Phone Patrol!

If I polled my immediate group of friends, my professional colleagues and the parents who bring their children to our practice about this, I bet that 99% of them would answer this question same way: What is the first thing you do after you wake up?

That’s right. The majority of us check our phones. Still under the covers, still bleary-eyed, sometimes still half-asleep. How does this habit change the way we start our day? I’ve been giving it some thought, so I’ll speak for myself here:

1. Emails, texts, and social media hijack my thought process. Because, as soon as I open my eyes, I’m pulled to respond to others’ questions, priorities, political rants, headlines, and work-related task lists, my mind is already off and running in all different directions.
2. I derail any inspiration, insight, and reflection that can occur when my mind is refreshed and quiet, even for a few minutes, when I first wake up.
3. Time for morning stretches, walking the dog, making a healthy breakfast (the list goes on) often goes out the window because I’ve used that time mucking around on my phone.
4. I have to remind myself that my Inbox is someone else’s to-do list, not mine. I’m the master of my fate, right? If I want to block out an hour in the morning (after the kids/spouse are off to school/work) to read, sit and stare into space while I drink my coffee or listen to music then that’s my prerogative, even if I’m at the office when I’m doing it.
5. Lately, letting the world’s problems flood my psyche first thing just doesn’t feel good. I’m going to start a morning moratorium on checking the news on my phone for at least the first hour after I get up.
6. If I want to attend to work or personal issues that require sustained focus, strategic thinking or contemplation I want to devote my early morning rejuvenated brain power to those things before I dive into my Inbox.

So, here’s my goal: Rather than plugging in and charging my phone on my night table I’m going to plug it in across the room, on my dresser instead. I’m going to come up with