#TBH REALLY NOT EXCLUSIVE TO FIRST-TIMERS

[xdrakesboyfriend]

more one piece phone hcs (but only for the characters ive met) :)

part 1

ace, like luffy, has alot of games on his phone, but unlike luffy he actually has a decent amount of social medias, that being youtube, instagram, tumblr, twitter n twitch

he doesnt post alot on twt, ig n tumblr tho, but streams semi frequently on twitch, n when he does post its usually just stream clips or pictures n videos of his brothers n friends; he might upload a vod or two onto youtube every once in a while but not often

smoker doesnt have any apps on his phone other than the default ones; uses the clock n reminder apps, just using them for their intended purposes (setting timers n reminders), he might use the stopwatch feature on the clock up to time himself while working out tho

tashigi doesnt have many apps, only really having sudoku, a handful of puzzle games n twitter, only uses twitter to follow sword/sword fighting related accounts n doesnt really post much

koby has a few socials, mainly twitter, instagram n tumblr, he posts on tumblr frequently about his crushes his friends luffy n zoro, he only really uses ig to follow whichever strawhats thatre on ig (but also to stare at luffy n zoros selfies but thats unrelated)

he doesnt use twt often but pretty much exclusively uses it to follow artists, alot of which dont even post stuff related to his specific interests

helmeppo has a handful of socials, having snapchat, instagram, twitter n tiktok

he posted frequently onto tiktok n instagram, especially when before he became a marine, but after he became one, the frequency of his posts slowed down substantially

he tends to post the occasional selfie onto snapchat n will sometimes spam tweet about whats going on in his life

(wasnt in the strawhats version cause she wasnt a strawhat yet when i first made it 💔) robin prolly doesnt have many socials, only having instagram n twitter to follow friends, prolly has a few streaming apps like netflix or whatever so she can listen to true crime shows/documentaries, also has spotify to listen to true crime podcasts

garp only downloaded netflix n disney+ onto his phone tbh but even then its just so he can watch documentaries more than anything, doesnt understand how the damn thing works tho n doesnt use it often unless he wants to watch something

[blizzardsuplex]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks for the tag, @sublightsleeper <3 Answers under the cut!

1. How many works do you have on ao3? That I claim as Mel? 10. In total? 18.

2. What's your total ao3 word count? 88,469.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Exclusively wrestling that I claim on here, but I've also written for comic fandoms, a single Fire Emblem: Awakening gift fic, and...other things I'd rather not name.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1.) Moon Knight fanfic 2.) be my sunshine and sing (Max^2) 3.) Embarrassing fandom fic 4.) another embarrassing fandom fic 5.) mad that I gave half the day to last night (also Max^2)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do respond to comments - or try to, at least! Sometimes I just don't know what to say LOL

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Either when your prized possessions start to weigh you down OR i'm no good, I'm here for lust. Pick and choose between "cheating on each other with your respective exes but probably not going to leave with them permanently either" and "fellas, is it an asshole move to leave the guy who just sucked your dick to escape a genius loci?"

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Either mad that... (where Caster successfully gave the other Max his gift) or make those rainbows in my mind (because it was literally written to be non kayfabe compliant fluffy goodness).

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not yet. I hope I never have to.

9. Do you write smut? Very tentatively.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I've only written one crossover. It's a comic book fandom one crossing Stephanie Brown from the Batfam with a very specific Marvel Z-lister. Never finished it but it was fun while it lasted!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Nah.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Hell yeah I have #PBPRPexperience - I in fact literally just posted one a few days ago with @spaghettisaurusrex (grown on the edge of the ocean)!

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? Hmm. In fandom? IDK if I have an all-timer, TBH. I write a lot of shippy stuff but...

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? There was this MK fanfic I had a great idea for that never got past chapter one. Oops. Wrestling-wise I only have two, but they're definitely both things I'd love to pick up in the future: angels scream, searching for some love and understanding and heat it up (never live it down).

