Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hey, friends, and welcome backto faith filled woman.
This is your host, Kristen.
Today we are digging into howto create a calm digital space.
How can you do a digital detox?
And why we all might need todo this.
Welcome to Faith Fueled Woman,a podcast designed for christian
women eager to deepen theirfaith and shine God's light in every
aspect of their lives.
(00:22):
Each week, we'll delve intopractical strategies, inspiring stories
and biblical wisdom to equipyou with the tools you need to navigate
life's challenges and growdeeper in your faith.
From finding calm in thechaos, forming deep christian friendships,
to everyday ways to connectwith God will cover it all.
Hi, I'm your host, Kristen.
I'm an encourager, a faith ledentrepreneur, a mom, and a wife.
(00:44):
Let's be encouraged in oureveryday lives as we let our faith
guide us, fuel us, and fill uswith God's incredible peace, wisdom,
and joy in our lives.
Okay, we're diving into thefinal episode or part of reclaim
your life series.
And like I said, we're goingto talk about how do we create a
calmer digital life landscape,and most importantly, how do we do
(01:06):
a digital detox, and why do weneed to.
All right, let's dive right in.
Well, the first reason thatmost of us need to do this is the
data isn't great.
The average person, theaverage American is spending 4 hours
and 37 minutes on theirsmartphone a day, okay?
And the average is peoplecheck their phone at least 58 times
(01:30):
a day.
So each week, we're spendingmore than one day every week staring
at our devices and scrolling aimlessly.
People, that is a huge red flag.
So, out of a year, we'respending just on our phones 52 days
a year, staring at our screensinstead of being in the present moment,
engaging in our lives.
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And I'm just as guilty of thisas so many other people.
It has become a problem forme, and I've got to do a better job.
So that's why we're going totalk about this today.
All right?
And then the other thing is,let's talk about the next Netflix
culture that we now live in, right?
Everything's streaming at our fingertips.
We can watch anything we want,and there's millions of options.
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So the average person spends32 hours a week watching a tv series,
a show, or a movie that's on.
So on all the media, we'respending over 10 hours a day on media.
So on our digital devices, ofour phones, our watching tv and streaming
things.
That is crazy town.
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Okay, now, I get that thismight not apply to everyone.
Maybe some of you don't owntvs or you don't have a smartphone.
You just have a basic flip phone.
Or maybe you really don't evenhave a phone and you don't go on
social media.
Well, you are the impressivefew, if that's you.
But for the rest of us whohave allowed this digital device
to become an extension of ourhands, then we have some work to
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do.
All right, so we're going totalk about how can we do a digital
detox and how can we make ourphones a place that we don't just
grab when we are maybe alittle bit bored waiting in line?
Or we don't just grab it fromdefault or because it's really addictive.
So how can we use our phone asa tool but not let it take over us?
(03:20):
All right, so here we go.
We're going to go through, Ithink it's about five or six things
we can do.
All right, so the first thingis we have to do a media audit.
Okay?
The only way we can make achange is if we know what we're currently
doing.
So the media audit, we want tofind out how much time we're spending
on our smartphones, if we haveone, and if we're using it.
(03:42):
Right.
So write that question down.
How much time am I spending onmy smartphone?
And then write down this question.
How much time am I using otheror watching other video, audio and
media?
You know, so tv series,movies, you could or couldn't put
podcasts in this or some other things.
It really just depends moreyou're learning or you're getting
(04:03):
filled up, or are you justwatching, listening to.
What is that called?
The podcasts that are aboutkillers and trying to solve crimes.
In other words, is it moreentertainment that you're listening
to, which is fine, but I wouldgroup that in the number.
In other words, if you'restreaming stuff, whatever it is,
(04:24):
if you're doing it mindlesslyor you love comedy, that's fine.
But the question is, it stillmight go in that bucket.
All right, so first we'regoing to dig into how do you figure
out how much time you're onyour screens, how much time you're
on your phones.
First, I'm going to tell youhow to do it on an iPhone, and then
I'll tell you how to do it onan Android like Google or Samsung.
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All right, so here's whatwe're going to do.
You're going to go open yourphone, and you're going to go to
your settings.
Settings app.
It's a great icon.
And then in there, you'regoing to go to screen time.
All right.
And so in screen time, it'lltell you a daily average that you
spend on your phone each day.
And of course, that might varyeach day.
