This winter, I have been spending more and more time curled up inside, wearing my pajamas, snuggled up beneath the covers, with my cat close by, cuddled up with my... phone. Or computer. It just doesn't have the same ring as "cuddled with a good book", does it? And guess what? It doesn't feel as good either.

I have longed chalked up my tech habits as being normal and acceptable, but recently, I came across a definition of the word "addiction" that shook me.  According to Psychology Today:

I couldn't be addicted to technology, could I? It only took this simple definition to get me to realize otherwise.

My tech habits causing me to stay up later, the blue light causing my body to produce less melatonin for deep quality sleep?

My tech habits that cut down on time in conversation with my husband as we eat dinner?

​My tech habits that lure me away from a productive writing session, with promises of likes, comments, and correspondence?

It hits me. Whoa. I am addicted. 

Like many of us, I can while away hours each day on my devices and at the same time feel frustrated that at the end of the day, I didn't have enough time for the things I want to do more of. Read, write, take a walk, cook, craft, hell, even just lay on my couch staring the ceiling.  And while I often feel like it might just me me who gives away precious time on my phone, it turns out that it's most of us. According to Tech Crunch, the average American spends a whopping five hours a day on a mobile device. This might sound crazy, but on the days I've tracked my own usage with the Space app, and this number is not far off. 

This 24/7 fight for our attention is not good for anyone, and I believe that it affects creative folks in a way that is particularly devastating. Where our civilization was once more conducive to drinking a cup of tea in a cafe unencumbered by emails,  people watching as we walked through the city streets without the distraction of texting at the same time, and spending time in nature unbound by the panic to be connected, it's now harder than ever to swim against the attention stealing tide of technology and reclaim our time. 

But hard does not equal impossible, and I've been heartened by research that examines how to break addiction and resist the temptation for instant gratification  Particularly compelling are Walter Mischel's experiments with resisting temptation at Stanford University in the 1970's  which involved groups of young children seeing if they could resist eating a single marshmallow that was put in front of them for a few minutes in order receive two marshmallows at a later time. The study shed light on our natural inclination to receive instant gratification as often as we can, as well as our ability to strengthen the ability to resist much like you would a muscle at the gym.  The study went on to show, that strengthening this muscle (the children not eating the marshmallow) doesn't involve what we think of as classic willpower, but focuses on the successful strategy of distracting ourselves in some way in order to give the urge to eat the marshmallow (or check your email one more time) time to pass.

Based on this strategy, I've started experimenting with positive distractions that will help me cut down on the time I am spending on technology and gain a bit more autonomy over my mind, imagination, and creative energy. Being a baker,  the clearest way for framing my observations came in the form of minute to minute substitutions. Here's what I found:

​Do these substitutions seem earth shattering? Not at first glance; I mean who thinks in terms of 1/6 of a movie? However, if we expand these substitutions based on 40 minutes of Facebook or 120 minutes of Twitter, they quickly add up to entire monologues memorized, races run, books read, and movies watched. Once we see these more concrete, complete substitutions for time spent online, it makes it harder to forfeit these things to the alternative--answering every last email or scrolling through your high school acquaintance's photos from her Jamaican vacation.  Writing down these positive distractions helps me to see how minutes quickly add up to hours, which add up to days, weeks, month, and years. In the end, all these things add up to a life. A life I would rather spent watching one new movie on a Saturday night instead of scrolling on  my phone for 120 minutes. 

It can be exhausting to think about the attention, mindfulness, and sheer will that it would take to do this for a day or a week. How would we then aim to live the rest of our lives with this kind of deliberateness? Again, enter psychology: the more often we commit to practicing a new habit, the easier it will stick over time and become less like pushing a boulder up a mountain and more automatic.  

Your turn. I double digital dare you to set a timer for 20 minutes, and see what the act of paying attention to something other than your device does for you.  It's easy to wish for more hours in the day, but the truth is, there are already more than we would know what to do with if we start being more proactive stewards of our energy.  We only get one life and a finite amount of attention to invest in it. Let's power down our phones, and start spending our precious energy in a way that lights us up instead. 

Are you in need of a good book to jump start your inner artist? This week, I'm sharing a few of my favorite books that never fail to inspire me, and a couple that I recently added to my reading list.  

1. Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep ​by Michael Schulman

 I was gifted this book by a dear friend and was immediately engrossed in this behind the scenes story of the early years of the actress who has been nominated for a record 21 Academy Awards. It's easy to assume that Meryl Streep was always the poised, confident, and powerhouse actress that we know today, but like every  human being and artist, she is so much more than meets the eye, and this candid portrait of her endeared her even more.  If you're like me and often believe that you must make it to the top of the mountain, that you must find the secret, then this book is for you.   
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This book was also a gift from a friend and is the ideal read if you are short on time and are looking for brief essays that pack a powerful punch. Women from all walks of life, including Madeline Albright, Maya Angelou, Vanna White, and Macy Gray were interviewed in regards to what they wish they could tell their younger self. It's honest, real, and has really helped me cultivate some compassion for my younger and present self. ​

Liz Gilbert's book reads like a manifesto for grabbing life by the horns and making it your own, right here and now. Not only will these essays inspire you to write that book, sing that song, and dance as wild as you want, it will also encourage you to expand your definition of what it means to live a creative life.  An artistic life isn't confined to the page or stage; it means allowing yourself to express your authentic self and not be afraid of what others will think of your journey, which in the end, is yours. 

I just picked this up from the Boston Public Library last week and am already hooked. Like me, you may know King as the author of 56 novels, but what you may not have realized is that his successful writing career has also been punctuated by teaching high school and working at a laundry business, while writing in the evenings and weekends, and battling alcoholism over the years. Half memoir and half of what he calls a "toolbox" for writers, the book promises to go deeper than the glamour and fame of artists we know and admire, and reveal the real and raw human beings beneath the surface.  

I am feeling the tech and information overload pretty acutely these days, and while I don't need more convincing that excessive screen time hinders our ability to live a life that is free from distraction and rich in connection, I do need to learn more tools for taming my tech habits. Enter this little gem, sent via snail mail from one of my friends on the West Coast. Short essays by Gretchen Rubin, Seth Godin, and Lori Deschene provide concrete strategies to help us get unstuck from our devices and craft a way of life that allows us the time we crave to create what we want to in the world.  And who couldn't use that kind of assistance?