Ditch your phone, go for a walk, and let your mind wander.
Here’s a crazy story: I spent four and a half hours outdoors alone the other day and didn’t listen to music or a podcast, or look at my phone—which was in my pocket—the entire time. I was able to withstand urges to check Instagram, Twitter, my text messages, my email, and the news, for four and a half hours.
I am not a superhero with a freakishly long attention span, nor do I have an inexplicable-by-science ability to never get bored. I just decided a couple years ago that I was tired of being half- or fully-distracted every hour of my life. So I decided I would have at least one space in my life that was free from technological bullshit: When I’m outside, running, hiking, climbing, biking, or skiing. Whether I’m up high in the mountains or just jogging laps around the municipal park near my house, I simply don’t use my phone. Sometimes I don’t carry it, sometimes I carry it in case of an emergency, but I don’t look at it.
The rest of my life is constantly infiltrated by noise. It’s audible (phone ringing), visual (email and other notifications), and psychological (including the distraction that occurs just by having a phone sitting next to me). As I write this, I have 14 browser tabs open, my phone sitting next to my laptop, and by my count, people can contact me by 17 different methods (not including ringing my doorbell or writing me a letter). I am not proud of this, or happy about it.
Do you ever check the Screen Time app on your phone to see how much time you spend looking at its small, come-hither screen? Or how many times you pick up your phone and unlock it every day? Doing so is either depressing as hell or a reality of our age (or both). I rationalize the appalling amount of screen time and number of “phone pickups” by saying, “I need to do this to run my business.” But if I was harder on myself, I’d admit I could probably cut screen time and phone pickups to one-fourth of my current total and my business would be just fine. And I’d probably be healthier, mentally.
About ten years ago, at a dead-quiet bed and breakfast in Ouray, Colorado, I noticed a low-grade ringing in my ears. I was a little shocked at the fact that I probably had mild tinnitus, but really shocked that I’d only been in a place quiet enough to actually notice it once in my life. Since then, it’s only reappeared maybe a dozen times—always in rural, indoor environments, the kind of quiet places that are as close to silent as we can find anymore. I live in a city of four million people, sleep with a white noise app running to block city noises, and listen to music all day while I work. Even when I get outdoors, there’s still an ambient noise most of the time: wind blowing past my ears, a breeze pushing through pine trees, a creek running nearby.