And I think it has a chart.
So it shows you by the day.
(05:06):
Then you're going to go intosee all and then it's, sorry, let
me read this website activity,see all.
And it's app and website activity.
If you go into there, thenyou're actually able to see for each
app how much time you'respending on those.
And, well, actually, I'llshare the rest with you about that
(05:26):
in a minute.
All right, so that's how yougo and find out your screen time.
And let me find theinformation here.
Oh, yeah.
So if you go to see all appand website activity, if you scroll
down past all your apps,there's actually a thing called pickups.
It tells you the first time ofthat day that you picked up your
phone.
It tells you the total numberof times you picked up your phone.
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Guys, I'm not even going tolie to you.
There's some days where myhiccup was many more times than the
number of times the averageperson checks their phones.
I'm just going to be honest.
I think I have a problem here.
I've got to do a better job.
And maybe you feel the sameway when you look at your data.
You might be a little bit horrified.
The next thing is if you areon an Android, then what you want
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to do is you want to open yourphone, you're going to go to your
settings, and then you'regoing to go to digital wellbeing
and parental controls.
And then if you go to tapmore, you can manage your data.
But in there you'll seesimilar stats.
Obviously, they're going tolook different than on the iPhone,
but you'll see similar statsto your daily usage.
And then I think they alsoshare some similar stats, like pickup
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time or number of times youused your phone.
All right, so you want towrite those numbers down, do the
daily average, but kind oflook through the data because maybe
you have one day that wasreally high, but maybe that's not
your norm.
So write down both.
But in general, whatever youraverage is, maybe for the week and
the month is important towrite down.
And then for how much time areyou spending on watching video or
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binge watching Netflix orwhatever your streaming choices,
just try to take an average.
Now, you probably can get that data.
If you're always in the sameapp, like if you're always on YouTube
or you're in Netflix, I thinkin their account settings, you probably
can find some of thatinformation out of.
But because everybody may beon different platforms or you jump
between Apple or Hulu orNetflix, then we're not going to
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go through how to do that.
But just try to calculate inyour head, out of seven nights, how
many nights do you go and sitdown and watch a series or shows?
Is it one night a week?
Is it seven nights a week?
And then on average, are yousitting down for 2 hours?
Or do you binge watch once aweekend and say you do a ten hour
marathon?
But generally speaking,because a tv, we often go and sit
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somewhere.
I mean, unless you're watchingit on your phone, we can probably
figure out a general numberthat we're spending watching tv or
a series or a movie each week.
So write that number down.
All right, so now that we knowwhere we stand on how much we are
using our digital devices, howmuch time we're spending staring
(08:06):
at media or a screen, we canstart to make some changes.
And I don't know about you,but I know that my usage is showing
me that over the last year,I've gotten worse about putting my
phone down and leaving it down.
I'm picking it up regularly tocheck things that I have no business
needing to check that manytimes in a day.
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So I've just gotten in a badhabit, to be honest with you.
All right, so how do we make changes?
All right, so once we know thething, one thing we might want to
write down is how do I want tospend some of the time, replace the
time that I'm currentlyspending on my phone or watching
tv or streaming shows.
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Are there other things thatyou'd like to be doing with your
time and you just hadn'treally actually thought about it?
You just like me.
Sometimes it's just a defaultthat we'll have dinner or we'll go
on a bike ride, but then whenwe get home, if we're not working
on a project, we have thisdowntime, and sometimes it's going
and sitting in front of the tvprobably more than it should be right
now.
(09:09):
And so even though sometimes Isay, oh, you know, we should really
just read tonight or we shoulddo something else, but I find it
so easy just to click thebutton and sit in the chair, and
I don't have to do anything.
I don't have to think.
So if you find yourself inthat place.
The question is, how would youlike to spend your time if you could
pull back some of those hoursand spend it on something else?
(09:30):
It might be reading, it mightbe working on projects or maybe a
craft.
It might be going out to meeta friend once, one night a week,
you know, or whatever it might be.
But just write down, whatwould you like to spend?
So many of us say, we don'thave time.
We say, I don't have any time.
But if we actually startlooking at how much time we're spending
on our devices or watchingshows, for those of us that are doing
(09:52):
this, we realize that weactually have more time than we realize,
but it's getting sucked up.
The first thing is we canlimit our usage on our phones.
How do we do that?
Well, the same place I toldyou to go earlier.
