How I Learned to Stop Checking My Phone: Presence Tips for Freelancers and Founders
If you work for yourself, presence is basically a radical act. When your work lives on your phone, your laptop, your brain at 2am - switching off isn't just difficult. It feels impossible. And yet the inability to be present is one of the things that quietly makes freelance and founder life unsustainable.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Here's what I've been trying.
I couldn't help but wonder… what if the best gift we can give ourselves is being present?
Most days, I'm anywhere but here. I'm either spiralling through past conversations like I'm on a haunted carousel of "what if I'd said this instead," or hurtling into some future scenario where I've lost my job, my partner's dumped me, all my friends hate me, and I've failed at life.
Sometimes I'm in a Slack channel I wasn't even tagged in.
Sometimes I'm in five WhatsApp group chats at once, replying like it's a full-time job.
Sometimes I'm just… nowhere. Zoned out. Doomscrolling. Buzzing.
But what I'm not doing is actually being here - in my body, in the moment, in the day I'm actually in.
So I've been trying to claw some of that back. Not in a smug morning routine, cold shower, protein shake kind of way. Just small things. Quiet things. Things that help my nervous system slow down and remember that it's not made of live wires and bees.
Eight things I've been trying
1. Turned off all notifications
Slack. WhatsApp. Email. Instagram. Even text messages. If it wants to ping, it can wait.
Interest-led ADHD means every new thing is the most urgent, the most shiny, the most interesting thing to me. And sometimes it can take me hours to come back to the thing I was originally doing.
No notifications = less context-switching = a slightly less fried brain.
2. Archived every WhatsApp chat
I only started doing this recently and it's already one of the best decisions I've made. Now I only see messages when I choose to open the app, instead of getting sucked into conversations in the middle of cooking dinner or writing a sentence or trying to relax.
It's not about ignoring people — it's about answering with intention, not obligation.
3. Blocked work apps after 6pm
Anything work related — even LinkedIn — all blocked on my phone from early evening onwards.
Not because I'm perfect at boundaries (because I'm not) but because if those apps are there, I will check them. Just to see. Just in case. Just for a second.
So now, they're gone. Out of sight, out of mind.
4. Sleeping with my phone in another room
This has stopped me from late-night spirals and 3am doom scrolls, where I somehow end up reading the Wikipedia page for the 1999 eclipse for three hours.
It also means I wake up in my body and not in my to-do list.
5. Doing stuff with my hands
Painting, cooking, even reorganising the cutlery drawer if I'm honest.
When I'm overwhelmed, I don't need to "rest" — I need something that feels grounding and absorbing and calm. Doing something with my hands gives my brain somewhere safe to go.
6. Leaving my phone at home
Most of the time I don't need it. And by not having my phone to default focus on, I'm more grounded and present in whatever I'm doing.
7. Noticing things on purpose
When I'm outside, I try to name one thing I can see, one I can hear, and one I can smell. It sounds silly, but it helps. The blue of the sky. The smell of grass. The birds having some kind of dramatic argument in a tree.
8. Going to the cinema
At home, I can't watch anything without also scrolling or answering messages. But in the cinema? I'm in it. I usually bring a fidget toy for my hands and just… let my brain settle.
None of this is revolutionary. It's not even that consistent.
But these are the little things helping me come back to myself. To step off the hamster wheel of constant stimulation. To find tiny moments of peace in a world that's always shouting.
If you're also trying to stay present - if your brain is loud and your phone is louder you're not alone. You're allowed to slow down.
Cass x