What you want to spend your time doing VS What you actually do

[Helpiminarut]

Life is what we focus on..

What I want to spend my time doing:

I want to spend 2-3 hrs a day outdoors with my 3 year old, going enjoyable places (beach/towns/theme parks etc), experience new things. Seeing friends and family several times a week. I LOVE having people over so want to do that more. BBQ’s/board game nights/play dates/picnics in the park with friends and their kids. Cook healthy and delicious dinners and eat together as a family at the table. I want to go bouldering a few times a month. I want to organise board game nights. Spend more quality time with DH in the evenings (cooking together/doing lego, we both have fun lego sets to do!). Go out in the evenings to open mic nights/cinema/dinner/drinks. I want to read more books.

What I actually spend my time doing.

Whenever I get some me-time I plonk myself in bed on my phone reading about all the things I want to do (which in theory is what I’m doing here on mumsnet so that’s ironic..). My screen time is around 5-6 hrs a day including phone/tv. Go to the same 3 places with my 3 year old (he loves them but I’m so bored) because it’s easy. We eat separately and I pop a plate infront of 3 year old whilst he’s watching tv after nursery. I see my family maybe once a month, friends once every couple of weeks. I don’t exercise more than walk to work. Me and DH watching separate things in separate rooms after throwing something in the oven for easy dinner.

We’re stuck in such a rut! This is my life and that’s a depressing thought. I’m exhausted in the evening and it’s too easy to give in to unhealthy comforts that won’t serve me/us in the long run. How do you find a balance? What do you spend your time doing?

@InterstellarDrifter yes! My personality and zest for life is just gone at the moment the worse I feel the more screentime I have. Don't know which one is causing which, chicken or the egg scenario. I dread for future generations, I'm hoping that there will be more research, awareness and regulations surrounding it soon. I'm ready to throw the danm thing out of the window and buy a brick phone. So sad about their attention span decreasing. We heavily regulate my DS's screentime and he still whines for the same episode over and over again. Sometimes even a very specific part of the episode too. What plans have you been making, what will you replace screentime with?

@7Worfs WHAT mumsnet certainly can NOT wait! Jokes aside though, we do try to do this, I leave my phone in the bedroom when we go downstairs. Not always but for the most part! What's suffering is my free time when he's asleep/at nursery or with his dad. I could still use the judgmentent from the committee for my own sake though to be honest..

Well, the first part of my plan went ok.
We had a discussion over dinner (home cooked, no complaints from anyone) about how we all need to sort this phone issue out.
I reiterated some points I made earlier. We all discussed books we were going to read and discussed tv we were going to watch together. More screen time yes but it's different to being in our own world on our phones.
We've decided on a couple of places to go out, and pizza picnic in the park the next sunny weekend.
Phones should be put away at 8pm. Eek.
I'm going to find it just as hard as the teens!

But I honestly feel this has to be done. It's just ridiculous that we allow so much time to be wasted. My daily average is 7 hrs.