Settings and then screen time.
On the iPhone, there areseveral apps that you can use.
One is called downtime, so youcan schedule time away from your
(10:16):
screen.
Another one is called app limits.
And you can set time limitsfor apps.
You can do all your social apps.
Or if you click in app limitsand then click into social, you can
actually click social, and itwill show you each app.
And then you can actuallylimit how much time you spend on
any given app.
So if you're one of theFacebook scrollers or Instagram scrollers
(10:40):
or whatever it might be, andyou find that you're just going on
too often or spending too muchtime on it, you can limit how much
per day you want to be in that app.
Okay?
And in Android, it's the sameplace you go to.
On the Android, you go tosettings, digital well being.
And then if you tap more,manage your data, you can set up
app timers, and there's abedtime mode.
(11:01):
Okay?
And then the next thing thatyou can do is in your iPhone, they
have something under settingscalled focus and focus.
The focus feature is basicallywhere you can set up personal time
during work time.
You know, you can set upcustom ones or bedtime or night.
And what that does is it letsyou say that you don't want to be
(11:23):
distracted by any apps, butmaybe these two, like calls or texts
during work hours, you don'twant to be disturbed, or maybe you
don't want to be disturbed byany apps on your phone except for
if your family members callin, and you can set that up that
way.
And so this is just a way tokeep us focused on work or focused
(11:44):
on not being on our phone allthe time.
So that's another option for you.
Okay.
The next thing is, can youfigure out, could you switch a night
or nights to be screen ormedia free?
So if you find that fivenights a week you're popping on,
maybe it's news or maybeyou're watching a series.
(12:05):
So each night you watch alittle bit of it.
Well, what do you want tocommit to?
Right?
This is all up to you.
It's your preference, andthere's no right answer here.
But if you find, you know,gosh, I didn't realize how much time
I'm spending on media and onmy smartphone.
If that's you, then it mightbe that you want to say, yeah, you
know what?
I would really like to dosomething more productive two nights
(12:28):
a week, I would like to limitmy tv watching to the weekend or
only to twice a week duringthe week and on the weekend, you
know, if we're not busy.
So just determine if you canhave a screen or media free night.
Okay.
And then the next thing is, Ithink, once a month, you should set
a day to say it's going to bea digital or screen free day, meaning
(12:50):
you're not going to pick upyour phone and you're not going to
watch tv or anything elseexcept for, of course, if you have
a call or a text, you know,you need to know where your kids
are.
You need to be able tocommunicate with them.
Absolutely.
Get that.
So maybe you're not going tofully turn it off, especially if
you don't have a, you know,another phone, like a home phone
that most people don't know.
But other than that, you justneed to set your phone down and leave
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your tv off and give yourselfa break.
A little bit of a detox, ifyou will.
So that's a great goal for allof us, is to regularly, at least
one day a month, try to putthe devices down, leave the tvs off,
you know, or the iPads andthings, and get outside, meet a friend
for lunch, go on a bike ride,sit out back, you know, work on a
(13:36):
new project, start gardening, something.
Okay?
So that is just a goal you canset for yourself.
All right?
And then the next thing is alot of us just have tons of apps
on our phone that we might notuse anymore, or we used it.
We use it once a year, but itjust clutters up our phone with all
this stuff, all this content,all these icons.
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And to be honest with you, itcan be a bit overwhelming because
if we're going on our phone somany times and there's 250 apps,
it's just visually a littlebit too much for me, you know?
And so the way we create acalm digital space is we audit all
our apps.
So take, you know, 30 minutesor an hour or take 15 minutes a day
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for a couple days in a row andgo through and just delete all the
apps that you don't use orthat were installed as default or
that you only use once a year.
For instance, if you fly butnot regularly, then you might have
downloaded the airline app.
But I don't know about you, Imight only fly on Delta once a year.
Well, I don't necessarily needthat app on my phone.
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Or I could put it in a folderso I don't have to see it all the
time.
So just do a little audit ofall your apps on your phone.
Remove the ones you don't needor don't want on there.
It's as simple as that.
So, for instance, I haveregularly deleted my Facebook app
off my phone because I didn'twant to go on there regularly.
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I didn't want to spend a lotof time on Facebook.
So if I had something to post,I would just go through the browser
or through my computer.
Now, I have downloaded itagain recently because I had some
photos to upload, and when Itried to do it through the browser
on my phone, they were all sideways.
