A basic digital clock has been hands down my best purchase of the last year.
I've been using a mobile phone as my digital clock and alarm since I was a teenager. I'd fumble for it in the night when I woke to check the time. It was often the last thing I checked at night and the first thing I looked at it in the morning.
It had some good uses. Sometimes I used the last few minutes before I slept to catch up on my Bible memorisation. Sometimes I started the audio Bible app as soon I woke and let the Word of God flow over me for the first few minutes of my day. But far too often I checked my messages and emails first, followed by the news, followed sometimes by social media or random Internet browsing.
I've read a lot in these last couple of years about smartphones and how they are changing us and the distraction they can be. I've read how getting rid of a smartphone temporarily or permanently, can be helpful and considered that option, but the reality is that I need my smartphone (or, more precisely, Whatsapp) for life here and for communication with those in my home country. Then I stumbled across this article on wrong reasons to check your phone in the morning and it resonated with me.
So I took the simple option and bought a digital alarm clock. I developed a new habit of leaving my phone in another room at night. My digital clock tells me the time. It wakes me up in a morning if I need it to (although with three children under the age of 5, that feature is rarely needed right now). And it does nothing else. I no longer start my day by looking at my phone and then get sucked into messages, emails, news or social media.
And the crazy thing is that I've only gained with this change. If I have a few moments to myself before I need to get up in a morning, I get to use them in more spiritually profitable and mentally healthy ways. There have been no negative consequences from delaying checking my messages for an hour or two after I wake and only positive effects from framing my day with the most important things, thinking first of God and then the people he has literally put in front of me.
I'm not saying I've got it all sorted. Sometimes I get up early with the baby and grab my phone as soon as I get into the kitchen. Occasionally I forget to leave my phone in a different room. There are also times where, for ministry or family reasons, I need to be able to be contacted in the middle of the night. In those times, I keep my phone in the bedroom, all notifications muted except for incoming calls, and well out of arm's reach.
Buying a digital alarm clock sounds incredibly simple. It is incredibly simple! In fact it's so simple that it seems a little ridiculous to be writing a blog post about it. But it turns out simple changes can be some of the most effective.
