Digital Minimalization for Entrepreneurs | Kelsey Green

This is The Chris Project, where we discuss mental wellness, self-awareness, and mindset with entrepreneurs and experts. Set your perceived ideas and biases aside and let's go on our journey for yourself, for your family, for the world.

Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, the eponymous Kelsey Greene. Kelsey, welcome to the program.

Thank you, Christian. I am delighted to be here.

You giggled at my use of the word eponymous.

It's an impressive word. It's great. I like it.

My lawyer friend would say that's a $2 word. I don't know that you— maybe they're thinking Wheel of Fortune, but $2 doesn't sound right there either. I don't know how you put a dollar amount on a word.

Maybe it's like a $2 bill, so it's special and rare.

That may have been what he was alluding to. I don't know. Kelsey, what is your CV background? Why are you on the show? Like, what, what do you bring to the table?

Yes, thank you for that introduction. My name is Kelsey Green and my background is in environmental conservation and I worked in both my master's and my undergrad I received in that field. I worked as a wildlife biologist out in the field for many years. That was super fun. And then transitioned like a lot of people do on that path into the office. I was working on funding projects, um, grant programs. I was working in nonprofits. And the short story for the career side is that I found myself, like lots of people, in total burnout mode. Just really, really feeling like, gosh, is this really what we live for, to work this much? And in my case, because I was working for a certain kind of nonprofit, I was also really not making enough money to pay the rent and stuff. So it's a pretty fancy way to stay poor sometimes, nonprofits. But really just had no boundaries for my work life, no work-life balance. The deadlines were things like Sunday night at midnight, and I would answer, take calls no matter what I was doing, who I was with. And that, you know, started to really show in my life. In parallel to that, I was working on addressing some deep trauma, and that was definitely a path that required a good amount of work and energy. And these things really compounded each other, and I found myself in a pretty serious kind of rock bottom, emotional rock bottom. I was having some serious health issues. I was in that deep trauma space. I was struggling financially because of the little teeny bits of money I was making, but I was working so, so much, doing high-level work. And it was COVID. So, you know, all these things kind of combined into one big, huge, mushy soup of despair.

You were not alone at that time of— our humanity. Lots of people were spared.

Oh, it's terrible. Uh, collective traumatic event for sure. Interestingly, it may have been one of the only things that helped me finally address some deep trauma because we obviously were so isolated and I didn't have some of my normal coping mechanisms like being super busy, packing my schedule just full of shit, you know, like I had gotten so good at doing. I did transition my drinking just to drinking inside my house. That didn't really change. But I did finally, you know, have that space to address some of the stuff. So I'm not sure how it would have gone otherwise, but obviously, all these other aspects of that time were just horrific. So, yeah. And then to bring us to present day, I worked pretty dang hard to dig myself out of that hole. And you know, that happened through, through lots of different types of work. But one very critical piece of work that I do is managing my digital consumption. Mm-hmm. So following a digital minimalism path, which I know we'll talk about at some point, is not as scary as it sounds. But really it means having intention around, you know, your digital use. And this probably isn't going to come as a surprise to anyone, but the impacts to our lives, our brains, our relationships can be vast in a negative way. So there we are.

Thank you. So do you think absent COVID, you would have addressed these issues in your life or no?

I mean, I like to think so. Yes, I hope. I don't, I don't love the idea that this pandemic that killed so many people helped me personally, you know. So I like to think that, um, I just, I honestly, I was on a path that could have ended in not being alive. So, um, It's— I guess it's tough to know. I, I like to think I would have done it regardless.

You use the word coping, and I find that an interesting word. So when, when you use the word coping, what, what does that mean? I mean, I know, like, the clinical definition, but like the way you're using it, what does that word mean to you?

Yeah, that's a good question. Thank you. Well, in this case, what I, the way I use that word is similar to buffering. Some people are confused by the term buffering, so sometimes I just say coping. But these are actions that you take in your life to not have to address the hard stuff. So for me, it was drinking, which is funny because obviously alcohol doesn't help anyone's mental state, right?