So it was frustrating and Icouldn't really fix it.
So I did have to redownload it.
But, for instance, I've neverdownloaded Facebook messenger onto
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my phone because I didn't wantit on my phone.
I do have it, you know, it'son my computer when I log into Facebook.
But just remove the clutter,take a little time, and just get
rid of all the weight on that phone.
Because much like in ouractual physical spaces, having too
much on our phones, itliterally is.
Visually, it weighs us down.
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It's overwhelming to look at.
I mean, I need to do this myself.
It's on my list because I seeall these apps that I never go to,
and some of them were justinstalled for me and I don't need
them or some, like I said, Idon't need any more.
And so.
And if you don't want todelete things, maybe you only have
the bare minimum.
You can always put more stuffin folders that you don't access
(16:09):
regularly because if you dothat and you can't find it, you just
do this.
A search at the top of yourapps, and you can find the app easily
that way.
Okay.
The other thing that's a supereasy strategy that you can do is
that you can put your phone inanother room when you're working
or you're trying to just staypresent, you know, you don't want
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to be grabbing for it.
So in that case, if I'msitting in my home office working
instead of having it on mydesk, if I put it in my kitchen,
I could still hear it if it rings.
But I do not.
It's not within hands reachright arm's distance of me because
the closer our phone is or thetv, the easier it is for us to turn
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it on way too often.
So that's another strategythat you can apply if you're at work,
leave the phone in your bag orput it on the desk across from you
or just as far in your cubbyif you work in a cubicle as you can.
So you can't reach it withouthaving to stand up and get it.
And so just small tactics likethat, they are both a mental shift
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because it's not just a footaway from our hand, but also it's
just a signal to you into yourbrain, like, I don't want to touch
this, I'm going to put itfurther away.
All right.
Now another thing that Irecommend is I, and this is a personal
preference and also dependingon who you're responsible for.
But my kids are older, I havemy text messages set so that they
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don't ping every time somebodytext messages me, you know, I have
friends that theirs ping allday long.
But for me that is not calmingand it's very stressful.
I'm very sorry.
Auditory sounds, if it's toomuch or it's constant or too loud,
that can overwhelm me.
And so I know for me I don'twant to hear text messages pinging
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all day long or any other apps.
So no apps on my phone makesound unless someone's calling me
on the phone.
That's the only app that rings.
The rest I've silenced.
And you can of course do thatthrough settings too.
It's different for each iPhoneor Android, but an iPhone you would
just go to sounds and hapticsand then notifications.
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But in both of those you cancontrol what things you hear.
And this might not seem like abig deal, but to have a calmer digital
space, look at what if you useyour alarm and your timers, what
sound is it?
Because some of the sounds areactually to me very stressful and
that might be you too.
And so there's some calmersounds you can put on when your alarm
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goes off.
If you're using your iPhone asan alarm or timer that are just a
little bit lower, they're notas intense and they're just calmer.
They're more subtle.
And so for you, that might besomething to consider, is changing
the sound of your alarms or timers.
Okay.
Okay.
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So the next thing that Iwanted to talk about before we wrap
up, there's actually theseapps, like focus apps, and you can
install them on or use them onyour computer, and then some you
can use on your computer andyour mobile.
Of course, you'd have todownload the app to do that on the
phone.
But what's amazing about themis, let's say that you are somebody
that finds you're not being asproductive as you want or you're
(19:25):
being distracted.
These apps help you set eithera productivity timer so that you
want to work for 25 minutesstraight without taking a break,
or on the same project, youcan set the timer to any limit.
And then other ones of themblock you from going to, for instance,
social media sites.
Much like I told you, you cando it on your, on your iPhone, but
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you can also block it on yourcomputer so that you don't go to
social media sites, maybebetween 09:00 a.m.
and five, you know, or maybeyou don't want to do a late night
scroll, you know, on yourphone or your computer.
So maybe you don't want to goon those apps after 08:00 p.m.
okay.
Or maybe you don't want to goon it from five to 08:00 p.m.
because that's family time.
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But there's apps, and there'sa lot of them, that you can do a
search for productivity orfocus apps, but I'm just going to
share a few with you.
So one is called leech blockand it's L E E C H B L O C K, leach
block.
And it's best for blockingdistractions on all mainstream browsers.
