From Screen Time to Brick Time: An Online Journey

A year ago, I tossed and turned in bed at night trying to fall asleep feeling like my head was a fuzzy, buzzing mess.

I couldn't stop replaying moments from my day -- an annoying text I got from someone, a reel I saw on Instagram about an earthquake that destroyed an entire community -- and worrying about what would come tomorrow.

The next day, I woke up to my weekly screen time report:

"This week, you averaged 8 hours per day of screen time on this device."

Holy WHAT'D YOU SAY?!

EIGHT HOURS?!

That's longer than I slept last night.

I could get to Paris faster than that.

There's this funny thing that happens when you own an online business, Reader.

We can easily justify all time spent online as time "working."

But what I didn't know then that I know now is that so much of that time I was spending "online" wasn't only unnecessary doomscrolling, but it was actually hurting my business' growth.

Over the past year, I've completely reshaped my relationship with my phone and my screen time overall.

And not just so I could be more productive offline. I've really reevaluated how I spend my time in general and have worked really hard to wrestle my attention span and ability to be present back from the algorithm.

It's no accident my business grew a lot this year.

It's doing better than ever... when everyone's saying everything's dying, business is dead, and nothing online works anymore.

I'm not hustling harder to make the business doing better. I'm actually hustling a lot less.

The difference now? When I work, I work on things that matter: this newsletter, big picture marketing strategy, reaching out for podcast interviews, planning and writing my own content that I actually have the mental space to sit down and creatively approach.

By removing all the wasted time on social media -- time I would have called "work" before -- I've also let my nervous system chill out enough that it doesn't always feel like it's being chased by a rabies-infested tiger.

All this to say, I know you feel like you have to do more, more, more to grow.

But maybe it's not about doing more. It's about doing less... better. About taking care of yourself as a business owner enough to actually come up with great ideas. Or to have the energy and desire to shoot a video.

Maybe try to see what happens when you comb through your to-do list to focus on quality > quantity. I'm curious what will happen.

OK given that I ratted myself out for 8 hours a day of screen time last year, I've got to tell you...

I've had my phone Bricked for the last 36 days STRAIGHT. Here's the receipt:

I got this little Brick device [affiliate link] that goes on your fridge. You choose which apps you want to "brick" (aka, block) by physically tapping your phone to the Brick (adding some physical friction to you reaching for social media). It also has a really cool scheduling feature where you can Brick apps at/from a certain time without tapping, and you can only undo it by tapping it.

For 36 days, I haven't had Instagram on my phone.

Honestly, I'm sort of scared of how good its felt. Can we really run online businesses without being on social media? Is there a happy medium, like what I've struck? (I batch record and have my social team post my content, but I've sacrificed doing Stories or being up on the trends and accept the consequences of not doing so for now.)

I'm curious how you're feeling about your screen time and relationship with social media these days. Does your relationship with social media/screen time make you not want to be in online business anymore?

Can't wait to hear from you. Hit "reply" and let me know. I read and reply to each of you.

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