How to Hack Your Smart Phone so it Stops Hacking Your Dumb Brain!

I definitely was feeling like my brain was getting dumber and dumber the past year.  Being at home so much, my smart phone was sort of taking over! 

In January, during episode 34, I talked about how I thought Covid ADD was a real thing.  I shared how I hadn’t really been reading as much in 2020.  That I usually LOVE to read, but my phone had taken over my brain and instead I would scroll on social media or read the news.

I prayed about it, how could I read more? 

I really, really love to read and it brings me a lot of joy. But I no longer was able to focus enough to even read one chapter in a book in a sitting!

God told me, “Your phone has hacked your brain, so you need to use your brain to hack your phone!”

I pondered on that for awhile and then asked for clarity, what did I need to do?

Here are the steps I took to hack my phone

and I will tell you what, it worked! 

  1. Check and mark your screen time stats (they only keep about a months worth) So do a screen shot of your most recent week, otherwise you may not be able to visually see your improvement. Need to know how to check your screen time? Here is how to check screen time on iphone.  Here is how to check screen time on android.
  2. Note where you are spending your time.  Does anything surprise you?
  3. Delete Apps that are hard for your mind to control.  Facebook, I just have to delete it!  My brain cannot manage itself with Facebook on an iPhone, it is a struggle on a desktop too, but more manageable. 
  4. If certain websites are challenging – you can set it up so you can’t access those specific websites.  For me it is the news.   Again, on the desktop, I can check the news in 5 minutes.  On my phone, I will spend an hour.  So I blocked the news sites I like to check. 
  5. You can also set up time limits on your phone!  Then a notice will pop up when your time is over. 
  6. Change your phone to black and white.  It is amazing how much more boring your phone is to your brain in greyscale. 
  7. Leave your phone at a charging station when you can.  Don’t carry it with you everywhere!
  8. Have a different device for nighttime/morning.  I use an older iPhone we have that I have taken everything off of it except my clock, meditation apps, relaxing music and scripture study resources.  This is what I have by my bed at night.  I use it as my alarm and for meditation to fall asleep to .  Then I do not get my real phone until AFTER my MPoWeR.  So I use my “meditation phone” to study my scriptures, watch exercise videos, etc.  Once I pick up my real phone, even though I have hacked it, it still is distracting with the texts and messages.  So I just avoid it as long as possible. 

That is how I hacked my phone so it can no longer hack my brain. 

I am loving it! 

How do I know hacking my phone has worked? 

I have a Goodreads account where I track the books I read and do reviews… always adding in what movie rating I would give them…. G – R.  I am going to start adding the books and reviews to my Instagram account – @powerupyourprayers so if you like to read, definitely follow me there. 

With these stats it is easy to see how my brain is doing.

In 2020 I read a total of 10 books. 

In a little over 2 months in 2021 I have read 21 books! 

Now any free time I have, I read instead of wasting time on my phone.

I try to use my kindle device to read, so I am not distracted.  At first, I would have to put my iPhone on the charging station and set a timer for 30 minutes and force myself to read for that long… because my brain had forgotten how to focus and if I read on my kindle app on my phone I would hop off the kindle app every 5 minutes or so and do something else.  I really, really was struggling to manage my brain!

Now I have retrained my brain to read so if I read on my phone I can focus, but it is still ideal for me to use my separate kindle device.

Imagine how easy it is for our kids brains to be hacked!

If my adult brain was so easily hacked by my smart phone, imagine our kids and how much their brains must be hacked. 

So make sure you take time to hack their phones!

Lock them down! 

The way we do it, is he has a smart phone, I have made dumb. Only texting, calls, music and 1 or 2 specific games. No social media on his phone!

I monitor his phone using Bark.  I LOVE Bark – I did a podcast episode all about Bark here.

Another great option is to get a Gabb phone! Get $10 off when you use the code ENJOYLIFE