Put The Phone Down - Episode: 126
Place the phone down and live your life.
That's the final line of this episode. Tommy sits down with his friend, client, and fellow dad Greg Chambers in order to have a genuine discussion about the use of mobile phones, not just offering the superficial suggestion of 'put your phone away', but looking at the real mechanisms that draw us to the screen from the start and examining what is needed in order to develop a different relationship with it.
Listen on your preferred platform:
- Listen on Spotify
- Listen on Apple
In this episode:
- What COVID actually did to phone habits, and why "productive" screen time isn't the whole story
- Boredom, and why avoiding it might be costing you more than you think
- An Apple feature which very few people are aware of, and that can turn your smartphone into a dumb phone all at once. - https://www.facebook.com/reel/1071021452158246
- What happens when a family does a full week with zero screens
- Why physical separation beats every app-blocker and self-control strategy combined
Takeaways:
- Getting rid of an app is a decision, but physical separation, such as putting the phone in another room, taking it off your body, or getting it out of the bedroom, is a system, and systems prevail.
- A quick check when you're with your family seldom remains quick, and your children pick up on it more than you realize.
- Vacations, trips, and even ordinary evenings can all be used as chances to deliberately be unreachable.
- Take a survey of your family members and find out how present you really are; you could be surprised by the result, whether positive or negative.
The phone isn't the problem; it's the effect it has on your attention.
Stop Losing Your Temper Road Map
This roadmap will teach you how to have more patience.
To give your kids more time and attention.
Anger isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility.
Learn how to manage it so it doesn't get the best of you.
https://www.tommygcoaching.com/roadmap
SPEAKER_01
All right, real quick before we dive into episode 126, I have my buddy Greg Chambers on this episode, and the audio's a little spotty over Zoom. We did some editing and equalizing of the sound, but it's still a little spotty. I don't think it's gonna take away from the message content, the tools that Greg and I talk about. So just want to give you the heads up on that. Enjoy the episode with my friend Greg Chambers.
SPEAKER_01
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Geary. This show is gonna give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community, and most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Durable Dad Podcast, episode 126. I have someone on the podcast today. It's my buddy Greg Chambers. Greg is a friend, a client, traveled together. He's got a bunch of other roles that he plays, but our relationship has been going on for a while. So I'll just let you, Greg, tell the listeners why um I thought it'd be cool for you to come on the show.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, thanks, Tommy. I got into coaching. My wife was uh certified coach. She introduced me to this whole world of coaching, and I found you, and you've obviously coached me for a few years, and you know some of the struggles I've had with cell phone usage. I you mentioned that topic and talking about that topic with me, and I think the journey's been interesting. I have some pointers, I have some pitfalls, I have some areas that maybe the listeners can appreciate hearing, and a different perspective from a father discussing cell phone usage and the distraction around a small family.
SPEAKER_01
When you say we've been coaching for a couple years, four years, whatever it was, and been working on cell phone everything. I don't want everyone to be like, oh, this guy had to work pretty damn hard on cell phones if they've been working on it for four years. So I just want to throw out there that you also have done really cool things since I've known you. Like you've made some career changes, you've picked up your tennis game, you were a D1 tennis player, and that was kind of out of your life, and you brought it back into your life and different parenting stuff, different fitness things. You came to the Grand Canyon last year. Greg isn't just figuring out his relationship with his cell phone, there's much more than that. But today we're going to talk and focus on cell phones because it gets in the way of things that we want to accomplish in life. And talking to a guy last week that he was he was working on prioritizing his time, scheduling his day, and I was like, Well, what gets in your way? And he picks up his phone and he was like, This damn thing. And I was like, Okay, not the first time I've heard that before. So when did you know that this the cell phone thing for you was something you wanted to get better
SPEAKER_01
at?
SPEAKER_00
I I would say I was I was pretty good with cell phone usage early on. I I had good habits around it. And I think COVID was probably the biggest point where I really noticed a dramatic change. We had all the lockdown mandates. My children were pretty young at the time, four years old, two years old, in the house, 24-7 for multiple months. I was picking up the phone a lot to distract myself, to cope with the confined space. Now it was a blessing and a curse. I think it was great to have them home consistently. Work became basically from your house, but the cell phone usage really, I noticed it in in 2020.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. COVID was a wild time. What I kind of wanted to talk about is that time before we turn to our phone. Because the phone's an awesome tool. We can communicate with people more, we can find the information that we need. A lot of amazing uses for the tool. And we can also use the tool to our detriment. I don't think this problem is going away. Our relationship with our cell phone is something we're gonna have to manage for the rest of our life.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it's healthy habits around it. I think at this point you're you're right, you're stuck with the technology. It does have a lot of benefits. I I think to answer your question earlier, what are you doing before you're you pick up the phone? I think people are uncomfortable with boredom. I notice myself, if uh there's a commercial that pops on, I pick up the phone. Um I'm in a conversation and it's and it's not directed at me, I pick up the phone. Going to the bathroom, I've taken the phone to the bathroom. Uh it's filling those empty spaces for for myself.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. We don't want to be bored, so we go to our phone. Now, what do we miss out on when we don't let oursel be bored?