16. What are your writing strengths? I have no idea. Once an RP partner told me my sentences are like puzzles/gifts you have to unwrap with delicacy but not with difficulty, so I guess that! I also enjoy really getting into the POV character/s' heads and psyches so I'd hope that my attention to detail re: the narration feeling like a specific person is good.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Finishing things, or its inverse of trying to push too hard to finish a work and getting burnout. Stringing events together in a way that doesn't feel uneven or abrupt in its transitions is also something I struggle with.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Usually do italics translations, but if I ever have the chance to slip Tagalog in I would! :)

19. First fandom you wrote for? Warrior Cats, baby!

20. Favorite fic you've written? Can't choose, really. I really like the MK fic, grown/the collaborative fairy tale AU, prized possessions, and the dark horse pick of never been so divine in accepting your defeat.

I tag El, @shes-a-voodoo-child, @limbreaper, @scissormedaddyass, and @pleasantpastels!

[littlecafe]

a very condensed guide to superstar starship! 

feel free to message me if you need further help with anything + don’t forget to use your coupon code “WELCOMESSS" for 100 Diamonds, 50,000 RP, PCP10, and R Card (help in the read more if you don’t know how to claim)

also i forgot to include info about the challenges and rehearsal mode (basically the newer features in superstar games) so if you need clarification on those please read more:

COUPON CODE

click on the grand opening banner on the side and it will open up the page with all the events and importantly, the place where you can enter you coupon code!

after you enter it in the gift will be inside your inbox for you to claim

CHALLENGES + MISSIONS

missions are self explanatory, you can view them in the missions tab seen on the home page:

there are daily missions and weekly missions, you can complete them everyday to get more cards/rp/etc, and if you complete the weekly missions you can get 50 diamonds!

for challenges there are 2 types:

monthly challenges

song challenges 

song challenges: you get them every few song clears, it’ll pop up like this

you’ll be asked to beat your current high score of the song (in whatever mode the your highest score is in) by 10,000 points and if you do you’ll get a C card, a headphone, and a very good RP bonus reward (2,000 or more!), you get 3 chances so don’t be sad if you didn’t clear it the first time

this is a really good way to get RP, the trick is to keep your scores AS LOW AS POSSIBLE (minus your scoring songs since you still want to climb leagues lol) so you can easily clear them without needing to spend too much RP upgrading your cards

monthly challenges: this requires you to clear songs and beat the score shown in the game within a month, the more scores you beat that month, the more prizes you will get! (prizes are sent out once the month is over you don’t get them right away) 

this will reset every month and next month you’ll have to clear the score again to get prizes! you can view the full list in game but here’s a screenshot of most of them

also this is where you can see what the monthly score is to beat, it’s in the corner of every song above the World Record/My Record

you can also keep track of how many you’ve cleared personally on the home page

NOW THE CHALLENGE PROBLEM

so if you couldn’t already tell, there’s a big problem with the challenge formats....they clash with each other ;o; one requires you to get really high scores while the other one is way better if you keep your score as low as possible

so you have to decide which prizes you want more, but if you want my two cents i would keep my scores lower atm and go for the song challenges since RP is very much needed at the beginning stages (at all stages tbh lol) and will keep doing that until i get good enough decks for the monthly scores

especially since there are very few songs in the game currently, it’s more common that the game will end up selecting one of your higher score songs as the challenge to beat which will be hard for you since then you have to upgrade your cards even higher which would negate the RP bonus entirely...

