Another example of how rank can beat out time is work versus family life. We dedicate many hours of our day to work and schooling, both necessary to ensure our family’s survival and education. But these can tend to overshadow the hours of family quality time. Adults come home from work exhausted, and children return home from school lethargic, which requires a “recovery time” of sorts that will help us unwind. This makes our total amount of minutes with our family dwindle. If we grab our phones to occupy our recovery time as a family, we lose out on quality conversation, physical affection, and resting action for our minds and bodies. In the end, we spend more hours in our day working and recovering than we do with our own family members.
The best way to combat this process is to intentionally give each priority the time it deserves based on the time we have, and its rank.
Each person handles priorities differently, which is why I am not providing any single be-all and end-all schedule to imitate. Rather, I recommend that your daily routine reflect your priorities in both time and rank. If time spent in a lower priority must overshadow a higher one, may their ranks never be confused. For example, if you spend several hours a day at the gym, may those hours never become more important than the hours you have with your loved ones. Your daily schedule should account for this in some tangible way.
Limit Screen Time
There are two ways in which we use technology: (1) to efficiently consume and produce content and (2) to waste time.
There are also two realms in which we find ourselves using that technology: (1) at work or school and (2) for personal use.
In a perfect world we would use technology at work, school, and for personal use to efficiently consume and produce content. However, studies have shown that since the dawn of the smartphone we’ve spent much of our digital lives wasting time.
According a Pew Research Center Internet and Technology report, “Some 94% of smartphone owners carry their phone with them frequently and 82% say they never or rarely turn their phones off … with 59% reporting they use apps on their phones at least several times a day and 27% saying they use them ‘continuously.’”1
This data, when coupled with the results from a study published on Forbes.com that claims 89 percent of people “admit wasting time at work every day,”2 raises the question, what exactly are we doing with our devices?
According to the mentioned Pew Research Center report, “About half of cellphone owners say that when they are in public, they use their phones for no particular reason — just for something to do — either frequently (18%) or occasionally (32%). By age, the differences are noteworthy: 76% of cell owners ages 18 to 29 use their phone at least occasionally in public for no particular reason, just for something to do.”3 In other words, half of the time that people are in public, at work, or studying, they are wasting time on their phones.
Your goal is to change that paradigm by limiting screen time to only efficient consumption and production for the next twenty-one days. I’ll teach you how to do that as the retreat progresses.
Monitor Device Use
The final step toward detaching physically from the temptations of your phone is to download a monitoring app. Monitoring apps measure phone usage and report back to you how often you unlock your phone, what percentage of time you dedicate to which apps, and can even limit access to apps you choose.
When I first downloaded my monitoring app, I guessed that I was on my phone for thirty to forty-five minutes each day. Within the first six hours of downloading it, I had accumulated two and a half hours of phone use. I was flabbergasted at my underestimation.
We tend to rationalize destructive behaviors, especially when they are easy to hide from others. We carry our addictive behaviors with us every time we place our phone in our pockets. We think no one needs to know how often we act on our digital cravings, not even ourselves. We lie about our perceptions of our use of cellphones and underestimate their gravity, but a monitoring app places a mirror in front of us that shows the objective truth behind our addictive acts. They give us an objective number, and that number says a lot about who we are.
Visit detachedlife.com to see the latest and greatest monitoring apps for your phone. There you will find detailed instructions on how to download them (regardless of your make and model) and how to best use them during this time of retreat and beyond.
Sacrifice for Someone, or Something, Else
Our Catholic faith has a unique practice called “redemptive suffering.” We believe that our sacrifices can affect the souls of those around us. We, like Jesus, can help strengthen those in need through the spiritual merits that our physical sufferings can achieve. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen referred to this principle as a “spiritual blood transfusion” that brings others closer to their sanctification through our death to self.
During this twenty-one-day retreat, you will be sacrificing your addictive phone habits. This process will likely be difficult and uncomfortable, which is a form of suffering. To maximize the spiritual benefits of such a sacrifice, ask God to use the merits of your suffering to strengthen the soul of someone who is in desperate need of healing, whether spiritual or physical.
Saint Paul tells us, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24). Offer the next twenty-one days for the needs of your loved ones, the needs of the Church, or the needs of the souls in purgatory. Perhaps you have a friend or someone in particular who has a special need for spiritual assistance. Keep this intention close, and let it motivate you to persevere to the end. If you do, not only will you benefit from the process of detachment, but your sacrifices will also aid the one for whom you are offering your sufferings.
Today’s tasks (creating a schedule, installing a monitoring app, and beginning to offer up your sacrifice) were designed to create a systematic foundation for your day. More importantly, they are steps on a pathway to holiness. Too often we live in a state of disorder because we try to move forward without a road map to follow. We do things willy-nilly based on the mood of the moment, and we end up frustrated that we never accomplish our goals. We become victims to fleeting passions and, as a result, become less passionate about the things that really matter in life.
If you take the time to order your life based on your priorities, you will find that life will feel more fulfilled. That’s why this first day is focused on helping you establish a system that will set you up for success in detaching yourself from your tech. Think of it like the skeleton of your journey, a firm foundation on which everything else can have stability.
Tomorrow, we’ll put some meat on those bones.
Reflect
• For whom are you offering the sacrifices of this retreat?
• Why are you doing this for them?
• How many minutes of total time do you think you spend on your phone daily?
• What do you want to get out of this retreat?
Pray
Father, you who know us so perfectly desire that we know you perfectly. Allow my heart and mind to be free from all that keeps me from knowing, loving, and serving you perfectly. Together with the Blessed Mother, all of the angels and saints, and those who struggled to overcome temptations of all kinds,