How to Actually Break up With Your Phone

tips to reduce screen time, be more phone mindful, and/or ditch your phone all together

THE WEEKLY EDIT:
Let The Good Times Roll
I made you a new playlist! A classic Americana kind of playlist. Perfect for those moments when you’re out on a boat with the wind in your hair, lounging by the pool, or cruising with the sunroof open. This playlist pairs perfectly with your favorite jean shorts, an ice-cold beer, and the joy of singing at the top of your lungs.

Summer Salad
This salad sounds pretty great for all the bbq’s.

Dusk Stone | Natural Insect Repellant
It took one night of mosquito bites before I ordered Kate McLeod’s natural insect repellant. It’s easy to apply, keeps the bugs away and soothes the bites I already have. Plus, it’s super nourishing. It’s unlike any repellant I’ve ever used!

The Great Summer Sale
The Great is up to 65% off! I love this butter yellow set (top and skirt) and am smitten with this Victorian top. Also swimsuits! Speaking of, Summersalt is 30% off everything - code SPF30.

Sunday Brunch
Last Sunday, the first edition of ‘Sunday Brunch’ went out which is the new free addition around here. I’m super excited for it and I hope you are, too! To kick it off, I sent out a summer bucket list that’s not your cool girl bucket list. It's not the list you'll see circulating in Silver Lake or among people trying to do the most unique thing this summer. It’s a realistic, low-effort list of ideas to fill your summer with magic. In case you missed it, you can read it here.

Rose deodorant by evolvetogether
If you’re in the market for a great clean deodorant this rose — mandarin by evolvetogether is so good! I haven’t liked a deodorant this much in a long time.

SIDIA at Credo
SIDIA is now available at Credo! Woot! I love this body care brand (especially this product) and their founder, Erin Kleinberg who you may know as she started The Coveteur back in the day. Congrats to them!

Déhanche Belts
The chic belts on all the chic girls? They’re often Déhanche. Hollyhock, Tetra, Mija and Jeanne to name a few. I love them! And they happen to be 30% off right now for their mid-summer sale.

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ALRIGHT, LET’S GET INTO IT:
How to Actually Break Up With Your Phone

On my girls' last day of school, I made a promise to myself: keep phone use around my children to a minimum this summer. I made this decision on a whim, inspired by that summery feeling that surfs up come June when school lets out one last time. We were driving home singing “School’s Out for Summer,’ my girls' soft and sweet giggling faces in my rearview mirror. A rearview reflection I’ve watched like a montage, changing by the day as their features take shape, bodies elongate, hair grows, and style evolves. I wanted to bottle that giggling sunlit moment up, so I held onto it extra tight, keeping it going by replaying the song over and over again. Side note...It’s all so painfully fleeting this motherhood experience, isn’t it?!

The moment broke, and I found myself in thought: what if I bottled this summer up…differently? What if I made a change that allowed me to be more present, soaking up summertime with fewer distractions? I’m talking pure and active engagement - a decision on how I want to live our lives. Nothing dinging, lighting up, ringing, and/or sucking me in for passive usage during summer days, which pulls me out of our cocoon and into work, social engagements, the news cycle, or perhaps even worse, mindless scrolling. Then and there, cold turkey, I committed to limiting my phone use around our children. One afternoon in and I could feel the positive shift, a palpable difference. A big enough shift that it inspired me to write Part 1 of this phone series: Is Your Phone Taking Away From Motherhood?

A week into leaving my phone behind, my sensitivity and awareness of others' phone use were heightened, which led to Part 2 of the series: Why Can’t We Put Our Phones Down? This is a deep dive into addictive designs, availability expectations, cultural norms, the voids that may push us to scroll aimlessly, and the question we all need to ask ourselves if we want to curb our phone use.

All of this leads us to today, Part 3: How to Actually Break Up With Your Phone. Something that I’ll admit, is not easy. I slip up often, as phones have infiltrated our lives, making it almost impossible to be completely phone-free, but there are ways to limit it. Whether your goal is to reduce screen time, be more phone mindful, and/or ditch your phone all together, here are some tips, tricks, apps, the obvious, and the not-so-obvious ways, in which you can break up with your phone: