January 8, 2024

Hello and welcome to the TFD weekly newsletter!

We'll be in your inbox every Monday sharing our best tips to keep your money, career, and life in order. This week, I'm covering some actually realistic tactics to become less dependent on your phone/social media feeds this year, based on a few tactics I've found that genuinely help me. See you in your inbox next week!

<3 Holly, TFD's creative director

With every passing year, it feels like I become more and more attached to my phone. I know it's not (entirely) my own fault — I've read Stolen Focus. I know the algorithm and addicting design of feeds are stacked against me. But I'm always having an internal argument with the nagging voice reminding me how much time I'm wasting, and how much happier I am when I'm not glued to my device.

I often feel like I have tried every tactic in the book to become less dependent on my phone and social media apps. I've downloaded apps that block other apps, set digital wellbeing timers, put my phone in a different room, etc. None of it works, at least not for long. My fingers will start itching to scroll, and before I know it, I'm digging my phone out of its hiding spot in a side drawer, or uninstalling the blocker app, or deleting the annoying timer locking me out of TikTok, AKA doing exactly what I told it to do.

But recently, after realizing I went almost a full day without touching my phone (aside from my morning ritual of completing three New York Times app games) without really trying, I had a realization: the key is not to try and limit my phone use, but to fill my life with activities that make me organically want to be present, rather than constantly checking my feeds.

Here are some rules I've adopted that have genuinely helped me feel less attached to my phone:

1. Identify the activities that organically pull you away from your phone.

For me, this includes physical exercise that I genuinely enjoy doing/does not feel like a punishment (yoga, walks, indoor rock climbing), reading books that are purely for fun, activities that require the use of my hands (baking, doing puzzles while listening to a podcast or watching reruns of a favorite show), and social gatherings centered on a specific activity (a game night, cheap tickets to a comedy show). Whenever I have these activities on my calendar — and yes, I have been known to schedule nights in with a puzzle — I use my phone way less.

I even recently got back into fostering kittens! It's a relatively inexpensive way to feel like you're contributing positively to the world, and they are as rambunctious as they are cute. It's impossible to be actively tuned into Instagram while trying to play with a squirmy kitten.

2. Schedule a specific, recurring phone-free activity.

Whenever we go rock climbing (at an indoor gym), I purposely leave my phone in my locker. For one thing, it's an activity you really want to be present for, because literally no one wants a climbing partner who tries to check TikTok when they should be paying attention to the belay. But beyond that, leaving my phone behind has turned it into one of the few activities I do that truly exists outside of technology. I love my Kindle, and tech is great! But it's grounding to have a few things that matter to me that I could continue doing with or without the internet.

3. Don't get in bed before you're actually tired.

It's so easy to slink into scrolling zombie mode after I get in bed. I get in bed earlier than a lot of people my age with no kids (I'm talking 9:30-10 on weeknights), and I love reading in bed, but I try not to climb in until I'm pretty tired. Regular exercise helps because it pushes me to be well and truly worn out by bedtime. But mostly, I find that if I wait to get into bed until I can actually fall asleep, I'm less likely to fall into that bedtime phone trap.

4. Don't beat yourself up for "bad" phone days.

I don't keep track of my daily screen time — I've found that tracking doesn't really help me here, because I'm not going to not look at my phone simply because I was on it for 4 hours the day before. Shaming just doesn't work, and beyond that, I do have to use my phone for work pretty frequently, so monitoring screen time doesn't really give me an honest picture of my personal phone use. Instead, I just make a note of it (literally, in my daily habit tracker) whenever I feel like I've had a "good" phone day, so I can look back and see what all I did that day that yielded such a positive result.

5. Find books you are actually excited about reading.

Or, more importantly, stop forcing yourself to read books that you're not actually interested in. I love reading in bed, but I am personally only interested in doing so instead of looking at social media when I have a juicy romance novel I can't wait to get back to. I do read more "educational" books, but these I consume in audio format paired with another activity, like a puzzle or a walk, so they don't feel like such a chore. Pre-bed reading is just for pageturners. (This also works for me because reading in bed puts me to sleep no matter how exciting my book is. But the point remains regardless of what context you like to read in: Stop wasting time trying to read books you find less interesting than whatever you stumble upon on TikTok.)