REHEARSAL MODE

it's completely separate from the weekly league, it’s just there for you to try out songs that you have trouble clearing

it does cost one headphone to play and it will not save your score, again my two cents: this mode is NOT WORTH IT since you have to spend a headphone but it literally gives nothing back, unless you really cannot clear a song with your card deck and would just like to play and see what the rest of the song is like

but anyways if you do want to try it, this is what it looks like after you pick a song you want to try out

it gives you some options that you can pick from, if you’re trying to clear a song then pick the R50 deck, it’ll make it almost impossible to fail the song if you’re really trying so you can hopefully go all the way through!

during game play it’ll tell you some stats to the side as well

you can view the notes breakdown in the normal mode as well once the song ends though so don’t worry this isn’t exclusive to just rehearsal mode

MY UN-FILTERED TIPS

so my tips in the picture is pretty standard ones but some more cheeky tips or reality checks would be

sometimes you can get away with key smashing your way through some parts of the beatmap asjhsdf so if there’s ever a lot of blue notes and you panic just start smashing the screen and if you’re lucky you won’t miss c;

you can combo chain yellow drag notes!! this is harder to explain but basically you don’t have to lift your finger if you go from yellow note to yellow note (you still have to tap for blue notes though so this doesn’t work if there are blue notes), the only video example i can find is from superstar bts if you need a visual to see what happens

the game will not be this generous later on, right now it’s in the newly released phase so they will be giving out really good rewards for events and everything is new and fun but the reality of this game is that there’s a lot of waiting for new songs and repeated events that sometimes aren’t even worth the rewards...but this just means to take advantage of the good stuff right now because it will end!!

don’t log in right at reset, basically most people believe that the good players log in right away or the snipers because they were on last minute right before the league resets so you have a higher chance of running into them if you go on right away...of course this is just to minimize the chances, you can run into snipers and good players no matter what time you go on ^^;;

you can save your card packs in your inventory as long as it hasn’t expired! a lot of old players will do this for comeback events since when the game updates with a new theme, all the card packs (even the ones in your inventory that you got from a previous event) update to include it so it just gives another chance for you to get the new cards if you’re lucky! but please keep an eye on the timer, don’t let them expire or it will be a waste

comeback events are generally very hard to clear and requires a lot of time and saved resources so don’t be sad if you can’t clear these in particular but in return you have a chance to win a signed CD (or other things), so if you know your fav group is coming back then start saving early if you want to participate! (ofc physical goods like signed cds rely on the company and how good their relation is with dalcom i know jyp was really slow on sending out their promised prizes to dalcom which soured the relationship and there was no signed album prizes for months in superstar jyp....)

monbebes you will get attacked by limited edition themes so this is your warning!!! i wish i was joking but basically dalcom works very closely with the companies and each company has their (1-3ish) money makers, dalcom will release a looooot of limited edition themes for said money makers and in starship it’s pretty obvious that it will be monsta x mainly so if you want limited edition themes save your diamonds!! but don’t be too sad if you can’t collect them all it’s the nature of rng and starship/dalcom trying to milk you for money bc they know monsta x has dedicated fans

not really a tip but a reminder that dalcom WORKS WITH THE COMPANY!! they don’t have the right to just add whatever songs they want or whatever events they want, everything has to be approved by starship first because starship owns rights to the artists, the songs, the pictures....so try not to get too mad at dalcom if they do some mega money milking scheme or don’t add songs you like, it’s mainly starship’s decision and dalcom just has to go with it

also reminder limited edition themes aren’t any better than normal ones lmao it just comes with a pretty border and are ~limited~ so go for it if you like the look if not you’re not really put behind or anything

and of course don’t forget this is a game, don’t worry too much about how others are progressing and don’t be disheartened if you can’t finish events because there’s always something going on, you can just play it at your pace and have fun! 

i think that’s all for now but if you have anymore questions again just message me i’d be glad to help C:

[abra-goddamn-cadabra]

I’m playing New Vegas for the first time so here’s some First Timer Thoughts

I got a free trial of ps now so unfortunately there’s no dlc but I figure it’ll at least let me see what the hype’s about until I can play the Full Experience

hey look at that, a prologue that shows actual progress after the bombs fell. clearly this is obsidian’s influence

imagine getting off on playing with a helpless mailperson before you kill them. what the fuck suit guy.

tbh most of the character models in this game don’t look that bad once you get used to them but there’s still a few that give me deep-seated existential terror

HOW DO YOU PLAY CARAVAN 

SERIOUSLY HOW DO YOU PLAY THIS GAME I READ THE NOTE BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND IS IT A MODIFIED BLACKJACK???

