If you had to guess, how many hours a day do you spend on your phone? (Seriously, I’m really interested to know, so leave a comment!) I’ll be honest, I waste A LOT of time on my phone mindlessly scrolling Instagram and especially watching IG Stories. The worst part, is I’ll spend a looong time doing this and not even realize it…or I won’t even really remember what I just looked at! So I recently gave myself some new phone rules to cut down on wasted time. You know I LOVE social media, so I had to have a serious chat with myself and set some boundaries.

As a blogger and online marketer, my job is literally on my phone, so it’s hard to separate real life and work sometimes. And often I’ll be working and not even realize that I’m working. Luckily I find what I do fun most of the time, BUT sometimes I need a break. And to be present in my own life.

So once I realized I could easily spend hours a day on my phone (specifically on social media), I had to set some ground rules for myself. I’m learning there are lots of boundaries to be set when you work from home, but I’m starting with the cell phone rule because I think this one has the most impact on my time and productivity each day. Here are the three new phone rules I’m setting for myself.

Who’s guilty of opening up the Instagram app as soon as you wake up? Uhh me too.

I realized I was wasting so much time first thing in the morning scrolling through my feed, checking emails and watching random cat videos on Facebook. (It’s so easy for me to go down the rabbit hole… especially when kittens are involved.)

Not only did being on my phone first thing in the morning waste a lot of time, but it immediately threw off my morning routine. It clouded my mind and distracted me from what I should be focused on — my work for the day, having some quiet me-time, reading the REAL news instead of my Facebook newsfeed.

Studies show that looking at social media first thing in the morning increases your stress level. Plus, who really wants the information overload first thing in the morning!?

As someone who NEEDS all the brain power I can get, I’m trying to skip the phone first thing in the morning. Surprisingly, this is the hardest rule for me!

What I’m Doing Instead: My alarm is on my phone, so I can’t really avoid looking at the screen altogether. I’ll check any missed calls, texts or anything urgent. But I don’t allow myself to open at social media apps until after my morning routine.

I’ll allow myself to look at my phone between my morning routine and before I go into my office. This gives me time to quickly scroll, check notifications and then post to my Instastory before the day starts.

Now that I work from home, there’s no boss to hide my phone from. No boss to tell me to work. No boss at all, except me… so that takes a little more self-discipline than I can handle sometimes. But I’m learning!

I decided the best thing I could do would be to keep my phone OUT of my office COMPLETELY — at least until lunch. For me, that’s about 4-5 hours of work time with no phone.

I know what you may be thinking… Leslie, your whole job is social media and on your phone! So HOW?!

Instead of working from my phone, I use desktop websites like Later and Hootsuite to schedule clients’ social media, so I don’t have to have my physical phone in my hand.

Plus, my phone rings and I get texts through my desktop, so if there’s an emergency or someone trying to reach me, I’ll still see it.

If I can get a solid 4-5 hours of work done in the morning, I can handle having my phone around in the afternoon. I do make exceptions too if I need to make videos or Instastories throughout the morning — only work-related though!

The time at night you decide to put your phone down at night is up to you. For me, I chose 9:30PM.

That’s about 30 minutes after I get home from the gym each night and about an hour before I go to sleep.

Not being allowed to touch my phone after 9:30PM keeps me from wasting an hour before bed on Instastory. It gives me more time to READ which is something I LOVE to do before bed.

As a reading teacher for so many years, I had about 45 minutes during the day (15 minutes each class period) that I could read silently along with my students. Now that I’m working from home, I’m not getting that reading time in as much, so this was one way I could work it back into my daily schedule!

And it just feels so good knowing that there’s an “End Time” set to my phone / social media time!

Now I want to hear from you- what are YOUR phone rules? Have you set any? Do you have them for yourself at home? At work? For your kids?