And yes, this point is mostly for readers, but I would argue that anyone can be a reader — they just maybe haven't found their genre yet! Audiobooks count as well :)

6. Don't waste time on tactics that won't work for you.

Remember that these are tactics that have helped me, and your mileage may vary. Perhaps app timers will genuinely work for you, and if so, that's great! Ultimately, I think the more energy I am able to direct to things beyond my phone, the less my life feels dictated by it, and I think this could be true for a whole lot of people.

What I'm Loving Each week, we’re asking a different TFD team member to share what they’ve watched, read, purchased, and otherwise loved lately. Today we’re hearing from our marketing director, Rachel!

To keep my home organized:

I've been on a home cleaning and organization spree since late November (blame it on TikTok) but I truly feel like I live in a new apartment with just a handful of purchases that have helped me maximize my space.

This shoe rack expands and totally decluttered our entryway.

This kitchen caddy decluttered all of the soaps and sponges sitting around my sink, and it's super cute.

I moved all of my leggings and workout clothes which didn't have a proper "home" into this over-the-door organizer — so convenient my husband, a minimalist, literally asked me to get him one, too.

My 3-year-old has a ton of hats, towels, jackets and bags and random things that were holding on for dear life to 2 small hooks in his room. We upgraded things with this over the door organizer with hooks and it has totally cleaned up his space.

For travel:

As you can tell from the above recs I am on an organization spree. I have recommended this before but it's worth another shout-out. This expandable toiletries organizer was a top 5 purchase of 2023 for me. I travel with tons of toiletries and this has totally upgraded my packing and travel experience.

I also got this case specifically for my makeup brushes which I normally throw into a plastic bag, but this seems way sterile and sustainable. And for liquids, I've been using these silicone tubes.

To wear:

I am going to a friend's wedding this spring and am in the bridal party. As a larger chested girlie, it always feels like my formal options are limited because of bra limitations. I read a bunch of articles and reviews and landed on this strapless bra with very low expectations but it surprisingly holds up very well (no pun intended).

To be honest, this was a frivolous purchase because I absolutely am not in need of anything but I was at Target and this fleece jacket called out to me to take it home. Super soft and also great for outdoors workouts.

What I'm listening to:

As a millennial, T-Pain was a staple of my college experience. I've been listening to his new(ish) album of covers, no auto-tune, and it's 10/10 no notes.

🗓️ Don't forget our next members-only workshop is open for registration for Society members! The workshop, How To Organize Everything, will be hosted by Holly next Thursday, January 18th, at 6:30pm ET. If you can't make it live, no worries! All members of The Society at TFD at the $4.99 tier will be able to access the replay!

🎥 We've received tons of requests asking about what ad-free bonus content is available for members of The Society at TFD, so we just dropped the ~official list~! If you join at the $4.99 level, you get instant access to everything included in this list here.

🎙️We have a very special episode of The Financial Confessions coming out today to bring some joy in the new year while we're on hiatus for the next few months! Check out Chelsea's chat with travel legend Samantha Brown on YouTube or your preferred streaming platform!

The Society at TFD is our members-only community with access available on both YouTube and Patreon. Joining The Society is the best way to directly support TFD! The Society offers the exact same things on both platforms, so choose whichever one you prefer!

We offer 2 tier options:

The Society at TFD Lite: $2.99/month

• Monthly office hours with Chelsea to chat and get your personal questions answered
• Access to our monthly book club hosted by TFD Creative Director, Holly
• Illustrated tech backgrounds every month
• Access to Society Discord

The Society at TFD: $4.99/month — includes everything in the $2.99 tier plus:

• Monthly ad-free extended director's cut videos from Chelsea
• Exclusive members-only events and workshops
• Complete post archive (including exclusive members-only videos of Chelsea ranting on different topics)