Easy Pete wouldn’t give me his dynamite to help fight the Powder Gangers because my explosives wasn’t high enough so I’m officially calling him Stinky Pete

Stinky Pete ran away from the fight in terror but then turned around and just fucking blew a guy away with his pistol?? what was your plan Stinky Pete

this rando had me kill like 20 geckos and fight my way up a mountain so that he could kill me. so I died and came back and fought my way back up the mountain again so I could get revenge but I missed a gecko somewhere in the middle and it killed him instead? how was he so good at killing me and so bad at killing a single gecko?

this primm deputy sounds like he wears a fedora on his off days

I dressed up as a Powder Ganger to go into the NCRCF so I only had to kill one guard but I don’t like the sound of this guy Meyers for sheriff, he sounds like he’d be corrupt as hell. ‘due process takes too long’ due process keeps innocent people from being wrongly killed by assholes like you

my problem with the NCR is that they’ve been here this whole time? and the correctional facility is, like, a problem they created? and they’re just not doing anything about it? don’t give me ‘we don’t have enough supplies’

see, this is what I was talking about re: horrifying npcs. this Ranger I got a job from at Mojave Outpost whose mouth--like, I’m not sure if it was a bug or what--but his mouth just didn’t really move and was like a gaping hole the whole time and I’m pretty sure that I’m gonna have body horror nightmares about that later

hey so uh...no big deal or anything but....fuck the Legion

I’m almost starting to feel bad for suit guy. Every single person in the Mojave is making fun of his fashion choices. Imagine being known exclusively as That Guy From the City Who Can’t Fucking Dress.

why does Boone think his wife is dead when the bill of sale specifically says that she’s supposed to be kept alive until she has her baby? maybe I’m supposed to find his wife later

victor is definitely following me so it’s a good thing the little man on his screen looks a lot like Preston otherwise I’d be much more creeped out

I SENT GHOULS TO THE MOON????? I SENT GHOULS TO THE MOON. THERE ARE GHOULS ON THE MOON IN THE FALLOUT UNIVERSE.

ghouls in space. I love this game.

I bumped into the Helios plant and talked my way in, and met a guy who’s part of like. A disarmament and peacekeeping society? I thought he was gonna be a hippie or a cultist or something but he seems pretty chill actually so I’ve decided to give energy to the whole Mojave. 

he gave me a bunch of supplies and a book about science so I feel like this was a Good Choice

[icehot-addiction]

I see that you're in the Voltron fandom! I want to watch it but I'm really afraid of all the discourse and hate... Can I ask your opinion on this? Do you think I should give it a shot? I hope you're doing fine, Lulu-chan!

Hey dear! I’m so sorry this reply is probably really late?? I’ve been trying to tag my older stuff before posting new stuff so I haven’t really been checking my askbox and all!! 

About Voltron, I’m barely halfway through the first season so I kinda feel like I’m only just dipping my toes into the fandom haha (I haven’t even settled on a favourite character which is REALLY surprising considering I’m a love-at-first-sight kinda fangirl) but I don’t think you should let any form of dis//course/ha//te discourage you from any source material!! So far Voltron has been cute and wonderful (esp. if you like western cartoons and you’re okay with the pacing? and the art style and the dialogues? b/c the biggest difference I feel there is between cartoons and anime is the….. Dialogues?? Idk how to explain it, it’s like the banter and the way messages/feelings are conveyed is so different and sometimes it’s a bit of a leap to get used to but if you’ve been watching Avatar/Korra and SU and stuff like that you should be fine! AND THE PACING is a nice surprise because I kinda always have the impression that cartoons like to wrap up small story plots within 1 or 2 episodes at max but so far Voltron has been quite a continuous story between episodes and I really like that!) so if you’re looking for some cute bonding between space pilots with p. cool backstories and a show with strong female characters you should definitely give Voltron a try!

