How to practice stillness by sidelining your smart…

Transcript

So if you're getting ready to move towards retirement and you want to check out how ready you are for sort of being still with yourself, one of the things you can do is get away from your smartphone for a little bit. One of the things I did, I started doing it when I would go to my shop. I'd be up there working and I'd get a text and I'd have to take off my welding helmet and my gloves and get out my phone. And it would just be some, you know, like FYI from somebody or whatever. And so, but I didn't want to be unavailable if the kids needed something or Amy needed something. So I just forwarded my smartphone to one of these guys. You know, some people call it a feature phone. But it's just a, it's just a not smartphone. And Amy calls it my burner affectionately. And then I realized though that having this in my pocket, I never got it out. Well, I did for a while. I got it out. I got a bunch. I kept pulling it out of my pocket like I was going to check TikTok or whatever. And then of course, flip that bad boy open and just sigh sadly and put it back. But it helped break the cycle of me getting my phone out all the time. So then I decided I'm going to go a week without my smartphone and I'm just going to carry my burner around. And it was pretty enlightening. Like I caught myself sometimes sneaking into the house, turning on my smartphone, taking a couple of little sips off of the various. Socials, turning it back off and going back to my burner. But if you want to practice just being quiet and not trying to sort of distract your thoughts, pick up one of these little burners. You can get them at like any big box for 25 bucks and, you know, get a just a cheap plan. Forward your phone to it so that and then you can just tell your kids and your family like, hey, if it's an emergency, call me, don't text me. And that way the calls will still come to you. But but you won't have the texts. And you're going to be able to get the calls. And you're going to be able to get the calls. And and you won't feel like you have that phone to just go to all the time. It was enlightening for me and might help you as well.