Or physical state. Not my experience, no.

Yeah. So that actually can make things just like worse on the daily. But anyway, at the time it sure seems like it's helping. Uh, so that, uh, as I mentioned, being super duper duper busy, uh, people pleasing, you know, all these buffering strategies, um, not saying what was on my mind, not speaking up, um, all that kind of stuff to sometimes these are necessary to help you get through the day. Um, and, and your life. Um, but these are things that need to be addressed. And just to bring up a point salient to our conversation today, buffering these days can absolutely look like just kicking it, um, on your couch watching Netflix, scrolling social media for 6 hours every night before you just go to bed with your brain so frazzled out that like you don't sleep well and then have to do the same thing the next day after you take some uppers to get through your workday.

Yes, but I'm not going to stop using caffeine or nicotine. So I— the reason why coping stuck out to me is— and I like your definition. I like the buffering. I think that entrepreneurs don't have good coping mechanisms. And I think oftentimes they use the business as a coping mechanism.

Oh, yeah.

Which is dangerous on a lot of levels. And can be very destructive. But to your, to your point of the definition, it, the business allows us to avoid a lot of things. Yeah, right. Um, and so whatever your buffering of choice, your coping of choice, your addiction of choice, whatever label you want to put it on, uh, put on it, you're, you're avoiding the feelings that you don't want to have and doing the work that you need to do. Which entrepreneurs are not unique in that. Every, you know, every person has things that they avoid and things that they need to work on about themselves. So it's not that entrepreneurs are special, it's just they have a tool that other people don't. And that tool is like a Swiss Army knife in that You can find infinite ways to use your business to cope. And it's socially acceptable and sometimes actually financially productive. So, like, it could seem like, hey, I'm doing a good thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. So back to coping and specifically digital, what, what have you discovered?

Yes, well, Christian, I would like to just table that great question just to address your point first. Um, it's— it is such a good point because I started my business because I needed to make some more money, and I really needed that ability to control my time such that I could put more amounts of hours into the mental health work. And that is what happened for, for a little bit of time because I was all of a sudden free to manage my own schedule. So I had not been able to go to therapy at a time that worked for, you know, a lot of the therapists. I had not been able to go to work out yoga. I hadn't been able to do a morning routine, all this stuff. And, and finally I was. And so that did work, but I also did fall into some of those same traps that entrepreneurs can, which is, to your great point, that I've known a lot of people who have used their business as a crutch, as a distraction, as an avoidance tool to not have to deal with some of this stuff in their life. But to your, this is such a critical point, is that just like busyness, just like being super responsive on your phone, it can be glorified in our current society to look like a badge of honor, right? That you are hustling, making money, always on your phone, always really busy, all this stuff. And that can be tough to extract yourself from when it is seen— it can make you feel really important. Ooh, I'm so in demand, I can't even keep up with all these phone calls. And I've met a lot of people who can't manage their calendar and they seem to think that makes them that did that seems like a really important person, which is so interesting because I feel like a person that can't manage their calendar that feels out of control is like just an out-of-control person. Like, it doesn't matter how important or busy you are, you know, or how many meetings you, you know, if you can't control it, you can't control it, right? Anyway, it's controlling you.

Yeah, I was having a conversation with an entrepreneur just last night and he was talking about he had gone to spring break with his family And they were in the pool. He was throwing the football with his son. And there was another dad and son there doing the same thing. And the guy had his phone propped up on the umbrella in the pool. Right. And my friend went and finally asked him, like, what are you doing on here? And he was like, well, I'm building an app with AI. And I'm like, oh sure, okay. Turns out he was a dentist and he's creating this app to show before and after of like dental reconstruction, right? And one of the things I was thinking about as he was telling that story was, one, that's a waste of time, uh, but two, uh, I, I was, I was thinking Wow, like you're on vacation with your kid in the pool in Mexico, I think, um, and you're on your— you're doing work, right? Doesn't matter, the phone being involved is irrelevant. You're doing work, right? It could— I mean, the reality is, for me personally, my, my experience, it could be that I'm just— my head's at work. I'm thinking about work. I'm putting energy to it, right? What have you missed? What have you lost? How you weren't present there with your family, with your son, what impacts does that make?