(Also is the ha//te for Voltron like… Really bad?? Is it just because of the ships or are people actually ha//ting on the show?? I haven’t really been actively seeking out the negative comments and no one on my dash really reblogs ha//te so……. I’m actually quite oblivious to the discourse haha.) EDIT: oh welp nvm I just went into the dis//course tags HAHA and wow that is not pretty. No wonder you’re nervous about entering the fandom. I’m gonna….. Post my opinions under the cut if anyone’s interested??

Thanks for dropping by with the question!! I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy Voltron!!

Well tbh the main argument against sh//aladin ships is because people think it���s/ define it as pe//dophilia? I could cry laughing because I’m not sure if the problem is people are actually not aware of the definition of pe//dophilia, or they’re just purposely trying to bend logic to justify their opinions? I mean yes, some people get upset seeing nsfw sexual stuff depicting minors (the proper definition of this is people younger than 18 in most countries). That’s understandable. That’s why you blacklist tags like ‘nsfw’, don’t follow blogs posting nsfw content, so you don’t see the sexual stuff on your dash. 

But seriously, degrading sh//aladin ships to pe//dophilia? That’s really mean and wrong? Other than Shiro, the rest of the Paladins are teenages?? Quoted in interviews with the voice actors as “around 16 years old”? which means that calling any relationship between Shiro and any of the other Paladins “pe//dophilia” is already out of the question because, and I quote wikipedia and other websites for this, ″Pe//dophilia or pae//dophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children″ and the ″criteria for pe//dophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13″. Do the Paladins look like prepubescent children? Prreeeeetty sure they don’t. They’re teenagers. So any ha//ters basing their arguments around pe//dophilia really ought to check themselves because that’s really kinda embarrassing, guys.

So people don’t like pe//dophiles, well neither do I. But Shiro isn’t a pe//dophile because the rest of the Paladins aren’t prepubescent children, last I checked. And Shiro’s like, 26-30 at most? So the only issues here against sh//aladin ships are 1. Relationship with a Minor and 2. Age Gap, all the NSFW stuff aside. Relationships with a Minor is icky because it’s in the grey area and not punishable by law if the relationship is strictly not sexual? Sure, it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s not morally wrong either. A lot of things could go wrong in a relationship with a minor esp. in real life, to be fair. It’s not a thing you should encourage like ever because most mistakes people can make WILL COST THEM. But this is fiction, not real life? The portrayal of the characters are derived solely from the creators, be in canon or fanfiction? So if you feel something is wrong with the portrayal, it’s not a problem with the characters themselves but the creators who portray them that way?

In the case of Voltron- The story’s setting/development is one where the Paladins (Shiro included) are given time to figure out why they’re in this, why they want to stay here, what they want to do with their lives, where they want to go from where they’ve been tossed into, and how they want to achieve that?? And that includes if they want to be in love with the people they spend almost all their time together with? Their entire Galaxy (or Galaxies idk) are threatened by this evil space race that’s destroying everyone and everything in their path to absolute power, and these Paladins are growing and learning new things about themselves and each other every day with every fight? And people wanna bicker with other people about “Shiro is 26-30 and the Paladins are minors so they shouldn’t be dating”? wow guys. Seriously. It almost sounds like these particular group of people have never had any sort of significant interaction with another person before, no offence. The characters themselves are not at fault here?

