Have you ever had a day where you felt that you haven't checked your phone in hours, yet you were ok with that? It sure feels good to get lost in a day of activity and to totally disconnect from technology.

​Why don't we do this more often? There could be a number of reasons holding us back. From waiting for an instant message or reply, to checking in on friends far away virtually, or nabbing the latest sale....I could go on. The worst one is boredom or killing time doing 'research'. I couldn't tell you how many hours I have spent researching the best sales, deals, flights, gifts, or social media images (ummm I admit it took me over a half an hour to do up that pretty little image up top). In the end it makes us feel drained, unsatisfied and more disconnected than before we started.

​Now imagine if we put that energy into something else like playing with the kids or pets, a face to face lunch or even a quick road trip sans phone *gasp*! What? Leave on a road trip without your phone? But what if our car breaks down or we have an emergency? Well generations before us survived these events without much inconvenience, or at the least it makes for a great story. Why not give it a try? Besides the worst case these days is you flag down someone else to borrow their phone and simply explain you were taking a technology vacation.

If taking a road trip without your phone sounds a bit risky to start with then here are a few other ideas to try taking a break and untethering yourself even more from your smart phone;

• ​Plan a weekly family tech free date. Play board games, go for a walk, whatever you enjoy doing as a family.
• Leave your phone behind on your lunch break and take a walk.
• Use do not disturb and put your phone away after the kids are asleep, I promise there are still plenty of things to do around the house.

​Some of you may never intentionally leave the house without your phone but that's ok. Scientists are researching cell phone addictions, 'FOMO' (fear of missing out), and anxiety to better understand our relationships with cell phones in this day and age. There is even a label now for the fear of leaving your phone at home called 'nomophobia'. You can read some new research here at Scientific America.

Whatever your relationship with your phone is, it is important to keep up face time (no not the apple video chat app). I mean keep trying to untether and unplug from your devices as much as possible to stay connected to the people and things going on around you. Smile at a stranger on a walk. Listen to the sounds of nature. Have meaningful conversations with the people around you uninterrupted by phone alerts.

​Keep your faces up, not buried in a screen, and you may be surprised at what you discover.

read the first post here on untethering

This doesn't mean I deleted my personal Facebook account, but I have deleted Facebook and some other annoying apps from my phone. I must admit it is a freeing feeling! I am less depressed no longer seeing how many things others I know have accomplished (I am proud of you all, but I don't see the blood sweat and tears you shed to get that perfect Facebook/Instagram worthy picture or completed project 'Brag' post right?). I also don't waste as much brain numbing time scrolling through nonsense ads, reposts or 'interesting' news (otherwise known as click-bait), or funny videos that sucked away precious time spent with my family. I now am more purposeful when I log into Facebook and look at specific family and friends updates and posts. Then I make sure to log out to make the enticement of mind numbing scrolling less accessible! I now log in only once or twice PER WEEK! This is a great improvement over the multiple times PER DAY I used to waste on 'virtual friends'. I do really care about my friends still but I prefer face to face time. BONUS if it's face to face time going for walks or other healthy activities!

So goodbye Facebook App! I will NOT be missing you or your notifications or constant red alert badges. Farewell. Adios. Good riddance! 

Disclaimer; I still have my Facebook Pages App to check in on my readers! The push notifications are turned off though so I am not as quick to reply as in the past ;) 

It has now been a week since I turned off my push notifications. It has been a bit better, but I still see these pesky red 'notification Badges' when I'm on my phone. Turns out there is no real easy way to turn these off.

For iPhone ios users you can go into each app individually and change the notificiation settings. That's a bit time consuming if you have a lot of apps that use Badges.

​For android users it looked like going into the Badges app and Force Stopping would work, but that was short lived as the next notification on Facebook I received just reset it (without the ability to disable Badges at all...hmmmmm). So for now I have moved my social media apps to the last screen on my phone because it is the one I flip past and to the least. This should deter me from app checking and clearing those pesky red circles at least for a while. Maybe the next step is deleting *gasp* and removing these time draining apps all together.
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Well I finally did it. I committed to turning off ALL push notifications from apps on my phone. After following 'Becoming Unbusy' on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/becomingunbusy/) and after starting to read 'Last Child In The Woods' (http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/) I realised that technology takes up too much of my time these days (probably one reason I haven't found time to schedule new content or links on Facebook lately). This is only step 1 of a three step process to untethering myself from my phone.

​I embark on this journey with trepidation because blogging means keeping up with things and people right? Well not to worry my dear friends as I will still check in, it just may not be as often or as quickly 'at the drop of a hat' so to speak. I'm also heading on a vacation on which I don't want to be tied to my phone so I figure now is as good a time as any to try this first step out in becoming less tethered. Wish me luck!