Stopping the screen. Part 1. The beginning.

I have decided to stop the screen. We all have different habits in the digital world. Mine is mainly YouTube and old French movies. I used to dedicate three to four hours to these activities almost every day. Sometimes, If I had a truly lazy day, that’s all I would be doing. In general, almost any empty moment has been filled with the screen. It could be my iPad, my phone or my computer. My mind is always racing to the next shot of adrenaline, the one provided by some extraordinary video I would discover after doom scrolling for hours and had to watch immediately. Never bored but never focused.

So today is my first day without the screen. This is an almost impossible task as you’re going to see. You probably already know why. Here is my day so far:

I got up and as I was sipping my tea, I was checking my email (nothing of importance), the weather (Very hot and humid), and my bank account (Not so hot and pretty dry). That took less than a minute. I did not go on YouTube or Facebook. I then turned off all the screens and I went on to organize my day. Well, I almost turned off all the screens. No, but wait, I couldn’t really stop the screen because I wrote down all the stuff I wanted to do today on my phone (including writing a blog for you, good people).

All right! All right! Let’s set the rule differently, then. Instead of no screen at all, let’s say no useless screen. I can use the screen as a tool. That’s it. And even that, I can’t indulge too much. If I feel I am starting to find reasons to be digital that are not truly justified, then I have to stop. Checking the weather, organizing my day, writing a blog, preparing a lesson, all of that is fair game. Writing 6 blogs, spending hours finding the correct pictures for them, getting lost on my Amazon shopping list, these are a hard no. I have to be vigilant about it.

Let’s keep going with my day. After I jotted down a few ideas for the schedule, I went to the woodshop. I need to clean it. I did go briefly on the screen to chose some music on Tidal. It took all but 20 seconds. I worked for about an hour and here I am now, entertaining you guys with this blog.

So, I am not sure. I am not sure If I have quit the screen or not. What do you think?