Idk about you, but back in my teenage years (I’m 24 now) people get into relationships as young as 12, 13? (People probably get into relationships at younger age now.) My first love was at 13 years old, man. It’s normal? The process, the experiences is how you broaden your perspective, figure things out, stuff like what you’re looking for and what you need from your partner, what you like and what you don’t. I’m not saying it’s all roses and butterflies, because you get hurt along the way. But you learn, you make mistakes and you remember not to make them again because they hurt, and no one likes to get hurt. But falling down and learning to pick yourself up brings you further? Not all of us are lucky enough to find “The One™” right at the start and live happily ever after. And people suffer from bad judgement and terrible decisions because of lack of experience and narrow viewpoints. I have friends who barely date, gets into relationships and feeling like “this is the one” and end up getting terribly hurt because they don’t know themselves well enough and don’t know better and that sucks, man. I’m digressing. Point is? Young love is good. I’m all for young love and learning about yourself and learning about other people and about interacting with someone else and all. About developing, growing up with love. The most important thing is discipline and control and not falling for temptations and making mistakes you know are BAD and you shouldn’t make, but that applies to everything you do in life, not just in relationships. And in the realm of fiction you can literally control the characters to do things so what’s the big issue? People are okay with a 16 y/o falling in love with a 16 y/o even though they’re both First-timers™ with no experience who will probably make a lot of mistakes and hurt each other a fair bit along the way, but they’re not okay with an older adult dating a minor even though the older adult probably might have better experience and control/discipline not to make mistakes and the relationship could have a more wholesome and lasting development? Isn’t that a bit contradictory? I can’t wrap my head around this?? All love is good and age doesn’t matter as long as both parties consent and are willing to work towards keeping themselves and the other party safe? That’s really how relationships are supposed to work isn’t it? It really really sounds like some people have 0 knowledge about how relationships are? I could cry?

And then there’s the whole *spoiler alert* for season 2!!!!!!!!!!! Keith: “Shiro, you’re like a brother to me.” I shall just direct you to this very sweet and concise post by niduss which I feel sums up everything I feel about the line in terms of Keith’s development. On the side of shipping: this line neither supports nor debunks Sheith as a relationship? So please stop?? 

And in case people wanna start dropping ha//te to me saying stuff like “this bitch probably doesn’t have brothers so she ships incest” or “never been a victim of pe//dophilic abuse before” so I shouldn’t be saying stuff like this, 1. I have 2 brothers and we’ve had ups and downs but I’m close to my brothers now and I love my brothers so ha, shame on you HA, and 2. I don’t need to prove to you that I’ve been through my fair share of traumatic shit™ to make my opinions valid? I’m not proud of the fact that I’ve gotten abused as a child, but it made me who I am now and that’s the part I’m proud of? Yes.

tldr; shipping sh//aladin is fine as long as they’re handled appropriately? It’s not pe//dophilic at all?? Shiro isn’t a pe//dophile?? If a person’s portrayal of characters art/writing/etc is wrong/immoral/inappropriate, then it’s just a reflection of the person themselves? Love isn’t wrong and the characters have done nothing wrong? Don’t shove your opinions down other people’s throats and then distort 1001 things just to try and defend your opinion? Thanks.

[gethealthy18-blog]

Creating Boundaries Around Technology

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/uncategorized/creating-boundaries-around-technology/

Creating Boundaries Around Technology

A few weeks ago I sent out a survey to the THM email list asking you for some feedback on what you want to see this year. Recipes were definitely the #1 but close behind was tips for self-care and taking care of your mind/body/spirit. They say your vibes attract your tribe so I’m stoked that I’m giving off all the self-care vibes. My hope is that this platform can be a reminder that a) self-care looks different on everyone and b) self-care means more than just massages and quiet time. We all have different amounts of time, access and priorities so keep this in mind as we begin to explore more self-care this year.

As I was brainstorming topics in the self-care arena I realized a huge part of self-care for me this past year has been disconnecting and setting boundaries around technology and social media. Boundaries in general are a huge part of taking care of yourself but as a tech addict whose job also requires spending a lot of time online, it’s become even more apparent to me how important it is that I create boundaries around technology. 

I mentioned in my 2019 recap that one thing I did for myself in 2019 was take a solo vacation. I didn’t share any of it because I needed to create some space for myself to process the closing of one decade and the beginning of another (I went over my 30th birthday!) but also because the location itself was tech-free. It was part of why I decided to go there: I was ready to experience my life without technology. And 3 days after arriving home I made a big decision to leave Instagram. This is no coincidence.

