Digital Minimalism: Benefits of No Screens for a Weekend

Would you be able to dive into digital minimalism and commit to a screen-free 48-hours?

Screenless Saturday was made popular by The Minimalists (Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus). Each week, they invite their audience to “radically reduce or completely eliminate” screen time on Saturdays:

Tomorrow is #ScreenlessSaturday! You’re invited to radically reduce or completely eliminate your screen time tomorrow. Let’s give the moments in our lives the attention they deserve.
— The Minimalists (@TheMinimalists) November 22, 2019

Going screen free for any amount of time can be beneficial for your mental and physical health.

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In this video, I’ll go through:

How bad habits with technology beget bad habits
Why entrepreneurs especially need to try screenless Saturdays + Sundays
How taking this time can help you reset your relationship to technology
How to start slow (and maybe not dive into Screenless Satudray without smaller increments of time to practice)

Click for Video Transcript

Could you go for an entire weekend without looking at your phone, computer or TV?
I know if you've been in the minimalism space for a while, you probably know of the minimalists screenless Saturday, and that's obviously where you don't look at any screens for an entire day. However, I want to challenge you to not look at any screens for an entire weekend.
Hey everyone, I'm Jenn Palandro. Hello Brio is a community of conscious creatives, and if that sounds like you, make sure to hit like on this video and subscribe to the channel for a weekly-ish videos about intentional living.
Why on earth would you want to put away your devices for an entire weekend? Well, if you're anything like me, you are on your computer, on your phone, on tablet, whatever, almost all the time. And it can be really painful for your brain, for your mental faculties, et cetera.
I, for example, am running my own web design business. And so most of the time I will wake up at five or six in the morning, try and get on my computer before the kids wake up. Just to get that little bit of extra time with my work before the kids wake up. And before the day starts, when I start my days like this, the day tends to go on with heavy screen use for throughout the rest of the day. So not only am I going to be glued to my computer during the time when I'm trying to get my kids ready for school, or even after they're out the door, I'll be like glued to my computer for the entire morning while they're at school. And then when they come back, I'm like trying to sneak in and look at stuff, look at emails, et cetera on lunch break.
I find that when I start off on the wrong foot in the morning, I always tend to magnetize towards my computer throughout the rest of the day.
A lot of times people's morning routines don't involve screens, and that's a really great practice. You wake up, you might crack open a real paper book. Oh my goodness. A paper book. Yes. you might open up a journal. You might get outside and, and do some exercise, et cetera.
And you find that doing those kinds of self care, promoting things always sets your day off better than waking up, picking up your phone, opening Instagram, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and 40 minutes later... oh my gosh, it's time to get ready or you're late for work or something like that.
So by resetting your relationship with technology over a weekend, it could be a really powerful way for you to sit back and analyze, like, why do I pick up my phone? Why do I feel like I have to sit and watch TV?
It can just in general really get you to think about your relationship to technology by taking a little bit of a digital minimalism approach for a weekend.
I always recommend starting slow when talking about digital minimalism, because otherwise you just kind of get that withdrawal effect and you feel that twitch where you want to just grab your phone and open up your email or what have you, so you might even just want to start with an hour at a time for a day, like say in the middle of the day, you just say, no, I'm not going to look at any screens for an hour. See how you feel after that.
Then you can build up to an entire screenless Saturday, and then he might be able to build up further to a screenless Saturday and screenless Sunday.
What this is going to do is that when you come back into your week on a Monday, you're going to have a fresh perspective and you're going to have true rest under your belt. And this is going to allow you to be more fresh and ready for the work week so that you're just ready to go and completely, fully rested.
And I can't stress enough how important it is to get real rest.
And you might be thinking, well, you know, if I'm scrolling mindlessly on Instagram, it's not really like very taxing. Well, yes, it can be because you're doing a little bit of comparison-itis. Is that a thing? Yeah. A verb. Yeah, you're doing comparisonitis. I dunno.
Anyway, you get into a weird trap of comparing yourself to others. You are looking at other people's lists of comments and seeing how many comments they get on a post or whatever.
And especially if you're in business on your Instagram or anything like that, you're looking at other people's businesses and seeing the tactics that you're using and your mind just might start going like, Oh my gosh, I can totally use this tactic in my business, blah, blah, blah. So you see, it can become a pretty quick spiral.
And for me, it's really important to step away from the computer, just so that I'm not staring at it for so long. In fact, I was working so hard for a while that my vision was actually having a hard time focusing on stuff that was farther away than my computer screen.
Anyhow, I would love if you would join me in a screenless Saturday and screenless Sunday.
I try and practice this every weekend. Obviously things come up like we're out at a park and I want to take a picture of my kids. Then I will, of course, whip out my phone and use my phone like it is intended as a tool, not as a pacifier.
If you want to hop on the screen last Saturday and screenless Sunday train, leave a comment below. Let me know how it goes. And I'll talk to you next time.

Why Try a Screenless Saturday or Screenless Sunday?

If you’re anything like me, you’re on a device of some sorts all the time.

It can be really bad for your brain and mental health, et cetera.

For example, I run my own web design business, so right away I’m on my computer all the time, whether it’s for client work, marketing my services, networking, learning, etc. And as I explained in the video, my days will get away from me if I sneak into work early in the morning to beat the morning rush with the kids, and I’ll find myself glued to my computer for the rest of the day.

My days are definitely more balanced when I have a self-care focused morning routine, where I don’t even check my phone or computer in the first hour or two after waking up.

But other times that is easier said than done!

Reset Your Relationship with Technology

After you’ve had some time away from your devices, you’ll be able to sit back and reflect on why you may pick up your phone in the first place.

Or why you feel the need to numb out with a TV show at the end of the day.

Taking a digital minimalism approach for the weekend just gets you to think about your relationship to technology and see how you can approach it in a more balanced, healthy way.

Start Slow With Digital Minimalism

I always recommend starting slow when talking about digital minimalism and screen breaks.

Start with an hour one day, and eventually build up to an entire screenless Saturday and/or screenless Sunday.

My First Attempt with a Screenless Saturday

Back in November 2019, I thought I’d try a screenless Saturday. I honestly thought it was going to be easy as pie.

I was way wrong. Even though I only ended up using my phone for a total of 16 minutes yesterday, which is much less than average, the struggle to occupy my mind proved to be very difficult.

I want to share my story with you so you can see that it’s a difficult challenge, but overall very rewarding.

How I Used My Phone That Day

I picked up my phone for 6 minutes total to use the camera. (We went on an adventure hike, and taking pictures of tiny 8-month old Ziggy in his hiking backpack is unavoidable.)

Other uses included necessities only:

Texting people back (a total of 3 minutes—and I committed to turning my phone on Do Not Disturb all day so I wouldn’t be tempted to text people back immediately)
Looking up how to cook the perfect hard boiled egg
Researching how long yerba mate tea lasts
Paying for parking in New Hope, PA
Turning on lights in the house

The Most Difficult Parts of my first Screenless Saturday

For better or for worse, Screenless Saturday forced me to see how much I rely on my phone when I’m with my son. For those of you who are parents as well, you may be able to relate: staring at an infant for hours on end while they drool and fuss can be monotonous. Parenting is hard, and while I don’t even strive to be the perfect mother who can relate to her two young boys 24/7, I would like to feel more present when I am spending time with them.

Secondly, yesterday forced me to remember that time spent watching television is, in fact, screen time. I did accidentally cheat and watched the last 5 minutes of a college football game. But when it came time for Chris and my nightly Netflix ritual, I was faced with the harsh truth that my alternative was reading a book. (And because I’m not really enjoying the book, I fell asleep obnoxiously early.)