Halfway there.

How does 2025 find you mid-year?

“This is up to you.”

The caption above is what grabbed me. It makes it painfully clear: when New Year’s Eve rolls around, the year I’ll be reflecting on is up for grabs RIGHT NOW. I literally hold the potential to invest in the life I want… or carry “this is done” defeatism into summer, fall and winter like a sack of rocks.

So do you.

And if I’m honest with myself, the #1 thing at odds with my goals right now is my phone. My screen time report is horrifying. The rectangle of doom calls to me constantly and I answer like a junkie.

What awaits me there: a news stream of political malfeasance, beauty products targeting the million ways I’m unsightly, and posts from people I forget ever meeting.

I’ve decided I want to make a change. And I’m telling you to:

a). keep myself honest

b). possibly inspire you to do the same

Rather than trust myself to self-regulate, I’m going to declare certain time periods as phone-free. For starters, I’m aiming for 9-12 and 4-7 pm. During those hours, I’ll have my phone charging in my upstairs bathroom. I’ll keep track of how many times I instinctively reach for my back pocket and how my mood shifts from less screen-time.

Why it matters

The average American spends 7 hours and 3 minutes on screens (with 5+ hours being on iphone screens). If we reduced that even 10%, that’s five found hours a week. In creative terms, that’s an eternity. You could make a home-cooked meal every night with that time. Get most of the way through a great book. Learn a new song on the piano. So much of creativity is done with our hands and I hate that I let my phone become a Chinese finger trap.

Who’s with me? Let me know in the comments below. Or, if you’ve got another goal to mark mid-year, I wanna hear about it.

Until next time, remember that creativity knows no bounds.

(Calendar graphic by Carlos Abatella)