SPEAKER_00
I think you miss out on real life events. I think you miss out on imagination.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the the best times in life are those small moments. And I know that we've talked before about dinner time and family dinners and phone use at dinner.
SPEAKER_00
My wife is very traditional. She believes in having, you know, a nice family dinner. I grew up having a very different experience with family dinners. Um, it was rare that we had kind of a sit-down dinner. So that was what I understood and knew. And and when I married my wife, Amy, she was very adamant about that's how she grew up, having the traditional sit with the kids, talk about your day. Um and we do that now. I did have an issue with it. I I felt like it was very foreign to me. It would usually be like work calls that I'd let bleed into, family dinners. I'd say, I gotta take this call, I gotta handle this email, and I'd kind of run run away from it. And um I did a lot of coaching with you, Natami, you know, that about you know, sitting in those feelings, keeping the device off the table.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, with me, the work thing, the text messages. I just the other night told Brenda, like, oh, I gotta get back to this person real quick, it'll just be three minutes. And she was like, Oh, really? Just three minutes? And it was a nice reminder to me that, like, yes, sometimes I say three minutes and it takes longer. That one might have just been three minutes and I was back at it, but I'll go and be like, Oh, I just gotta check my work email real quick. Maybe something it's in the evening, we're hanging out in the kitchen, and Brenda's hanging with the girls, and there's this like moment where, like, oh, I'm not having the parent right now. Let me go check my email. I haven't checked my email in the last 30 minutes. I should check my email again. And then I go in and I see an email that I'm gonna try to respond to, and I'm gonna try to respond to it real quickly. And it doesn't seem like a problem, but then my daughter comes in and is like, Daddy, da-da-da, let me see your phone. And I get frustrated.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
And I'm like, stop bothering me. Give me just one more second.
SPEAKER_00
Right.
SPEAKER_01
I'm doing something here. Now I'm prioritizing whatever email this is over my daughter in the evening. Even in the moment as I'm doing it, I know I don't want to be doing it. If I backtrack on that, so why did I originally go to my phone? Because there was this quiet moment in the house. Well, not quiet, but there was a moment when I wasn't required to parent. So maybe you can call that bored when there was an opportunity to engage in whatever parenting looked like. Like parenting doesn't, you don't have to parent just when there's shit going down. You can parent in the like chill moments. And instead of that, I went to my phone. And then what wanted to just be a quick check turned into me getting annoyed with my daughter and not being the kind of dad that I want to be.
SPEAKER_00
And and your children remember that, you know, the finger up, I just need two minutes, hold on, come back, I'm busy. That's that's not what I want my children to remember me and and think of me every time I'm on a cell phone call or uh answering an email. I'm trying to do better to kind of fit those hours in just work hour mode, and then outside of work hour mode, keep it down, keep the phone off. I mean, essentially the phone is is taking away from your your time. It's monopolizing your time. And I'd rather have that time monopolized by my family and work versus an algorithm that's deciding how it's I spend my time and feeding me things I want to see.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And I feel like we're at a point where like most people want to get better at this.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I I ask a lot of friends, I'll I'll ask them, what's your screen time? And I have yet to meet somebody that has super low screen time. And when I first had coaching with you on this, Tommy, and and again, this has been a work in progress, but I was well over 12 hours a day on the phone. And that's what Apple was monitoring. And then I realized Apple monitors a lot of things if you don't close the app. It monitors a lot of things, like I I I'm very bad with directions, I use Waze a lot, and things, in my opinion, that aren't necessarily cell phone usage. It's just I need some help getting directions, or it's maybe I'm listening to some music. I try to exclude those. So I I ended up downloading an app called Opal that allows you to exclude certain apps that you're not really counting towards screen time. And now I have a much more reasonable figure to start with. It gives you gaming, gaming, gamified options on how to like improve and lock off certain negative, distracting apps. And I've found that to be a real game changer, at least as like an initial supplement to improve cell phone usage.