Yeah. Oh, these stories just break my heart. It used to just, like we were talking about before we started the interview, it used to just annoy me. Like, I'd just be kind of annoyed. And now it actually makes me very sad. I just, I feel sad. I feel sad. That this is the way that things are going and it's so accepted. Oh my gosh, I just want to throw that guy's phone in the pool for that kid right now. Anyway, okay. Uh, and you know, Christian, you made a good point too that I think is good to call out, and that is that sometimes you're, you know, you don't have to be on your phone, your brain can be at work. And okay, you know, we all struggle sometimes to manage our brains, right? But what's interesting is that the more deeply you fall into digital addiction with your phone, the more that you let yourself check it hundreds of times a day, the more that you're actually thinking about your phone when you're trying to connect with people. And this is something— this is one of the reasons I make, usually later on in the chat, but that, that this is important work to push against this, this addiction to a phone always present. It's not just because you're actually on your phone when you're with, you know, other people trying to connect or do whatever. It's that your brain's actually wired to just be thinking about your phone all the time.

Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, you see people that can't find their phones and it's like an existential crisis. Like, and I, I guess, I guess I, I think what might be helpful for me and the audience is defining what that looks like. So what, what is healthy versus unhealthy behavior?

Yeah. So this is dependent on the person. Of course, there's not really just one size fits all, but I will point out a resource. This is Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Cal Newport is a wonderful thinker in this realm, and he's a computer guy. He's a computer science-y professor guy, right? So he's deep in it, and he believes so strongly. This is not a new phenomenon. We see a lot of these tech bros, these, you know, super tech people that are inventing this stuff say like, ooh, yeah, I don't touch that stuff. Like, I don't let my kids touch it, right? Because they know how detrimental it can be. And I'm going to cleave this conversation apart from the ChatGPT, the AI land, but I'll just say like, you know, that that's a whole different thing. But people are starting to note very quickly, the research is showing that this is really negatively impacting our brains. Okay, so what does it look like to put some of these practices in place? First, I'll say that when we talk about digital minimalism, it doesn't mean stomp your computer into pieces and throw your phone in the pool, right? It's— and never use the technology. It's not really even possible anymore, unfortunately. The last time I took a flight, it had been a little while, and I realized they, they almost make you have your boarding pass on your phone. Like, I want my paper boarding pass. I wanna carry that thing around and like give it to somebody, you know? Uh, so. This is just the reality these days, right? Now sometimes we have to order food on our phones. I just hate that. Um, but okay, so fine, you know, it's here to stay. And obviously as entrepreneurs, you know, we need to leverage a lot of these tools, and there are lots of cool apps and tools that can help save us time and not have to be on our phones as much. Okay, so having said all of that, some of the this is like pragmatic land here. Some of the stuff that we can do is, first of all, mindset shift around the concept. And, you know, there's a couple strategies probably for lots of ways to change habits and change behavior. There's the, that the actions, really kind of white-knuckling the actions. And then there is looking at it in a holistic way, conceptual way around, you know, what kind of person do you want to be? You know, how do you want to show up in the world? What's going to be important on your deathbed? Cliché stuff, you know, but we talk about it for a reason. Do you want to be the dad that's— that was on your phone building a shitty app that no one's going to care about, uh, when you're with your kids in Mexico? Like, or do you want to be the dad that's like present, right? Right. So, yeah. Okay. So that's why this book is great, Digital Minimalism, because he talks about looking at your digital use. The concept is so simple. Does your digital use support your core values or not? Right? So if you look at what are your core values, is it community? You know, is it personal growth? Is it wellness, family, whatever it is? However you state that, are your tools or the ways that you're showing up in the digital space, the time you're spending, does that support it? You know, and, or not. And can the actions that you're taking in that space be supportive of those core values in the world? And can you then let go of all the other stuff?

