?

What’s the top 1% essential things to have the best day ever?

Pick your one big thing to DO each day and one to AVOID.

STEP 6: Create your best day ever

Now that you know exactly what brings you the greatest joy and what sabotages you, it’s time to bring it to life and create a tangible, real, step-by-step daily practice. In this step, you’re going to write out your best day ever from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep at night.

This means you’ll REMOVE the 20% that usually drains you and replace it with the top 20% that brings you the greatest joy so you end up with a vastly improved way of living.

For example, a usual day for someone who has a 9-5 job looks like this:

Get up at 6.30

Have coffee

Rush off to work

Stress out in morning rush-hour traffic

Get to work and complain about everyone being incompetent and annoying

Rush to buy fast, convenient, unhealthy food at lunch

Tolerate the rest of the day at work

Deal with annoying afternoon rush-hour traffic

Come home and watch TV until late

Eat a TV meal

Go to sleep feeling depressed

Here is an example how to turn this day into best day ever

Get up at 5 a.m., brush teeth and freshen up to be ready early

Meditate and do yoga for 30 mins

Go for a walk watching the sunrise

Have a smoothie

Make healthy lunch for work

Listen to awesome audios in the car on the way to work

Smile at everyone and hold the vision that they are all great souls and see the best in everyone

Take a long lunch at the park

Listen to audios on the way home

Shower and go out for a quick walk

Eat dinner with <family, friend>

Work on book for 1-2 hours

Meditate

Go to bed early

Give thanks for all the good things in life

As you create your own new, empowered lifestyle, aim to make it as close to your perfect day as you possibly can RIGHT NOW. For example, one client told me her perfect day included waking up early, going downstairs and seeing flowers on her table, and doing yoga.

She didn’t realize how easily she could make that happen. I told her to go ahead and buy some flowers right now. Then in the morning, do her yoga. That’s it! All of a sudden the quality of her life drastically improved with just those two simple upgrades and she felt like she was living in a new world. Simple, yet profoundly powerful.

It doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult to feel good and have your life go well!

IMPORTANT NOTE: You may not be able to have your ultimate perfect day because you have a job or other responsibilities that make it hard to do everything you want. That’s okay. Don’t let it stop you from doing everything you can to shift things now.

This essential thing to do is to:

1. REMOVE or reduce as many unnecessary things as you can (like social media, movies, pointless conversations, low-value work); then:
2. REPLACE them with the 20% that makes you feel awesome and directly moves you towards your vision and dreams.

Each day, you can make a difference. Countless people have achieved great things while working full-time jobs. Ironically, having other responsibilities and less “free” time forces you to make the most of those precious hours and moments you have left. If you have only a small amount of flexibility right now, then use every moment of it. As you do this, you’ll gain greater clarity, inspiration and power that will help you find ways to create better and better days.

Congratulations!

Each moment you invest in doing what’s good for your soul makes you stronger and creates a compound effect, like compound interest. Each moment you create an empowered moment, you build greater positive momentum until it begins to create a life of its own.

Do you want to have the best day ever? It’s all in your hands.

You can either start experiencing this or not. It’s up to you. And remember, each time you do what you love, it creates positive habits and helps you have the best day ever. So just by taking one step forward, it makes it easier and easier for you to take the next step, and the next, and the next until you’re running. And after a while, you’ll be flying towards your dreams!

Prepare Offline Activities Before the Digital Detox Begins

Frankly, most of us in the digital world have become so invested in our virtual lives that the offline world has become, to a large degree, irrelevant. When all our “fun” and entertainment can be experienced through our screens, then what need is there for analog devices?

Smartphones, tablets, computers, video and online games, streaming services, etc. have aggressively taken over other forms of entertainment. Every device is part of our modern ecosystem and when a new device is introduced to it, it impacts the environment. Just as invasive species begin to invade and dominate their new environment, modern technology has (especially smartphones) have invaded and conquered the modern home.

Where musical instruments, books and games used to entertain us in previous generations, the modern home now revolved around the smartphone, tablet and television. These three inventions have all but destroyed what came before them.

How many times have you played a musical instrument with friends, enjoyed a board game, read a hardcover book or listen to a record?

