#31 | We’re back! Updates and part 1 of our new experiment (reducing phone usage)

Hey y’all! It's been a while, but we’re happy to be back. We’ve come back with a broader understanding of what we mean by sustainability - and what we want it to mean for our show! We want our habits and lifestyles to support and align with our sustainability values, whether that’s getting in more movement or reducing our clothing waste.

Hannah kicks off our new experiment by sharing a habit she’d like to change - her phone usage - with the aim of building more intentionality into her free time. She shares that in the past week, she used her phone for at least four and a half hours every day (and some days, much much more). We explore where that habit is coming from and set some goals for future episodes.

Are you also struggling with your phone habit or looking to make some changes in your life? Why not grab some tea, get comfy, and hit that play button?

Links:

Book | Atomic Habits, James Clear
Book | The Lazy Genius Way, Kendra Dachi
Book | How to break up with your phone, Catherine Price
Newsletter | The Guardian Reclaim your brain
Podcast | The Lazy Genius

Transcript

Brandee Nichols  0:05  
Welcome to the tea on sustainable living a podcast where we spill the tea on living sustainably in a world on fire, 

Hannah  0:10  
The tea being honest thoughts, struggles, and whatever else comes up along the way. 

Brandee Nichols  0:15  
I'm Brandy. 

Hannah  0:16  
And I'm Hannah, tune in to be a planner wars as we try and figure out how to live more meaningful lives, 

Brandee Nichols  0:21  
while also looking after ourselves. 

Hannah  0:23  
And keeping on top of the never ending laundry 

Brandee Nichols  0:26  
and staying connected with loved ones, 

Hannah  0:28  
and making better decisions and habits 

Brandee Nichols  0:30  
and cleaning the kitchen again, 

Hannah  0:32  
all while sustainably living our values and taking action. 

Brandee Nichols  0:36  
Spoiler alert, the answers aren't as black and white as they want them to be. Sometimes we get stuck in the big messy gray area of caring for our planet to people on it and ourselves. 

Hannah  0:44  
So bring yourself a cup of tea. And let's get comfy in the gray area together. 

Brandee Nichols  0:49  
Tea you soon.

Hey Hannah.

Hannah  0:55  
Hey Brandee. 

Brandee Nichols  0:56  
We're back? 

Hannah  0:56  
Yeah, we're feeling a little awkward, I think. Yeah, it's been a while since we've been in front of a mic. 

Brandee Nichols  1:03  
Yeah. Nearly a year. We were just saying. 

Hannah  1:05  
Nearly a year.

Brandee Nichols  1:07  
Didn't mean to uh...

Hannah  1:08  
But not quite a year.

Brandee Nichols  1:09  
No, not quite. Last summer. 

Hannah  1:12  
Yeah. No, yeah. We were intentionally having a break over the summer. And then our planned return in October, 

just

Brandee Nichols  1:23  
just kept getting pushed and pushed.

Hannah  1:26  
And now we're in April. Yes. The sun is shining. 

Brandee Nichols  1:30  
It's a very nice day. 

Hannah  1:32  
yeah, that's really nice. 

Brandee Nichols  1:33  
And I'm inside with all my curtains closed, and blankets all over the floor to try and soundproof my very unsound, provable apartment. So apologies in advance for any background noises, stairs. Sounds like someone is tumble drying about 12 pairs of shoes. Hopefully you can't hear that. 

Hannah  1:49  
Hopefully not. But yeah. So what why did we come back, Brandee? 

Brandee Nichols  1:53  
Well, I think part of why we our summer break turned into a longer one is because, at least for me, like the direction of the show, or I felt a little bit off to me. And we've finally like tweak some things. I think in the end, it's a very small tweak. You'll have heard our new intro revenue description. It's really just Yes. Slight direction shift.