Yeah, because I think about my, I'm gonna be vulnerable here. Android gives me a weekly report of how much screen time I've had. And it's, it's pretty consistent around 2 to 2.5 hours a day, which always boggles my mind because I'm like, I don't, I don't see how, right? But I know for a fact that there is a pattern of behavior where I will go and I'll check my email, I'll check the Slack, I'll go to maybe LinkedIn, I might check a couple of different news sites, and if I'm really bored, I'll look at my news feed for additional stories. But to your point, why am I doing that? Well, largely it's because I'm bored. And I find this interesting dynamic as a Gen Xer that I try to imagine, remember what it was like before. And I can't.

It's a fun exercise.

I literally can't because I think about like, okay, we're all going to meet up at the arcade on Friday at 7:00 AM and you show up at the arcade and no one's there. What did we do? Like, I know we did something. I know there was some way we communicated and we found out and we got together, but I don't know how, right? And I think about the vast majority of time that I had as a youth that was unstructured. Like, I know that I did something. It was probably outside with friends. Involving my bike or, you know, something, building a treehouse. I don't know. But to me, the insidiousness of the digital is the ease of it, right? Like, you don't have to do anything to get that dopamine fix, as opposed to, well, I'm going to just go take a walk, right? Like, taking a walk doesn't take any effort. I mean, but it's a hell of a lot more effort than, you know, opening up your phone, right?

Yeah, I love your example because I was just thinking that same thing. I was thinking about in 2007, pre-cell phone— that already existed, but no one gave a shit about cell phones back then, you know. I didn't have one, and I met up with friends in Spain, in Barcelona. We met at the train station. We were all coming from different parts of Spain,. And I had this thought, how the hell did we actually pull that off?

Right.

But we had no problem doing it. And like, you know, if someone's a day delayed, you just sort of like figured it out. And it is hard to remember how, right? And I was just writing a colleague from graduate school this morning. I went to grad school in the UK and, and we had phones, but again, it, the, you know, the landscape really changed with the invention of the smartphone or the smartphone entering the market, like 2010s, right? And that was like just about when I was, you know, in graduate school. And I said to him, I'm so grateful that smartphones weren't really a thing yet because our cohort was so tight together. And I, you know, you hear so much about how this is changing in dynamics of groups and relationships and people connecting. And I'm just, oh, I'm so, I'm glad to be our age that we remember a time time before this because if, you know, for the parents out there, um, the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, it'll scare the shit out of you. I don't even have kids and it scared me to death for young people and just the stuff that they are facing in terms of the development of their social skills and brains and ability to create resilience in their lives and connect with other people. I mean, it's just, it's heartbreaking. Hm. So to your point, Christian, about the ease and the unearned dopamine is what we call it sometimes, where, oh, things that may give you dopamine, um, you know, pre-scrolling time, um, pre-just deep, you know, deep state Netflixing, whatever. Um, hobbies, gardening, baking bread, you know, going on a walk, talking to people. Um, creating things, all, you know, the things that you can do to create that dopamine, earn that in your body is really different from these quick, sharp hits of dopamine that you get from, from scrolling, which we know has been modeled after slot machines. So I, you know, no judgment, but I, um, you know, just don't, I'm like, I don't got no extra money to spend in casinos. Right. And so I'm not, I'm not, I, I can't imagine myself going and sitting in front of slot machines. That seems like, oh gosh, that's, that'd be a bummer way to spend a day. But, but like all of us are just doing that same thing on our phones, scrolling social media and to, to tie it back into the entrepreneurship piece, you know, um, again, for the average person doing this for their, their personal, you know, lives, use, whatever, they can justify that maybe for whatever reasons, but it's very, very easy for the business owner to justify it and not just social media, the constant email checking. The constant responding on text and taking calls and, and all these things.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think about the number of times I actually get a message after hours versus the times I check it. I mean, it's ridiculous. It makes no sense. I think in my life, the, the easiest way to change a behavior is to replace it with something.

