- How many times every hour do you check your phone?
Five times, a dozen, maybe more?
How do all these micro interruptions change your day?
Do they make you less productive?
Do they affect your wellbeing?
How might your life look
if you were able to control the distractions?
To literally silence your phone
and dedicate yourself to a specific task in front of you.
This is a very new reality we're facing as humans
and it's completely uncharted.
That's why I was really excited this week to sit down
with the man behind Break the Twitch, Anthony Ongaro.
Anthony's been writing and making films
about minimalism, habit change,
and our addiction to technology for years.
And he came on my podcast to talk about all those things.
He first started thinking about all this stuff
a few years ago, when he printed out a four year history
of all his Amazon purchases.
He wanted to see where his money was going.
And then it really got him to think
a little bit more deeply,
about the purchasing decisions he was making
and why he was making those decisions.
The urge to click the Buy it Now button.
And then he found that close relation
to even the devices and the checking of technology.
And he came up with this word
that really captured it pretty poetically,
which is the Twitch.
- I was mindlessly clicking this Buy it Now button
and it felt good, right?
It felt good to buy something,
'cause it felt like a solution sort of maybe
to a problem I was having or like,
oh this thing will be the right cable for this,
or whatever.
And that sort of action
felt more like just a muscle movement,
like a Twitch and this impulsive thing.
And then it sort of, I realized that that idea
followed through to checking your smartphone,
pulling things out, feeling uncomfortable
just standing in line
or at a street corner,
or just waiting for a friend
instead of just idling
and sort of being willing to exist in space.
- Before we talk about some of the ways
in which we can reduce our phone usage
and prevent this addiction,
I wanna talk a little bit
about why it's important in the first place.
Why is it such a bad thing to be on our phones all the time?
- Rest is productivity,
but actual rest, restorative rest,
like not laying on the couch scrolling through Instagram,
feeling all the things that are going on with that
and like engaging and getting the dope,
oh, got more likes or whatever.
Like engaging with that sort of dopamine experience of that.
That's not rest, it's not productive rest.
And so I've been into this very big thing
of thinking about what it means to be productive
in all aspects of life and monotask,
just there's this obsession with multitasking.
And what does it look like to monotask
to sit and drink coffee?
Like when was the last time you sat and drank coffee
without doing something else?
We can be so productive and so much more balanced
in a really good place
when we're not trying to do eight things at once,
especially when it comes to resting.
'Cause if you rest well, you work well.
- People wonder why they're overwhelmed.
They're oh, my life is so overwhelming.
It's you're making it overwhelming.
- Yeah.
- It doesn't have to be like that.
You don't have to be on your phone all the time
in between every single moment
you have a chance to take a break,
and naturally some people's lives are a little bit busy.
You know, you, if you've got kids, and you've got a job,
and you're maybe taking night classes at school,
like that's a pretty busy life.
Don't make it worse.
- Yeah.
- By like picking up your phone in between every moment
that you actually just need to not think.
- That's sort of like a trap, right?
It's like a cycle and it does feel good
that you can sort of let go
and just watch this stuff or scroll through.
But as soon as you get out of it,
so if you stop that for a week, it feels uncomfortable
because you've changed a comfortable sort of thing
that felt like a repeated habit and what felt easy.
But then after about a week, two weeks of it
you realize that that was filling,
that was like a, in a way a twitch, right?
It was filling a space that you have
but it's not actually fulfilling.
That's what you realize, it's like sugar.
When you stop eating sugar
it sucks for the first couple days
because you that's what your body expects
and it doesn't feel good.
You're like, well, this isn't good.
I, this is clearly not a good idea.
I need to go back to sugar.
But then after a week or two weeks, you feel so much better.
And so, you know what I'm saying?
Like there's always that it's always a little uncomfortable
'cause the twitch makes it comfortable.
That's the point of it, that addiction,
that sort of desire to pull out the phone,
it makes standing in line or standing in an awkward place,
waiting for a friend not sure what you're gonna do,
more comfortable.
And so we have to step outside
of what it means to be comfortable
so that we can actually be comfortable being ourselves,
being present, being there without that extra thing.
- So the question is what can we do?
And I've jotted down four things to get you started here
based on my conversation with Anthony.
And also based on some things that I've found
have worked in my own life.
The first I would say is turn off notifications.
I only keep notifications from text, calls, and alarms.
Those are the only things that are gonna interrupt me
on my phone.
And that's worked out quite well for me.
Luckily I'm not that popular.
So I don't have to get barraged
with texts and calls all the time.
For you, you may wanna think about taking that down.
There's also often times where you can also turn
do not disturb on which is gonna prevent people
from getting through to you, which certainly helps.
The second one is, and Anthony recommended this
on the podcast, be aware of the twitch.
