 Alright guys, I have to admit there is something really bad going on with humanity now. I went to a dinner the other night and one of the first times I've ever been to a dinner in my life with people over the age of like 28 or 30 and everyone, besides me, pulled out their phone when there was a quiet lull in the conversation. Now this scared the absolute crap out of me. Now in this video I want to share how to stop using your damn phone so much especially because you're missing out on life which is what happens ironically when you're not on your phone. Hey guys, Alex Hine here, author of the book Master of the Day. So I'll tell you what, the first day that I went on with a girl that I dated for five years from 25 to 30, she pulled out her phone during like a very brief conversational pause after ordering food and I waited for like five seconds. And I don't know if she was on Instagram or texting her friend back but I pulled the phone out of her hand. First date, keep in mind. And I said, do me a favor, don't ever do that again. And she gave me this really like okay psycho look. And the funny thing though is, number one it worked out, we ended up dating for five years but number two, she became like a vigilante of people not using their phone while they're around their friends and she was a lot younger than me. So I was like 25, she was 20 but all the times when we would go out, a lot of her friends would be on their phone all the time. And this really irks me, it really bothers the crap out of me. But unfortunately since then it's only gotten worse because now the generation beneath me has been born with cell phones and born with technology and they're missing out on this thing called life. Kids now don't even know what not virtual reality is because they've lived in Instagram world or in all the other social media worlds. So how do you actually stop using your phone so much? Like let's say you're one of the conscious people where you're like alright I know I use my phone a lot, I don't like this, I don't like being around people when they're using their phone a lot, what do I do? The first thing is lower the friction, right? It's very easy to use your phone number one if you have it on you all the time. So what I would start doing is what I wanted to get off my phone more is I would dedicate times of the day or days of the week where I would just not bring it with me. So if you go to school or you go to work, you could just as easily leave your phone for example, leave it in your bag for one class to begin with. Or if you're at work you could leave your phone in your car and then when you really need it you could go during your lunch break for example, then check and reply to all the social media stuff or your texts. So the first thing is lower the friction by leaving it somewhere else for a period of time. Now the second habit is actually to increase the friction on doing the things you don't want. So if you're on Facebook and Instagram just start by deleting the apps. Like yeah of course you can just go to Instagram.com and Facebook.com but just delete the apps is going to you know it's going to give you that like I really want to go to yeah screw it. Let me just focus on this. All right. And if that doesn't work put your phone on airplane mode during certain work blocks. So I've shared in some of my videos on productivity here that when I'm working not only is my phone not on me it's either at home in another room or it's on airplane mode with me. So I'm a big believer that don't rely on willpower and discipline that if you've already gotten to the point where you have to just be like no do not click like on the picture of the girl in the bikini you know if you get to that point you're probably already out of luck. The way you chop that friction barrier you either increase it or decrease it is by leaving the phone at home putting on airplane mode and removing a lot of the apps. But there's actually something a lot deeper here and this goes back to my whole go sage mode thing and trying to be more conscious about the way you live your life and that is living a life that actually excites you. I know it sounds crazy but if you live a life that actually excites you guess what when you go to dinner with interesting people and you have interesting things to talk about you're not going to want to pull out your phone. If you're on a date with a pretty girl or a pretty guy and you know and you're really interested like what are the chances you're really going to pull out your phone or if you're going to a really cool meeting for people that want to climb Mount Everest like are you really going to pull out your phone when they're like don't do these three things or you will die on Mount Everest probably not. So the irony is that when you live a life that actually inspires you and actually excites you you're going to be fully engaged and you're going to be fully present you're not going to be the zombie horde of people that are walking around in the car at work in the line filling every spare minute with the phone and so that I think is the biggest hack of all. If you love your work if you love the people you hang out with if you love your life if your life excites you and inspires you you're not going to want to spend it in virtual reality with people that you don't even know with these fake social updates that people use to try to make themselves look better and show you the highlight reel because honestly your real life is going to be better than their virtual life. So I hope that helps now before you go I want you to leave a comment there below I want you to tell me guess how many hours do you think you spend on your cell phone a day. Alright comment there below. Now the best way to stay in touch is start that personal development and weight loss challenge at modernhealthmonk.com forward slash youtube and in addition you can get the last two videos that just came out right here and right here and I'll see you soon.