Mm-hmm.

You— I mean, It's to me, it's very hard to just subtract without something filling that void. So, you know, but I think you— for people to think that this is all about, you know, phones, it really is not about phones. I think you can go back to television. Frankly, as the beginning of the addiction, maybe even radio, but, but, but certainly, certainly TV. I listened to at the very— it was like right after ChatGPT came to market. I was at a conference where a neuroscientist spoke and he was talking about— so, so LLMs had had no impact. Right, at this point.

Remember those days?

Right? And his statement was that there's a test that they give all incoming Army enlisted men to assign them their education level. And back in the '40s— it's been the same test for like 70 years they've been using. Back in the '40s, uh, it was— people were coming in at like a 10th grade, um, average. Um, 4 years ago it had dropped to 8th grade. Now, what caused that? And his, his hypothesis was we stopped reading, um, because of the way the brain processes things. Yeah. Uh, even though you're reading with your eyes, reading versus watching video, uh, is distinctly different in the brain.

Yes.

And that was his simple solution, was read, write about what you read, uh, read things that you don't normally read. If you don't normally read poetry, read poetry, you know.

Um, I like that.

Yeah, I, I, I, I read a lot. Yeah, I, I tend to read the same types of things, and that's probably And I don't write about it. Like, I probably should do that. So what hacks do you have? What things to replace the behavior with?

Yeah, well, I— well, I just fully agree with you on the reading thing. I don't think content is the problem or learning or even entertainment. Yeah, I also— I read a lot of fiction and I read a lot of, you know, self-help books and I'm trying to break into more Yeah, just different types, different genres, right? So reading is just, as to your point, very different from these quick changes, these quick shots that are coming at you. And now it's just, I do think though, it's quite a different ballgame from these like half-hour sitcom shows to the way that AI is going to change how fast our brain is meant to be processing all of this information in like, a given movie or whatever. That, of course, you know, now our attention spans are just like, ooh, shrinky shrinky shrinky.

Did you read about— this is in the last few months— how, uh, Netflix was telling their, their writers to dumb down the scripts so people could be watching their phones and watching Netflix because they can't follow the plot because they're not watching it? I know, right?

And I just saw for the first time, um, 'cause I'm pretty careful about my consumption and I'll talk about what I do in a sec, but I just saw this new thing that there's QR codes on like screens now on TVs and movies and stuff. I just saw that for the first time and I thought, holy shit, wow, they're anticipating that everyone is also on their phone at the same time. So the double screen is now becoming the thing that is even worse than—

It's wild. And I get mad at my wife 'cause we'll watch about an hour of TV every night and she'll be on her phone and she'll miss something because she wasn't watching and then she's just listening. And then she'll ask a question. I'm not telling you if you're not going to watch it. I'm not going to fill you in.