SPEAKER_01
Right. Well, there's what's the quote? Like, if you can't measure it, you can't fix it. And screen time's an awesome one. And so this is why I I do feel like you've become an expert in this kind of stuff. Because Apple gives you that update. At least I get a notification every Sunday. Should probably turn off this notification. You used your screen on an average of this much in the last week. And what you're saying is like, okay, that's good information to have, but if we're gonna hone in and really manage this cell phone use, we want to know exactly like what how are we using our phone? And not all screen time is equal.
SPEAKER_00
Equal, right. That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_01
And so Opal would be the app that you recommend.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and there's a free version and premium version. I do the free version, it it gives you little gems every time you have a streak where you keep the phone in in work mode for a certain set amount of hours. Um I I like that. I like to feel like I'm I'm achieving some goals and quests, and it's like again, a game, a gamified version of it. I would highly recommend that, or just whatever app allows you to just basically pick and choose really where the trouble apps are and be honest with yourself. For me, the trouble apps are YouTube, eBay, Facebook, Instagram, those four. And I am not a very social media person. I when I met my wife, we neither of us had Facebook. I'm a big advocate to not have a ton of different social media accounts. And the reason I ended up having eBay, Facebook, Instagram was all surrounded by collecting baseball cards, and that was during COVID. And so the app usage, like I mentioned, really started at that point, and and then it bled into other areas which had nothing to do with baseball cards. All of a sudden, like you said, I'm I'm scrolling this and scrolling that, and and it doesn't end.
SPEAKER_01
I was talking to someone recently, and we were talking about cell phone use. I've done this a few times and I don't think we've ever done it, but I was like, all right, well, let's do this. Take out your phone. What's the app you use the most? What distracts you the most? X. Okay. Go delete it. And they're like, right now? I'm like, yeah, go delete it. Um they go and delete it. And I was like, what's the other app you use the most? And it's like daily news or something like that, daily mail. And I'm like, see, go delete it. And they're like, okay. And they went and deleted it. And I was like, uh, something else. He's like, probably Instagram.
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, Do you think you can go delete it? He's like, I'm starting to feel really anxious right now.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
And I I guess I wonder, like, you were just talking about apps. Have you tried deleting any of those apps?
SPEAKER_00
I have. Now, yeah, Apple makes it very easy to re-add it. If you notice, you'll go into the App Store and it has a little cloud feature, and then it instantly is back. So I've I've done that. I've um I've tried locking the phones with the apps. You know, there's workarounds with all of that. Even on Opal, there's workarounds. And there's something, you know, I I would highly recommend you put this for your listeners. Apple hides a very key feature that basically makes your phone a light phone or a DR.
SPEAKER_01
You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna reveal this right now.
SPEAKER_00
I'm gonna reveal it because I I think it's something they hide on purpose, but it basically you can force your phone into a light mode where it's it's just text messages or it could just be phone calls. It can be whatever apps you choose, and it makes the icons super large for older people, but it it completely uh changes around your phone layout.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, now you were the first person that told me about this, and I've sent it to a couple other people. Because you said you were shopping around for a dumb phone. You're like, I just want to have a dumb phone that I can use, and you found this, I don't know, whatever reel of the guy from I think Wired magazine explaining how you can turn your Apple phone into a dumb phone. You only get a certain number of apps, or you only get the apps you choose. And so if you choose apps that aren't connected to the internet, then you're not going to have that. And there's a process to unlock that and change it back.
SPEAKER_00
And I had the same anxiety. My wife found that article because we were really searching for potentially doing that as another step to just minimize my usage. And I had anxiety around picking the apps. I was nervous about what I picked, and I we did it together as uh as a couple, and I've not had to use it, but I've also not had screen time issues. So I know it's there, I know I can click a button and it and it'll turn convert my phone immediately. And if I want to convert it back, I can either obviously I can click the button and do that. But I think just knowing that it's there and having the ability to turn it that way gave me that security. It it gave me that freedom. It made me feel better about myself. A lot of the screen time stuff, when you see it, maybe Apple means to do this or not. I don't know. It's depressing, it it affects you. You you think negatively of yourself.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I was we're going camping in a few weeks, and I know I'm gonna have my phone with me because I want to take pictures, and I think I'm gonna use I haven't used the dumb phone feature yet, but I think I'm definitely gonna use it for that trip.
SPEAKER_00
So that's a perfect example to do it. But that would be a perfect mode vacation mode, trips where you want to be present in the moment in real life experiences.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, okay. Well, I want to talk about what that reward has been for you when you feel like you're in a healthy place with phone use.