Hannah  2:19  
To be a bit. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of we we kind of feel that sustainability. And kind of living with sustainability being a value is something that affects multiple areas of our life. And so we didn't want to just kind of, especially as we're very much not experts, you know, that wasn't, which was never our intention, right? We always just wanted to share the conversations that we've been having, with the knowledge that we had, and, and obviously doing some, some extra research. But you know, we're not coming from like a position of experts telling other people what to do. Yeah, we're not the, like me, you know, that, that maybe sometimes our episodes could kind of lean into that direction, which wasn't really ever where we wanted to go. But I think we wanted to kind of move away, right, from just focusing only on like, specific topics around the environment, and the specific actions you could take. Or we could take and kind of think like, how do we? How do all values like, show up in our life in general? Yes. So we're back, and we're gonna try some new things. This season, we're still calling it, we're gonna still do seasons, they're not labeled as such in your podcast player. So if you're looking for seasons, you won't find them, we're just going to continue to remember the episodes. But just as a way to make this podcast more sustainable in the true sense of the word. So we don't burn out from it, we're going to each kind of like have a theme of something that we're working on. And we're going to do like update episodes along the way. And mix in other topics, like I want to do one about Taylor Swift and a few other ideas. So stay tuned for that. An example of this new direction change is a topic that we discussed. I think it's a while ago now, like moving more was like moving our bodies more. And somehow that's like I think what initially prompted at all is that I wanted to be able to have a podcast that some a topic like that would fit and it does it definitely relates to like city planning and stuff that we wanted to dive more into. So anyway, stay tuned for this new and improved version of the podcast. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Yeah. So yeah, we're kind of this episode is like the first of our sort of experimental episodes kind of, yeah, as Brandee just said, exploring something, a change that we want to make in our life which relates to sustainability, but it's also it's kind of Yeah, jet like over law. I don't know.

I'm saying like, it's something that fits into your life in general.

Brandee Nichols  5:03  
Yeah, it's a personal thing you're wanting to improve. Everything is connected and has like a ripple effect. So yeah, I think it'd be fun. Alright, so what is what is the thing that you would like to work on for this new experimental season? So

Hannah  5:19  
I want to reduce the amount of time I'm on my phone. Interesting. Yeah. Which is something I wanted to do for a really long time. Like, I feel. I'm kind of almost embarrassed to admit how many hours I'm on my phone to play. Yeah, that kind of thing. And I'll share it for this last week. But it is very embarrassing. So the day, I mean, just I was like, looking at it just before doing this. Before

Brandee Nichols  5:50  
you say the numbers, I feel like, it's not going to be as embarrassing as you might think, to people listening. I feel like, right. It's a it's a something that people struggle with.

Hannah  6:01  
Yeah, I mean, so the day the least amount of time I spent on my phone in the last week was four hours and 20 minutes. The least. This is a lot. It is. It it's a lot.

When you think about it in one section, like okay, I'm gonna sit down for four hours and be on my phone, obviously, throughout the day, you think about it, and you have one big chunk.

And so that's like the least so you know, it gets, you're not going to share it the other time like to embarrass it's like so much. Okay, I'm gonna share like the most, which is awful. Nine hours? How did I spend nine hours on my phone? When

Brandee Nichols  6:38  
you set your phone down after using it? Is there like a delay before it locks itself? Like, is it counting time where you've just set it down? And it's still, like a screen has to

Hannah  6:50  
know. I mean, it's like, in a way, it's not quite as terrible as it sounds, because I, for example, I read a lot on my phone, which I don't necessarily think is like a bad thing. But I don't think it's ideal. And obviously, things like maps, you know, I feel like moving about Spotify, like count in there, sometimes. But it's like, it's got out of hand. does it actually say like, when you?

Brandee Nichols  7:17  
Does it break down? Like, time on social media? Versus like, can you filter out the different activities? And yeah, exclude the ones that are like, okay, maps and reading? Fine.

Hannah  7:28  
Um, kind of, but I guess like you read a lot on, like, on a browser. But yeah, it's a law.

Does it count pick up times to like, the number of times you picked up your phone? Yeah, let that eight times. That's the one that hurts me. When I look at. See

that one? Listen, well, I don't think it's that bad. Like the most was 55. Like unlocks of my phone, though. Yeah, it's like a lot of time. I feel like I'm scared to add all that over a week, but looks like what, like maybe like two days of my week, on my phone.

How has this excessive phone time, as you feel that it is impacted, like your day to day life like would have been negative impacts.