Sorry. Yeah. So, oh, and, you know, I just to be clear, there's no judgment here. It's very easy to do this. And, you know, sometimes it's like, shit, you know, spend an hour just shameless scrolling, watching stuff, not paying attention, whatever. But anyway, to move into the practicality of what I work on. Um, you know, this kind of stuff is, is easy to fall into. It's tempting. And there's this fallacy that, that makes it easy to believe that if when you're tired, when your brain is tired, when you need a rest, that doing this kind of stuff is gonna be restful. So scrolling and Netflixing and, and whatever, there's this, this, this belief that that's going to give you rest and that's a nice way to recharge. This is absolutely incorrect. Your brain has to process so much stuff when you are especially double screening that this is not restful. This is hard work for your brain. Mm-hmm. And I'm not saying there's not a place for it, but just to note that the things that seem hard to your, to your earlier, um, point going for a walk, the things that I was talking about, the, the hobbies you can do with your hands. Creating, doing something, that just seems harder, right? Than, than kicking it on your phone. But these are the types of things that, that, you know, create the ability within yourself to process emotion, to, to recharge because you are, you are creating something, you're creating that dopamine within yourself that you've actually earned and to help you, you know, sleep better, right? And to just kind of feel better about your life, truly.

So I should take up crochet.

Oh yeah, yeah. Embroidering, crochet, knitting. Okay, so you asked about replacing things. Um, so to be honest, I, I do think that is a valid approach and for most people what they need to do. And I am really working on being okay with silence. With there being no replacements, with being in my own brain. And so for me, I'm, I'm trying to do that a little bit less because I just, I just really want to honor the, the ability and, and cultivate that skill again of just being still and present. Um, so here's what I'm working on: 7 PM to 7 AM, off, off of my phone and everyone's gonna freak out and say, blah, there's an emergency, do whatever. You know, you can set these call settings where, you know, your wife breaks through the call, you know, do not disturb. Any call that's repeated in 3 minutes breaks through, you know, all kinds of stuff, right? So, so you can get through that. But I, I generally have no notifications on anyway. No sound, certainly no pop-up lighty things going on other than a text and a call, uh, unless I'm like running an event or I'm expecting a call, you know, an important call, whatever, obviously. But the idea that I would have bleeping, blonging happening all day long, letting my attention be fractured from whatever I'm doing, it's just, it's nuts. I just can't imagine it. And it becomes so irritating when I hear other people's shit, you know, phones going off and it's just an ad or something.

The one that kills me is people that have the pop-up notifications for their email or Slack. And I'm like, that shit wouldn't, I mean, it's just constant. Like, how would you ever get anything done?

I don't know. Yeah. Right. And if you're talking to someone, even if your phone's out of sight, but it's still bleeping, of course you're thinking, what is it? I don't know. You know, I gotta check.

I miss it.

Yeah. So no notifications on to the extent that that is, you know, safe for you. If you're over the age of what, I don't know, 35, 40, you remember a time that we didn't have this and we all are still here living, right? So, so working on that and setting no screen times. And I will say, I'm, I'm not perfect at this. I'm, I got out of the habit and now I'm getting back into the habit because I go to bed early. So 7:00 PM for me is doable. I go to bed, you know, 8:30-ish. So if you go to bed at midnight, 7:00 PM is gonna be, you know, kind of a long, long time. But I go to bed earlier because I started getting off screens earlier. And right. And when your brain is not having to process all that blue light and all this stimulation, you just get tired earlier and you're also just kind of bored. So you just go to bed.

Right. Okay. I'm going to ask your unprofessional opinion to analyze my wife. She has to go to sleep with the TV on. And it's usually on some kind of murder show. I'm like, what the hell is wrong with you? Like, are you plotting my demise? Is that— no, but It's funny because I remember I would spend the night with my grandfather and my grandmother would go to sleep in the guest room and I'd sleep in the bed with him and he would fall asleep watching The Johnny Carson Show every single night. And I'd be laying there going like, I can't go to sleep. I can't go to sleep. And now, 50 years later, I'm in the same place.

Yeah. Well, I bet your wife is lovely and Oh, she is.

She puts up with me.