And one of the best ways to be aware of it
is to go outside without your phone.
I know it sounds scary.
I know it sounds uncomfortable
but it's gonna really open your eyes
to when you have that instinctive flinch
to go on your phone.
So when you go to the grocery store
and you're waiting in line,
the first thing we do is pull out our phones.
If you look down the aisles, everybody's doing it.
So the practice would be to go through that experience
to feel it, to be in that moment,
to be a little bit uncomfortable.
And every time you do it
you're gonna feel a little bit better
and you're just gonna be eventually okay.
And eventually that twitch is actually gonna fade away
in those circumstances
and you're not gonna feel yourself going to your phone.
The third thing that helped me
is deleting apps for my phone that I don't truly use
or get value from.
So Twitter, Facebook totally gone.
Email I only keep it on my phone when I'm working.
I found that this is just one less excuse
for me to check my phone.
So delete those apps, which you don't need.
Also schedule in the time when you use some of these apps
even on your desktop.
So if it's an hour in the morning
or a half hour towards the end of the day after work.
To know that you'll get to the messages,
you'll be able to check everything that you wanna check
but you're not gonna be distracted by them
throughout the day and all those micro distractions.
And the fourth and final one
is find something to replace it.
And I found this to be incredibly important for me
especially when I'm at home and my phone is close by.
I feel this pull to go on my phone.
Instead of doing it I pick up a book that I've been reading
or I make some tea.
I have these two or three things that I will do
every time that really prevent me from going down
that rabbit hole of checking, checking, checking,
putting my phone down, doing something,
and then going back to checking.
That has helped me a lot.
So if you want any more tips and advice
on how to approach this,
how to approach this age of distractions
and also on the flip side of that as a creator,
how to create something that's meaningful that helps people,
that also cuts through all this crazy noise
that we get every day.
My podcast episode with Anthony Ongaro is truly eyeopening.
And I think you guys are gonna get a ton of value from it.
So check it out.
I will provide a link right when this ends,
but before that if you guys have any other helpful tips
and advice that have worked for you,
I would love to to hear what has worked on your end.
Everybody approaches these topics
in slightly different ways.
And so there may be something in the comments
that you can add that can really help
some of the other viewers out.
And that's it.
That's the end of this video.
I'll see you guys next week.
(upbeat music)
I'm truly on a next level of hipsterdom.
I am officially drinking kombucha.
It's like, there's a, have you guys heard of this?
There's a, you probably have,
you guys are hipsters, I know it.
There's, it's like called the mother.
It's like bacteria inside this, probiotics.
It doesn't taste that bad.
It's like it's carbonated ginger lemon.
It's not terrible.
It's a little bit gross to get used to.
The reason I'm drinking probiotics
is that the past couple weeks
I've actually had some health problems.
A lot of hives, lip swelling, which was terrifying.
My lip just swelled up twice.
Like super fat, like crazy big.
Maybe I'll put a photo right here.
It was a little bit scary.
'Cause I'm like, it's close to your throat.
I'm like, is this what's happening here?
So I was pretty scared
and just I'm trying to do anything possible.
Some people told me it might be my gut.
This may be a reaction because I don't have microbiomes,
I think they call it, these little microbacteria
that you know, help your digestive system.
And certain things may be causing inflammation.
I'm not a doctor, I don't know.
So I'm like, eh, whatever, I'll drink kombucha.
I've been taking probiotics.
I've been trying that.
I went to an allergist.
He said that it's probably just a random occurrence.
We'll see, I'm kind of hitting it on both ends,
trying to stay healthy.
It's but it's like I was actually thinking about
doing a video about that and I might do it later
but it's like those days when you feel so shitty,
those days when you're having health problems
or you have a scare or somebody,
a loved one you have has a scare.
Those are the moments when you appreciate the good days
and you realize how important it is
to be living a healthy life.
I think I started this,
I was planning on just doing the regular outro
where I tell you guys to go to my other shit,
but anyway, there was a message here
but I will do that as well.
There's two things I want you to do.
If you liked this video and you thought it was interesting
and you wanna hear more from Anthony.
Check out Mattdavella.com/055.
That is the link to the full episode.
There's also a link in the description.
And also if you wanna see behind the scenes content,
I even did one for this video where I did Instagram stories
showing this whole behind the scenes,
this paper lantern here, how I light it,
it's pretty do it yourself, pretty simple.
So I think you guys will get some value from that.
So follow me on Instagram @MattDavella.
I realize that's probably it's,
this is like the most ironic thing to do to tell you,
have a video, be about don't check your phone
and then me telling you simultaneously
to go on your phone and check Instagram.
But my life is ironic.
So if you could do that it would make me feel good,
but do it whenever you want.
You don't have to do it right now.
You should do it right now.