I guess I just really feel that, unless I'm doing like a few very specific activities, all of my like downtime is on my phone. So for example, like when I dance, which I do quite a lot of dance, that's something I love. Part of the reason I love it is also because I'm just like, not on my phone. If I'm with people, I'm pretty good to not be not being on my phone, although I think that's like crept up. I'm like, I've found myself like, more and more recently, or for a while, but like, you know, which I think a lot of us do, right? But you know, like, if your friend goes to the bathroom, when you are like at a restaurant, immediately picking up my phone, you know, like any small space I have. I'm like, all my phone, I'm using it. And then when I'm cooking, I don't really go on my phone or like, obviously at work. But I feel like I have all these other things that I want to do with my time. And yet anytime I have free time I'm on my phone, which you know, I don't think in itself is like a terrible thing. And as I said, like I read on my phone, but I would say that's not always like quality reading. Because it's like, even more easy to do that thing where you like, read for like, a couple of minutes and then you switch on to something else, you know, like, our brains, the permalink I think that's like a thing a lot of people struggle with, you know, like, focusing. Yeah, so I think just the act of reading on my phone and like kind of promotes being like flicking or like the minute you have a straight thought it's like oh, I've got to like check that out. And yeah, I just I just so much time. You know, and it's kind of unintentional time, you know, like it's fine if I'm like, Oh, I might I like You know, spend half an hour or an hour or like however long you want, but like being like, Oh yeah, I like really fancy, like watching some YouTube and I'm gonna, like, you know, use my phone to do that, or whatever it is I don't necessarily judging the things that I'm doing on my phone. But it just feels like I've just got into this like habit that like, anytime I have a free time where I'm not doing a specific activity that I've already planned, or I'm not with people, I'm on my phone

Brandee Nichols  10:29  
that's getting in the way of other things you want to do. Right? Like, I feel like there's so many other things, or I used to have other hobbies, and I still haven't, you know, like, crafting things, or,

Hannah  10:41  
you know, there's other personal goals, you know, like, I've been wanting to do my like Spanish exam or things where you kind of need to dedicate some time to doing it. And then I've because I've got this habit of like, being distracted all the time, or just like, Oh, I get home from work, if I don't have another plan. Next thing I know, it's been three hours, and I've just like been laying in bed on my phone. That's not terrible, sometimes, but is that always what I want to do? Would I rather have read a book? Would I rather have like gone outside for a walk? Would I rather have like, done a little bit of studying for the Spanish exam, you know?

Brandee Nichols  11:22  
Interesting. So I feel like you are already such like a busy person. I feel like you're always doing some sort of whether it's dance class or other activity. But it makes sense when you, you put it like you're studying for an exam things that like you want to do at home. But because your job is to scroll your phone, they get pushed. Exactly. It's

Hannah  11:45  
like yeah, like very, like they'll home home base or like, yeah, like when I'm on the metro, for example, which, again, isn't terrible. But like if I'm commuting, like I just like I'm always picking up my phone. And even like a work like, especially when I'm like now when I'm in the office, I've started locking my phone away in my locker. Because I was like, anytime when I was get like, I guess it's like, it's such an easy, you know, like, whenever I had for exam, I notice when I had like something, it was a bit more complicated at work where I kind of needed to stop and think I would often go for this like, easy option of just like opening my phone and like ignoring the problem for a while, which again, is also just like not good work practice. But it's also just like, you know, if you just thought if I just sat with this problem for five minutes, I probably would have found that answer. Instead, I've distracted myself, I've got done this thing. And then you know, you have to like go back. And so at work, like for example, I lock my phone when I'm in the locker, like when I'm working from home, if it's like a good day, and I'm feeling like productive and discipline, like I leave my phone in my room. But if I'm having a day where I'm like, you know, like, then I can be on my phone all the time, which also isn't a good feeling, you know, when you're being paid to black. Yeah.

Speaker 1  13:05  
Sounds to me like it's less of a question of how to use your phone less as it is, how do you replace this? If you want to use the word crutch or this default with something else? Hmm. Yeah, that's a habit change frame in the habit chain? Yeah. What's something else you can start doing? Or what is your like? The home time after work? Like creating a habit around when I'm home for work? I do these things. Yeah, it's not automatically the phone. I came in to that. The book everyone's talking about atomic habits. Yeah, I have read it. It was great. But I didn't do any of it. But it feels like you read it and you're like, Oh, my goodness, this person is a

Hannah  13:49  
genius. Well,

I haven't implemented any of the thing because that's hard to do. Brandy. Why is it hard to do? I haven't read it. I've heard people talk about it. So I don't know what all of the like suggestions are for

this good. I would recommend it. And I would need to read it again. Or like, you know, return back to some of it because I couldn't tell you but it's more. I mean, you just have to put effort in.