If you have, then you are in the minority. For example, according to a study by Nielsen, the average American in 2017 spends about four hours per day on live TV, about two hours on smartphone and about 20 minutes on a tablet. That’s not to mention computer time at work and home.

With this much screen time, when would anyone ever read a book or play a musical instrument? Or do anything else for that matter?

However, when you power off, you’ll realize that you may not have much to play with in the real world. So here’s your chance to make your 3D world more enjoyable.

What can you buy that can make this offline experience more fun for you?

What physical things can you have that will be valuable to you?

For example:

You may like to play a musical instrument, listen to music via vinyl records or create some art. Or you may want to play sports, go camping or build something. You may want to improve your home, read books or magazines, or play board games.

If you have all the stuff to do what you want already, then there is probably no need to buy anything. But if you don’t, then it may be a good idea to go shopping and have some new fun things to play with to replace your screens.

When I powered off, I realized I needed to buy a turntable and some records so I could listen to music offline. I also bought some art equipment, subscribed to some magazines and bought books and some other things to make my living space more enjoyable. To be honest, I did get a little bit addicted to buying records for my turntable for a while. But once I had a nice collection, I no longer felt the need for more. Also, a neighbor lent me a huge stack of records he had sitting about.

You many also find friends and family who have some fun stuff gathering dust in their basements or attics that you could borrow. Ask around. You may be surprised how many fun little gems there are!

These improvements make the offline world more interesting and sustainable. So think about it…

What things would make your offline life more fun and meaningful? What cool things do you have stored somewhere you could find, dust off and enjoy?

Look at your joy and fun list and see if any of those activities require physical things you don’t currently have. If so, go get them. This is a genuine reason to go shopping.

Buying these things also has another subtle, but powerful benefit. It changes your inner self-image. By investing time and money in your offline life, you begin to see yourself as someone who enjoys the world beyond the screen. Having and using these new things shifts your perception of who you are so you now think of yourself as someone who enjoys time off, someone who reads books and listens to records and plays music, for example.

So not only does it make your life more fun, it also changes how you think about yourself and your life and makes it easier for you to enjoy your new world.

Go shopping. Knock yourself out. Have fun.

Plan Time Away—or Bring the Vacation Home

Bring the Vacation to You

For many years, I lived in Kauai, Hawaii, and I still live there part time. Millions of visitors come to Kauai each year. What I found fascinating is how many of these vacationers took a vacation from their homes, but did not take a vacation from their devices. Instead of taking ‘time away from it all,’ they brought the work and home with them to the beach.

Here’s what I saw time and time again:

After saving their vacation days and money, these tired people finally arrive on the tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. After a day or two, it was clear their body had arrived, but to a large degree, their mind was still living in their old virtual world, checking email, social media, news, and all the other endless apps and distractions the devices allow.

While I’m sure many of them did have some lovely moments enjoying their stay in Kauai, it seemed that more and more people actually spend the majority of their time in their digital world. By looking down at their screens or thinking about something they saw online, they lost out on what they have paid to experience. It’s a common occurrence these days to be sitting on the beach, look around and notice that almost everyone is neither in the ocean nor enjoying their surroundings, but investing their energy on the little rectangular device in their palms. It’s like they paid to come to Kauai so they could look at their screen on the beach and take a few snaps for social media. Maybe that’s what they wanted, but I think we can do a lot better.

When you pull the plug and power off, you automatically have a vacation of sorts from the normal Internet workhouse—the virtual factory. Even if you don’t go anywhere, simply powering off will give you a feeling of being on vacation.

When we pulled the plug, it automatically felt like we were on vacation, even though we were simply at home. This new level of raw freedom allowed us to fully appreciate the epic beauty of our surrounding that we’d not fully acknowledged before, despite having lived here for almost two years. Peering over the top of a screen or through the screen into nature is not the same as having the experience fully conscious and through one’s own eyes.

If you want to go on a vacation away from your normal life, then this is a perfect time to do it.

Just plan it all out. Print out all the stuff you will need before you power off and you’ll be able to enjoy your time fully away from it all. People used to go on vacation, travelling all over the world without a cellphone or Internet connection. Even though it may feel strange, it’s fine.