And so this would be one you'duse on your computer.
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The good news is it's free andyou can set time limit, time limits
or fixed time periods forblocking sites that you don't want
to access because you want tofocus on other things.
So that's a good one to checkout if it's for your computer.
And then another one iscalled, I think Forest.
Let me get to it real quick.
(20:48):
There we go.
Okay.
Yep.
Forest, just like it sounds forforest.
And it basically helps promotemindful work habits and helps you
concentrate and it looks likeit's available on your phones.
But also, I think, let me seeif it's also for your computer.
(21:11):
Let me see here.
Okay, so it looks like it'sfree as well for the basic version.
And it has a Pomodoro timer,but it basically lets you focus for,
let's say 25 minutes at a timeor whatever you set it to.
And then it builds a littleforce, like it gives you another
tree, the more focusedsessions that you have.
(21:32):
So it's a little bit of avisual incentive.
There's other apps.
Some of them are free and someof them are paid.
Let's see.
One is called cold turkey blocker.
And it asks what you want to block.
Websites, website exceptions,or applications.
And it blocks an unlimitednumber of apps and websites.
And then you can blockschedules or you can take breaks
(21:54):
in your schedule.
So anyways, there's all theseother apps.
And so if you're not familiarwith that, I just wanted to let you
know this is also an optionwhere you can put these types of
focus apps on your computerand then some will you do it on your
computer and your phone.
So across kind of all yourdigital devices, the last one I'll
mention, but it is a paid one.
(22:16):
It is called freedom.
It's best for managing screentime on your PC and mobile.
So if you're somebody thatacross both of your devices, you
want to manage your time andwhat you spend your time on or what
it lets you do, it's prettyamazing what it lets you do.
And it's called freedom two.
And I think it's, if you payfor the year, it's 333 a month and
(22:41):
it has a 4.8 out of five ratings.
But basically, like I said, itlets you block unlimited websites
and apps.
There's noise, ambient noisefor focusing.
You can have a locked mode,but then it literally lets you have
powerful distraction blockingfocus while you're working or maybe
just in the evenings.
You don't want to go on thesites and get sucked into the social
(23:04):
media scrolling nightmare.
So anyways, that's another option.
But I would just encourageyou, if you're somebody that finds
yourself when you're runningaround town, when you're at home,
maybe even when you're atwork, because maybe you have downtime
at work, or you just findyourself needing a break from sitting
at your computer, you findyour hand going to your smart device,
(23:25):
or you're definitely a Netflix binger.
Not saying we shouldn't dosome of that.
We just want to be intentionalabout how much time we're spending
with our devices when we couldbe living life to our fullest.
We could be having time to bequiet, to have solitude, to find
(23:48):
time for prayer, to findmeaningful moments with the people
we love or doing activitiesthat just bring us joy and light
us up or going out and helpingother people.
So our lives could be so rich.
But I think many of us getstuck in our, you know, our routines
and then our routines becomesomething where we're doing these,
(24:09):
we have these habits that wedon't even realize.
The habits creep and creep andbecome hours a day.
You know, some of us might bespending 6 hours touching our iPhone
today.
And I'm not saying all thattime is bad.
You might be listening to aninformative podcast, listening to
music, checking your email.
So absolutely.
I'm not saying that all thetime spent on your digital devices
(24:31):
is bad.
What I'm saying is we have tobe aware of how much time we're on
them and what we're spendingour time doing with those tools or
with that media or entertainment.
So that's really the goal.
It's not to say we're going toget to zero.
It's to say, are we using thisas a tool or has it become a habit
(24:51):
and a crutch for us in our lives?
And it's actually sucking gooddays and hours out of our living.
All right, until next time, Ihope you have a great week.
I've mentioned this before,but on kristenfitch.com comma, you
can go to my freebies page andI have the create a life you love
journaling workbook that youcan grab.
(25:11):
And I have all sorts of pagesto help you live more intentionally.
And then I also just created anew freebie@kristenfitch.com.
life audit that is a lot lifeaudit workbook to how to be more
intentional in the differentareas of your life.
That's not on my freebies pageyet, but it will be soon.
(25:31):
Until next time, I hope youhave a great week.
Thanks again for listening tothe show.
And if you enjoyed today'sepisode, we would love it if you
could take a minute to leave arating and review on Apple Podcast
because it helps our show getdiscovered by more people.
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(25:52):
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