A customer of ours recently wrote us a letter to share how she got a handle on her screen addiction habit and we thought to share her inspiring story with you. So here it is!
Dear Jon, I just want to say how grateful I am for your app. It’s an absolutely essential part of me living my life purpose. In January 2018, I had spent $1600 on a 12-session coaching package and tried ALLLLL these things to overcome my screen addiction habits. I was glued to the screen as soon as I engaged with it – whether it be my smartphone or laptop. I was wasting on average 17 hours per week on social media (yikes!), going to sleep 2 hours later than I wanted, opening up new browsers to follow research whims (instead of working), and getting lost on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. I’m a major procrastinator and I work online, so I was struggling to keep the focus. And as a stay-at-home work-at-home mom with two young children, I needed ways to “take a break”, and found it super easy to choose the less healthy escape of being on a device. So much time was lost. I felt low energy and sort of depressed from the habit. I was stuck. It wasn’t really me. I knew that I was way off track with thriving in my life. So I began a journey of discovering what I needed to act in more integrity. I talked to my friends about my new inspiration to separate from screen addiction. One friend of mine, who I experience as very self-disciplined, told me she was “too weak” to have a smartphone. I was like, wow, she’s so healthy and conscious about her life choices, and here she is admitting to being weak! That gave me permission to admit I’m weak too. I decided to try getting rid of my smartphone. I downgraded to a “QWERTY” phone (one with a mini keyboard) to make it easier for texting. I had to rig up a service, and to be honest, the signal wasn’t strong enough, and I still kept my smartphone for the camera, etc. So I decided to go back to the smartphone, but changed my service (no data) and got rid of WiFi in the house so that there was no way I could stay up late one more night on my phone scrolling and consuming useless content (that made me feel sick – like eating too many donuts! [which I was doing too, but how I’m overcoming food addiction is another story for another day!]). When we got rid of the WiFi, I still had to deal with the internet on my laptop. I tried three other productivity browser extensions and two other productivity apps, before finding FocusMe. The problem I had before FocusMe was that I could not fully customize the settings of the other apps. I had to get extra add-ons and services to make the whole thing work for me. Not to mention that the other apps and extensions were easy to uninstall. So I found FocusMe and immediately set up what I needed! As the months went on, I closed up the loopholes of which websites I need to stay blocked from, and how. I’m refining my FocusMe settings every 2-4 months. Through all of this, I realized there’s really nothing wrong with me. I have weaknesses and I have strengths, and just by being honest about my addictive habits with screens, I found a way to build better habits. So that’s really all! I tried coaching, getting rid of my smartphone, getting rid of WiFi, and a bunch of other apps, but FocusMe is pretty much all I need and will need for years to come. :O So grateful. By the way the 12 coaching sessions in 2018 were actually fantastic, and one reason is that they served as an accountability support for me to get FocusMe all set up! Ha ha. Thanks again for your service and all the regular updates and friendly community. Sincerely, Dominique
Wow, right? We hear stories like this sometimes, but not enough. If you’re killing it with FocusMe – or even struggling – would you comment below or email me on jon [at] focusme.com? What’s working and what’s not? We need to get these stories out there. There’s nothing wrong with you if you struggle with digital addictions. It happens to the best of us! But I’d love to see a world of empowered purpose-driven people free from the screen…
Dear Jon, I just want to say how grateful I am for your app. It’s an absolutely essential part of me living my life purpose. In January 2018, I had spent $1600 on a 12-session coaching package and tried ALLLLL these things to overcome my screen addiction habits. I was glued to the screen as soon as I engaged with it – whether it be my smartphone or laptop. I was wasting on average 17 hours per week on social media (yikes!), going to sleep 2 hours later than I wanted, opening up new browsers to follow research whims (instead of working), and getting lost on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. I’m a major procrastinator and I work online, so I was struggling to keep the focus. And as a stay-at-home work-at-home mom with two young children, I needed ways to “take a break”, and found it super easy to choose the less healthy escape of being on a device. So much time was lost. I felt low energy and sort of depressed from the habit. I was stuck. It wasn’t really me. I knew that I was way off track with thriving in my life. So I began a journey of discovering what I needed to act in more integrity. I talked to my friends about my new inspiration to separate from screen addiction. One friend of mine, who I experience as very self-disciplined, told me she was “too weak” to have a smartphone. I was like, wow, she’s so healthy and conscious about her life choices, and here she is admitting to being weak! That gave me permission to admit I’m weak too. I decided to try getting rid of my smartphone. I downgraded to a “QWERTY” phone (one with a mini keyboard) to make it easier for texting. I had to rig up a service, and to be honest, the signal wasn’t strong enough, and I still kept my smartphone for the camera, etc. So I decided to go back to the smartphone, but changed my service (no data) and got rid of WiFi in the house so that there was no way I could stay up late one more night on my phone scrolling and consuming useless content (that made me feel sick – like eating too many donuts! [which I was doing too, but how I’m overcoming food addiction is another story for another day!]). When we got rid of the WiFi, I still had to deal with the internet on my laptop. I tried three other productivity browser extensions and two other productivity apps, before finding FocusMe. The problem I had before FocusMe was that I could not fully customize the settings of the other apps. I had to get extra add-ons and services to make the whole thing work for me. Not to mention that the other apps and extensions were easy to uninstall. So I found FocusMe and immediately set up what I needed! As the months went on, I closed up the loopholes of which websites I need to stay blocked from, and how. I’m refining my FocusMe settings every 2-4 months. Through all of this, I realized there’s really nothing wrong with me. I have weaknesses and I have strengths, and just by being honest about my addictive habits with screens, I found a way to build better habits. So that’s really all! I tried coaching, getting rid of my smartphone, getting rid of WiFi, and a bunch of other apps, but FocusMe is pretty much all I need and will need for years to come. :O So grateful. By the way the 12 coaching sessions in 2018 were actually fantastic, and one reason is that they served as an accountability support for me to get FocusMe all set up! Ha ha. Thanks again for your service and all the regular updates and friendly community. Sincerely, Dominique
Wow, right? We hear stories like this sometimes, but not enough. If you’re killing it with FocusMe – or even struggling – would you comment below or email me on jon [at] focusme.com? What’s working and what’s not? We need to get these stories out there. There’s nothing wrong with you if you struggle with digital addictions. It happens to the best of us! But I’d love to see a world of empowered purpose-driven people free from the screen…