I Get No Respect
How do you show respect? How do you let people in your life know that they are important?
There was a survey done several years ago that asked children of highly successful people what they wanted most. Not even one asked for more stuff. Every single one said they wanted time with their parent.
What does this have to do with phone discipline?
Spending time with those you care about means being present. You can’t be present if you have notifications constantly pinging. You’re not present if you’re checking your phone. The easiest way to do this is to just shut the ringer totally off. Yes, that vibrate mode is a no no as well. If you can’t trust yourself not to check notifications or missed calls occasionally, turn it off or put it somewhere you can’t reach it easily.
Give the people in your life some respect. Show them they’re more important than your phone!
There’s also a cool setting called Do Not Disturb. You can set it up to allow certain calls or notifications through, or to totally shut down incoming information until you deactivate it. You can even program it to turn on and off for a certain time of day. I set it for the hours I need to sleep. Unlike turning the phone off, emergency calls still get through.