Do you feel like overwhelmed by the idea of like, trying to change your phone habits? Yeah, a little bit,

Mamie? Because it's just like, become this like Monster. You know, like those times I'm like, Oh my god. How did this happen? Another

Brandee Nichols  14:26  
resource. I mentioned Kendra Dachi. She's wrote a book for lazy genius and has a podcast. It's great. Okay, one of her lazy genius principles. I love her tagline is like how to be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Which I love. But I think one of her lazy genius principles is something like what's the like? The next thing you can do? Like what's like the like to break it down into small pieces. Like what's one small thing you could do? That would help you like use your phone less? So maybe it I don't know. It'd be something like when you get home from work, you put your phone somewhere that's not like you leave it I don't know, in your front entry with your keys. And, you know, go about whatever you want to do around the house to like help unwind a bit from work. Maybe it's put all work stuff away, or I know you work from home a lot. So maybe it's going for a walk, and then coming back and it's like, Okay, now it's unwind time, putting your phone down with your keys. And like, I don't know, doing something in the kitchen or whatever, like, whatever. Yeah,

Hannah  15:23  
that does sound like a positive next step, just to be like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna put my phone away and like the bedside drawer for the next hour, at least just to like, break that.

And then that happen that hour is like your hour, like, Okay, what's something like I want to like work on.

I was, I'd like been following because I mean, like you said, a lot of people to greater and lesser extent struggle with the phone news. And there's a garden, a series on The Guardian, which is like, break up with your phone. And they send, like weekly newsletters like this, like a five week thing, that program, which of course, I signed up for, and then didn't follow through with. But one of the suggestions for the first week was putting like, a headband, or like a hair band around your phone, or like an elastic band or something like that. So that when you pick up your phone, you have a physical reminder that you are trying not to use in. But yeah, I think maybe like you're right, being more specific about the alternative things I would want to do. And maybe choosing easy things at first. Yeah. Because I'm not sure that I have a good idea anymore. Other than an abstract of other things. Like when I have free time, that's not, you know, like a planned free time where I already have like an activity, like a class or a unit, or time with friends. I don't know if I have a good idea of what I want to be doing with that time.

Brandee Nichols  16:58  
Yeah, that sounds like a good, a good starting place. Like your why, or your goal with it. Which leads me to one of the questions we talked about. Before recording, what would success look like to you?

Hannah  17:09  
Honestly, I would really love to bring those numbers down. I feel like that is a lot.

Brandee Nichols  17:17  
I mean, that's a good like measurable. I don't really think we're talking about one. I don't really like the like smart goals thing. To me. That's a little too. I don't know, it's not my favorite. But that is a very easily measurable thing. Yeah. I mean, because we're gonna have another episode. We're like, alright, Hannah, one of those numbers. Yeah.

Hannah  17:37  
Yeah. I mean, really, I would love to bring it all the way down. But the thing is, I say like, I want to bring it down to say under three hours a day, like have that be an upper limit. But that already feels like so much when I added up, like 21 hours a week.

Brandee Nichols  17:57  
I think it's tricky to just look at the numbers, because like you said, it is different things. It's reading using maps, things then listening to music. How do you feel about a goal of just less, because I think that's part of what what I don't like about the SMART goals is I want to bring it down to lesson three. And if you don't like you fail to like you haven't made any changes yet. Here you are spending like an hour or more a day, or 45 more minutes a day, you know, studying for your Spanish exam or whatever else you want to work on. Spend your time doing. That is still progress. And if we're just doing this over the next few months, yeah.

Hannah  18:31  
I mean, I find it harder to accept that. I know what you're saying. I think you're probably right. But there's something in me that like, oh, so maybe it could be like a combo goal. Maybe I could be like, which already feels like a lot. Maybe I could say I want to reduce, like whatever what was my lowest time last week? What was that like four and a half hours. I want that to be like an upper limit. Okay. And maybe that I want to, like implement some kind of habit, for example, around like finishing the work day. Maybe like what we were saying like that when I finish my work day to put my phone away for an hour and do something else with that time.

Think like an emotional check into, like, if you're feeling better about it, there's more negativity around the phone usage.

So what would you recommend being on like that emotional check in like, do

Brandee Nichols  19:32  
you mean would you say, What are you suggesting like something like, weekly to like try and know just even like kind of looking at the next few months or when I mean to check in when we have like the check in episodes, but also even like at the end? Like like when you compare how you feel about your phone usage? Yeah. And versus like now, has there been a shift?

Hannah  19:56  
Yeah, that makes sense. Because I right now, I mean, I think you can hear it. I feel Yeah, negative. I feel like embarrassed as well. It's like a kind of like a shame reaction there. You know, I'm like, oh my goodness, it feels really embarrassing for me to like, share those numbers. You know? Because it, I don't know, I feel like I've had those conversations before and friends like, oh, yeah, I like use my phone so much. And they're like, Oh, I've like used it for like three hours. And I'm like, Oh, my goodness. Like, there's like a comparison there. Yeah. Which I know isn't helpful. And I know, there's plenty of other people like me as well.