SPEAKER_00
Well, so I've I've I've dramatically dropped my phone usage. I average about four hours now, down from what was over 12 to possibly seven. To now I keep it right around four. Um before I started this call with you, I was at 25 minutes for the day. So I check in for up to the city.
SPEAKER_01
We're recording at six in the morning. So that's not just kidding. We're recording at 2 30.
SPEAKER_00
So I I I like to see those things. Um where do I see the benefits from it? I mean, the Grand Canyon was a great example, disconnecting, um, being in nature, being in the environment, not having other people around you staring at cell phones. I feel like more and more people are getting more fed up with that. I've met plenty of people that don't like to use their phones. I want to be with more like-minded people like that.
SPEAKER_01
I'm picturing like the 80s, 90s tobacco companies. They've been pushing us all these poisonous products and they've been covering it up in different ways. And now we're at this similar time when like these corporations are pushing this stuff at us, and there is a detriment to our health, our mental health, the relationships that we have, and it's up to us to take a stand and fight back. And when we coach, me and you, anybody listening to this podcast, we control what we control. Like we can't control what apps are out there, what other companies are doing, but what can we control? We can control our relationship with our phone. You know, you said like you've seen the reward, and the reward is seeing your screen, less screen time, and being around other people, like at the Grand Canyon, when you're not around, when people that you're with aren't on their phone, you have a different experience. And I remember when you got back from the canyon that first like week or two, when you were talking about how you were engaging with people more, how you weren't looking at your phone at all, how you were at the amusement park with your family one day and you didn't even take your phone out. Your kids were on a ride, and instead of sitting on a bench looking at the phone, you just kind of looked around and the sun was hitting your face and you were people watching.
SPEAKER_00
It just made me feel free. It made me feel light, it made me feel like I don't have to worry about this or that. I mean, part of it is being accessible 24-7. I think jobs have overtaken that, and and bosses can kind of be overbearing where they want to answer to an email on a Saturday, a Sunday. But that healthy habit, you just create the boundary that you need to personally.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Talking about tips, we kind of we talked about the dumb phone setting, we talked about Opal app to track screen time so you can have a measurement to go against. You know, did you ever give your family the survey that we created?
SPEAKER_00
I couldn't believe the results, Tommy. I I gave the survey and I thought I was gonna get slammed by both of my kids saying that I'm always busy, I'm always distracted, I'm I'm I'm not present. They they didn't they didn't crush me. So that's more of an incentive to kind of keep the habits going. At least they haven't noticed that I'm I'm uh more dependent on the on a cell phone than than I I want to be. Um I'm going to give them the survey again.
SPEAKER_01
Uh I think every year, I think that's a good check-in point for myself to have a don't want to tell tell the listeners what the heck we're talking about because uh we were we were on a coaching call probably like six months ago, and you were we were talking about measuring and we were talking about screen time measurement, but what else is there besides screen time? And it's like, well, family feedback, like how am I being perceived? If you're listening to this and you want to check out this survey, Greg went through all the questions, but you can reach out to me on a social and I'll send it to you. Uh okay, so back to the the tips and tricks here. We talked about deleting apps off of our phone. I think this is a really strong one. I kind of think of it as like if you were wanting to diet and like think about cutting out added sugar from your diet or whatever, you would get it out of your house. At the same time, when you diet, you can't get everything out of your house because you need to eat. So we need our phone, we need some apps on there, but what are those like junk apps that you can delete and get off of your phone?
SPEAKER_00
There's an intermediate intermediary to that. I think, I think what I've found works, and I agree with you, deleting is a good step, but then re-adding is can be simple. I've actually organized my phone where I've basically taken away all the distracting and nonsense apps that I that I also rarely use, and I've just put them in those folders. And then to access it, I'd actually have to think about okay, I want to go to the MLB app, or I want to go to this app that I might not use as much or as often, or Twitter, let's say. Then you have to search for it. And so I think that extra step maybe kind of um dulls that dopamine hit and makes us work a little harder than our brain wants to. Exactly. Like if you hide the junk food, you you gotta search for it in the house. Like I think it's it's it may be a meet middle step to possibly then deleting some.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. I I find that when I do that, when I move an app to a different spot, it works for about a week, and then my thumb brain connection has gotten a lot better, and I can find it pretty dang quickly. So that's deleting apps, cleaning up the junk on your phone. The best for me, and it sounds like
SPEAKER_01
you've done this too, the most success I've had is physical separation.
SPEAKER_00
It's something different about physical separation. I you know, limit all your notifications, the dings. I I have my phone on silent all the time. I believe the the device being next to your hip or in your pocket, it's too close. I mean, just put it on a table, put it upstairs, charge it. But I agree with you, off off the body.
unknown
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
The physical separation for me has been leaving it downstairs. Like on this desk right now, this is where it charges. And then I go upstairs. I have a digital alarm clock. You know, that's an excuse that we use sometimes. It's like, oh, but I need it as my alarm clock. The the keeping it by your bed, I think, is when I talk to guys, is one of the biggest mental strains that you can have. Waking up in the morning and looking at your phone first thing, it brings that negativity into your mind right away. And it doesn't set the tone for the day. So I think that type of physical separation after hours, like when it's time to be with the family, there's a drawer that I keep it in. And it doesn't always work, but I do find the physical separation is the best resistance that I've had to keep it away.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, or you or you'd wake up in the morning and you read a email from a coworker or boss and it's full of anxiety and you're you're anxious. And that's you're right, you're starting your day off like that. So I agree with you. Like I would set a goal to just not have the phone anywhere near you.
SPEAKER_01
Um I've heard a few guys say when they're like hanging out with their wife on the couch watching TV, they both have their phones out too.
SPEAKER_00
Then you're not connecting, you're not watching the show together, you're not connecting, you're not laughing, having fun, you're you're you're doing like a a side mission or um you're multitasking. We just did an entire week with the family where we had no screen time. So I watched our children after about an hour or two completely be creative, figure things out, go draw, go play. We found a huge benefit in that. They did an entire week, and so now we owe them a yes day after that. But I found their attitudes were different, their anxiety was better, there was a lot less turmoil or fighting between my son and daughter, between our kids and ourselves. It just went great.
SPEAKER_01
So we're wrapping this up, this conversation up, and I think this is a cool place to kind of end because we talked about cell phones are an awesome tool, but we want to control the cell phone. We don't want the cell phone to control us. And the goal is not to go to our phone. Like only go to your phone when you purposefully meet to. Enjoy the moment. And we talked about tips on how to do that. Where we're landing here is like our kids learn from us. And it's a lot more what we do than what we say. Everyone talks about that, but I think that you're living it with your cell phone use, how you talk to Amy about it, how you've managed your relationship and get off the screens and now look, you are working with your kids and you guys are having a no-screen week.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. I if the phone isn't the enemy, it's it's what it does to your attention. It's losing control of your attention, it's what it pulls away from your day in, day out, and and meaningful experiences. And and I want my children to have good habits. And how are they gonna learn it? Like you just said, they're gonna learn it by watching their parents.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
We have to be good role models there. So I think I'm hoping within a year from today, instead of four hours, it's three hours. That's my next goal is end of 2027 to to have that number much lower. Um, and give and continue to give them the survey. I'll give my wife the survey, but I but I agree with you. It's um and it doesn't have to be overnight, it's little steps. I've made a lot of little steps. I've coached on this with a lot with you, Tommy. Um, none of it is supposed to be a magic bullet, but just start with little things. Don't take your phone out of the bathroom.
SPEAKER_01
It's it's it's a process, and like you said, when we do this, we can enjoy life, we can experience life, and that's the goal, right? To live intentionally instead of just blindly by
SPEAKER_01
the experience inside of our phone.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, your grand Grand Canyon trip that we went on was just eye-opening because it it almost didn't look real. Like you can watch videos on it, you can go on the internet, but being there in person with a group of guys and traveling that amount of t uh miles, what 23 miles in one day, I mean, that's what I want my experiences to be. Not reading about it, not hearing about it on an Instagram reel or whatever the hell a story. I don't I want to live the real, real thing.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and I mean, and just bring it down to the day-to-day. Like you can look at a reel on Instagram of a dad playing with his kids, and you're like, Oh, that's so sweet. And like, don't freaking live it in your phone. Like, live it at night that Wednesday night. You can do it. And uh appreciate you saying that about the Grand Canyon because that was awesome having you there. That was the first time that we got to hang out in person for a week, and that was cool. So, dude, thanks for coming on. This was really exciting to have you on here and have this conversation. Any closing remarks for the listeners or just reminders?
SPEAKER_00
Put the phone down and live your life.
SPEAKER_01
Boom. That on the uh Tim Ferris show, he always says, What would you put on a billboard? I think that that that would be it. Put your cell phone down and live your life. Wise words from Greg Chambers, man. Later, dude. All right, thank you. See ya.
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