Lots of people have this thing where it's very comforting to kind of hear stuff in the background. And I get like, it seems funny, right? The murder show stuff. But like, I can totally understand that. So yeah, there's this, there's a book called Peak Mind and it talks about sometimes you're able to process things when there's something else going on. Like people that can, that work better when there's kind of this like, Shit's happening over here. And so this is a thing for sure. Um, I, yeah, that's—

I, I definitely— so she, she, you know, she and I have had— we've been married 33 years, we have talked about this. Uh, she says it helps her mind turn off. Like, if she's— if there's not noise there, then she starts thinking about things, right? Uh, I, I need noise. I don't need noise. I like noise while I'm working, and music. I like music, right?

Yeah.

Because it does help me focus. But going back to what you said, being comfortable in the silence is something that we as a culture have completely missed.

Yeah.

Like, I— and I'll tell you this, and this is something that's recent to me. And I don't know your faith background. But I have realized that when God speaks to me, it is in a very small voice. Very small, like, it would be really easy to miss. And I think about how many times I've been distracted by other things that I didn't hear it. Yeah. And so I'm really trying to be more intentional about being quiet, meaning I'm not talking, I'm not listening to anything except like the ambient noise. I mean, maybe you're outside and you're hearing birds or whatever, but like just being present with nothing.

Right.

I think we all need more of that.

Oh, couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. And I will say this is now a skill. This is like a skill, right? So it used to be the default. We'd all just be like staring at the wall like, shit, I'm bored. It's like, you know, there's nothing to do, whatever.

And now— Watching the fly.

Yeah. Like, you know, just, So this, this was the default before. Now it's a skill like you've gotta work on like any other skill. Like I'm just learning to lift in the gym and I'm like, this sucks. This is hard. I don't know how to do it. I feel awkward. It's uncomfortable, sucky. I don't wanna be here.

And people are looking at you.

Yeah. They think that, but there's actually, you know, no one's, no one gives a shit. Right.

Um, but that's what you think. People are looking, I'm, I'm, I look stupid. What am I doing?

Yeah. Oh my God. Um, so, so this is something to cultivate and I just, you know, a point I made earlier was that this seems maybe arbitrary or not worth your time. And it is so important. So important. You're talking about the voice of God. I, you know, this is something people can experience or their own, their own ability to process their emotions, their own good ideas. These kinds of things happen in silence. And one way to get to this, because if you go from, um, full-on screen addiction to trying to do what you're talking about, just kicking it in silence, that is hard. That is very hard. Um, as in a quick aside, I run these Screen Free Sunday challenges. It's a free challenge. It's just like it sounds, no screens on Sunday, which means for most people, no music either.

Woo.

That can like really like spin people out. Yeah. Right. Um, and I, you know, honestly, I thought at first this is gonna be so dumb. Like everyone can do this. Like no one needs a, to sign up for a challenge to have me send them emails to be like, come on, let's go like screen free. And it turns out no one can do it. Like, you know, not no one, there's people. Usually people who have been practicing this to some extent in their lives can do it, or that really want it, you know, and they're just gonna white knuckle it through. But you know, the step down approach I think is really good. So starting to put boundaries on how much time that you're spending on your phone, on screens. You talked earlier about looking at your. Your screen time. It also does shock me, like, wow. The other number I think that can really help people get motivated around this is their pickup amounts. How many times you've picked up your phone, which, which, uh, at least on iPhone that shows you that data as well. Holy shit. Shocking, shocking numbers. You know, you cannot remember picking up your phone that many times cuz you're just doing it on autopilot. So looking at those numbers and then, and then trying to step it down, so. If you are used to watching Netflix all the time, try to step it down to less Netflix, more podcasts, right? And then, and I'm, I'm never gonna say cut out podcasts, like, you know, we love podcasts here obviously, but if you are like, I, so once I stepped it down from watching streaming so much, then I was like, all I listen to is podcasts all day long, never in silence. I was like, well, if there's a moment of silence, like I could be learning more, I could be listening to more podcasts. So I was just like all day long just absorbing content, but that meant that I wasn't creating. I wasn't— and I'm not talking about just creating content, but I'm talking about creating order in my life, creating, uh, calmness in myself, creating more relationships, just thinking about what I want to do with my life, you know. And so then I toned it down to limited amount of time on podcasts, more music, and just trying to step that down. When I went to sleep, I used to listen to meditation apps, which, you know, could be viewed as much better than, like, say, TV. But I think it's fulfilling the same purpose, which is just that you need something else external to be helping you deal with your own freaking thoughts, right? But the goal is is being able to sit with your thoughts. And so now I started working on, you know, 20-minute meditation apps before bed, like Yoga Nidra. And once in a while I'll still do it. I'm like, I can't turn my brain off, I need this, whatever. But, you know, less and less of that, and, and then more just time to just like be in that uncomfortable space. And so when you push back, you expand out the time that you can be in that silence Honestly, your life just gets better. That's my opinion.