Brandee Nichols  20:35  
But yeah, it would be good to feel like more intention around my phone use. So yeah, I think looking at those three things that fewer hours spent, new habit formed, and like an emotional check. And like,

I think, putting all three of those, like, we'll look at all three of those. And it's not going to be like a pass fail, like, not going to rate ourselves on. We're just checking to see what progress we've made. And then maybe we'll continue the series. Or maybe we'll do you know, around to different thing.

Hannah  21:10  
Yeah, I mean, in terms of, because I don't know, if I really mentioned it, just as this is our, like, first episode with this sort of new idea. But I think for me, in terms of like, this, like changing my phone habit, I feel like would make my life like it would make me help me live more sustainably, in terms of like, sustainably is like, a way that I like, consistently want to try and live my life, you know, because I think I hope that it would give me more space to try new habits like to try new things. And just also practice being more intentional. Because, as well with using the phone so much, and I feel like I get, like many of us, I get a lot of information very passively. Which that, you know, there's a lot of good things about in the, in some ways, there's a lot of good things about like the way, like getting information through the internet, and like, you know, kind of open your like in social media, and it can kind of open your mind to a lot of different options that you wouldn't have considered before, following people who you really value. But I would also like to kind of explore, to more intentionally explore things that are important to me, rather than kind of feeling like allowing myself just to be sort of like buffeted by like, this is the thing that's like, in fashion right now. So everyone's talking about this, and you know, and then it's this thing and

Brandee Nichols  22:36  
information is coming to you versus you finding the information in our minds is a absolute add on sleep. It's like, forget the article we used for that. But it said something like when you're too tired. It changes the decisions you make and like maybe like what you eat more fast food and like transportation, but also like having the mental energy to like read a book about climate change, or, you know, the intersectionalities of it, et cetera. Yeah,

Hannah  22:59  
that's actually I don't I didn't mention it. But like, that's another factor with the phone use. I like really struggled to get to sleep. I don't know if we've talked about that before on the podcast. But some of that is like I find myself on my phone late at night. A lot. And that can also be a lot of like that phone usage time. Yeah. So that would also be a hope to like be able to sleep better. Yeah.

Brandee Nichols  23:25  
There's an energy usage component to them, where you're using your phone and when the battery is draining, and the more you're charging it, right, using more electricity. Yeah. All right. So we're about five minutes zoom warning, because we're in the free zoom 40 minute limit. All right. How do you feel about what we talked about today? What are your next steps? What's your next step going to be? I think you mentioned exploring your why a bit more like what you want to? Yeah,

Hannah  23:53  
I think, yeah, I think I'm going to do that. And I think I like that there's to that specific goal I already mentioned about trying to change a behavior pattern, like when I'm getting home from work, or when I'm finishing my day when I'm working from home. So yeah, I think I'm gonna spend a little bit more time today. I'm exploring that actually, because I do have some free time today. And yeah, and I feel good about those three goals we mentioned.

Brandee Nichols  24:22  
But the quick recap. And it's giving us a phone list and we're gonna measure it by your well by when

Hannah  24:27  
I have yeah, by the amount of hours on the app, by which I want to reduce to like below their lowest usage by replacing like finding a habit that I want to replace, and then the emotional like how I feel about my phone use.

Brandee Nichols  24:46  
Sounds good. And then the next episode or the next check in, which will be in I don't know, I think two or three episodes. Not really sure yet. will be this new thing you want to replace the end of like your new end of Workday habit? Yeah. I think just deciding what that is. That sounds like a good first

Hannah  25:01  
Yeah. Or I mean, yeah. Or, or if I do start doing it like seeing how it's going. Yep. Anyone?

Brandee Nichols  25:08  
What's come up? Sounds good. Cool. All right, the next check in Update, and the next episode will be what I'm working on over and over this experimental season. So stay tuned for that. All right. All right. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thanks for listening. Oh, and any links mentioned we'll put in the description. We don't have a full website anymore where you can go to the show notes. But any important links will be in the description below in the podcast player listening to and if I do end up putting this on YouTube and the YouTube description below. So

Hannah  25:44  
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Tea on Sustainable Living. Now go share it with a friend, a co worker, a partner, a family member, 

Brandee Nichols  25:54  
your cat, someone on the street, whoever you think could use a little more support on their sustainability journey, share it.

Hannah  26:00  
You can send them over to our website theteaonsustainableliving.com or find us on Instagram @theteaonsustainableliving. 

Brandee Nichols  26:08  
Until next time. Tea you later. Get it? Tea you later? As in, see you later? So punny...

Hannah  26:13  
Brandee...

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