I’ve taken my fair share of Instagram breaks over the past 10 years and I try to go digital-free as often as I can but it hasn’t been without a lot of practice and even more boundaries. I find I am less stressed, less irritable and in general, more present in my life when there’s less technology involved. So as we begin to dive deeper into self-care this year I hope you’ll consider giving yourself a little tech detox as part of your self-care regimen. With that, let’s chat about my best tips for boundaries around technology.

How To Create Boundaries Around Technology

Set limits within apps.

Did you know that iPhones have a built in feature to limit app usage? You can set a limit so certain apps lock after a certain amount of time. If you’re intimidated by this, don’t be! 1. You can always unlock the app… it’s your phone and your choice. And 2. It’s really interesting to just be aware of the limits and how quickly you reach them. You can also set a timer for how much time you spend within certain types of apps i.e. social media and even on your phone in general. Just go to Settings –> Screen Time –> App Limits. *If this can be done in a non-iphone phone I’d love to hear about it!

Make it harder for yourself.

Social media and technology is so addicting because of how accessible it is… at least for me. Making it harder for me to access the apps has really helped create an actual boundary around usage. There are multiple ways to do this:

Delete the app off your phone for certain parts of the day or for.ev.er. If it’s not on your phone, you can’t access it!

Keep tempting apps on other devices. Delete the app off your phone and keep it only on your tablet or desktop access. This won’t prevent you from using them but will make it a bit harder.

Move apps around on your phone. This was something I used to do before I deleted Instagram. I’d often notice I’d unconsciously open the app if I wasn’t distracted by something else. Moving it around forced me to be more conscious of my actions and actually decide if I wanted to engage.

Start your day without technology.

Once you start it’s hard to stop, am I right? I like to set parameters around my day so a certain part of my day is without technology. Maybe it’s the first hour in the morning or maybe it’s at night. When it’s planned in your head, you don’t feel guilty for being offline. If you work online (hi, it’s me) maybe you set certain parameters like you don’t check your email or social media until a certain time. This lets your creative juices flow when you need them too without getting distracted by the unhelpful and distracting parts of technology. Pro tip: Put your phone in a different room when you sleep. 

Take fasts/planned breaks.

As you may know, I quit Instagram about 5 months ago. I made an announcement so you wouldn’t think something happened to me but if you don’t run an online business or aren’t someone that posts daily, you can fly under the radar. Start small if you want – take one day off. You don’t have to tell anyone and it doesn’t have to be a big deal, just do it for you. Start small and see how it feels. Same goes for email. When you go on a vacation set up an auto-responder and LET.IT.GO. I used to set an auto-responder and still responded to emails. Now when I’m travelling I don’t even look. Yes it makes it a bit more stressful when I return but a vacation is not a vacation if you spend the whole time on your phone.

Have intentional tech-free activities.

Whether it’s yoga, going to the gym, driving or heading out on a walk. Allow yourself activities that don’t involve technology. One of my favorites pieces of going to a yoga class is the fact that I leave my phone outside the room and I’m 100% present with my body, my mind and my breath. As humans we need this separation. As a yoga teacher I understand that people have emergencies and may need their phone nearby but TBH we all need to redefine what an emergency is. Ask yourself if you really need your phone in class or sitting in the cup-holder of your treadmill. I’m gonna guess you probably don’t.

* * * * *

Guys, I know it isn’t easy. If it’s feeling particularly overwhelming you’re likely even more in need of a break. I’ve said it many times but I think we’re going to look back in 20 years and wish we hadn’t let technology infiltrate every moment of our lives. Technology has brought so many improvements and benefits to our lives but it’s also taken us away from some essential human needs: community, connection and nature. Who knows how all of this is rewiring our brains and affecting our mental health. See how you might be able to shift some things around in your life to give yourself a little break from technology. You got this!

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