I would agree with that. I was having this conversation with my son just this weekend. And we were talking about— we were having lunch and talking about how there is no off switch in the modern world. Like, it's always on. We weren't really having this digital conversation. We were just talking about more the pace of life and work and and these other things. And I was talking to him, and I was reflecting all of this week on it. Like, I, for the last few years, have been trying to be Sabbath observant, and the idea that there's a rhythm of life, and that rhythm requires a break. Like, there's not a just not just one thing after another. Um, but then I was talking to him about like the, the, the ancient tradition of the Jewish people where there was a Sabbath— not a Sabbath, maybe they called it a Sabbath— but every 7th year they were not to grow anything. They were to let the whole fields go fallow. Like, it was a reset every 7 years. And I was like, what would that look like? Cool, right? If you designed your life that every 7th year you didn't work. Of course, everybody said, well, I couldn't do that. I'm like, no, you could. I mean, if you structured it. But then to me, is like, what the hell would I do for a year? Like, I got to be doing something, right? I mean, that's, that's, that's my reaction is like, I don't know what I'd do with myself for a whole year if, if I didn't have, you know, it's, it's just an interesting thing to reflect on. Like, I'm not suggesting we do it.

I'm just— Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because when you say doing something, I presume, you know, I, I had had that same thought of like, well, what, I'm not going to be doing businessy stuff. Like, what am I going to be doing? And like, Well, the things you could be doing are being with your family, taking care of your health, growing— well, you know, growing stuff. I know in this example you're talking about not growing stuff, but, you know, in your life, you're not—

right?

No, you could grow a cow. Yeah. And, and so it's interesting because, of course, we place more value on the, the profitable activities, the things that make us look like entrepreneurs and, you know, cleaning the house. While you process things in your own life and your feelings, just as valuable. It's interesting too because I feel like every 7 years is about the length of time between, um, when I, when I identify with one self and, and I move into a different identity. It, it tracks about every 7 or 8 years. And so that's so interesting because I— for, for me, not saying that's forever for everyone, no data here, I'm just Talking about my own life.

I think that there are natural rhythms built into creation. You know, day and night being the first one, right? But look at day and night. We've eliminated that with electricity. It doesn't ever have to be night, right? You can always have the light on. But you know, you try to go to sleep with the light on. There are things that are in the natural order that we just No, we're going to— we're going to make it better. We're going to— you don't ever have to be in the dark. You need to be in the dark sometimes.

We did actually evolve to need the sleep to—

to function. Exactly.

Exactly.

Right. Kelsey, how do people find out more about you and what you do?

Yep. So you can find me at kelseylgreen.com and same handle on Instagram. Not on there a ton these days. It's been delightful taking, taking Instagram off the phone and just using it on the computer. And that's a good, that's one way, good way to do it. Um, so Kelsey L. Greene, and I run the Screen Free Sunday challenges. I write about digital minimalism and, you know, big and little ways that you can change your life for the better in this, in this realm. And delighted to talk to anyone, um, that's interested.

So.

Thank you.

Well, thank you very much for coming on the show, sharing your experience. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. Until next time, remember, you are not alone.