Digital Minimalization for Entrepreneurs | Kelsey Green

Summary

The Chris Project, Christian Brim is joined by Kelsey Green to explore the profound impacts of digital consumption, social media, and technology on mental health, relationships, and productivity. They discuss practical steps for entrepreneurs and individuals to foster mindfulness, build healthier habits, and cultivate presence in a hyper-connected world 

Takeaways

• The pandemic served as a turning point, giving her space to address trauma and implement digital minimalism strategies.
• Digital consumption, especially on social media and constant connectivity, deeply affects mental health and brain function.
• Buffering behaviors like alcohol use, busyness, and business as avoidance are common, especially among entrepreneurs.
• The distinction between healthy coping strategies (like exercise, reading, hobbies) and unhelpful buffering is emphasized.
• Practical tips to reduce digital overload include setting no-screen times from 7 PM to 7 AM, turning off notifications, and tracking phone pickups.
• The importance of cultivating silence and being comfortable in stillness to hear one's inner voice and connect with higher guidance.
• The influence of technology and social media on attention spans and cognitive development, including discussions on the decline of reading skills and the impact on youth.
• The concept of life rhythms, such as the Jewish Sabbath and the idea of taking periodic rest years, are discussed as ways to reset and reconnect with natural order.
• Practical tools mentioned include Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, managing screen time, and establishing boundaries around digital use.
• The benefits of community, nature, and creating intentional routines to foster presence and mental clarity.
• The importance of recognizing and honoring the natural human need for rest, darkness, and pause in our always-on culture.

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https://calendly.com/cbrim/30min

Transcript

Christian Brim (00:00.383)
Some of them nice, some of them not so nice. But that's my wife, so you know, anyway.

Christian Brim (00:08.693)
Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, the eponymous Kelsey Green. Kelsey, welcome to the program.

Kelsey Green (00:19.8)
Thank you, Christian. I am delighted to be here.

Christian Brim (00:22.965)
You giggled at my use of the word eponymous. My lawyer friend would say that's a $2 word. I don't know that you, maybe they're thinking will of fortune, but $2 doesn't sound right there either. I don't know how you put a dollar amount on a word.

Kelsey Green (00:25.198)
It's an impressive word. It's great. I like it.

Kelsey Green (00:33.963)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (00:45.038)
Maybe it's like a $2 bill, so it's special and rare.

Christian Brim (00:48.809)
That may have been what he was alluding to. don't know. Kelsey, what is your CV background? Why are you on the show? What do you bring to the table?

Kelsey Green (01:03.148)
Yes, thank you for that introduction. My name is Kelsey Green and my background is in environmental conservation and I worked in both my masters and my undergrad I received in that field. I worked as a wildlife biologist out in the field for many years. That was super fun and then transitioned like a lot of people do on that path into the office. So I was working on funding projects.

Christian Brim (01:12.469)
Mmm.

Kelsey Green (01:31.434)
grant programs, I was working in non-profits and the short story for the career side is that I found myself like lots of people in total burnout mode.

just really, really feeling like, gosh, is this really what we live for to work this much? And in my case, because I was working for a certain kind of nonprofit, I was also really not making enough money to, to, you know, pay the rent and stuff. So it's a pretty fancy way to stay poor, sometimes nonprofits, but really just had no boundaries for my work.

Christian Brim (02:00.934)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (02:11.02)
life, no work-life balance. know, the deadlines were things like Sunday night at midnight and I would answer or take calls no matter what I was doing, who I was with and that, you know, started to really show in my life. And parallel to that, I was working on addressing some deep trauma and that was definitely a path that required a good amount of work and energy and

These things really compounded each other and I found myself in a pretty serious kind of rock bottom, an emotional rock bottom.

You know, I was having some serious health issues. was I was in that deep trauma space. I was struggling financially because of the little teeny bits of money I was making, but I was working so, so much doing high level work and and it was covid. So, you know, all these things kind of combine into one big, huge mushy soup of despair. And.

Christian Brim (03:09.637)
Mm-hmm. You were not alone in that time of our humanity. Lots of people were despaired.

Kelsey Green (03:16.95)
Yeah. it's terrible. Collective traumatic event for sure. Interestingly, it may have been one of the only things that helped me finally address.

some deep trauma because we obviously were so isolated and I didn't have some of normal coping mechanisms like being super busy packing my schedule just full of shit know like I like had gotten so good at doing I did transition my drinking just to drinking inside my house that didn't really change but I did finally

Christian Brim (03:36.916)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (03:51.166)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (03:53.838)
you know, have that space to address some of the stuff. So I'm not sure how it would have gone otherwise, but obviously all these other aspects of that time were just horrific. yeah. And then to bring us to present day, I worked pretty dang hard to dig myself out of that hole. And you know, that happened.

through lots of different types of work, but one very critical piece of work that I do is managing my digital consumption. So following a digital minimalism path, which I know we'll talk about at some point, is not as scary as it sounds, but really it means having intention around, you know, your digital use. And this probably isn't going to come as a surprise to anyone, but the impact to our lives, our brains.

Christian Brim (04:28.072)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (04:47.542)
our relationships can be vast in a negative way. So there we are.

Christian Brim (04:53.972)
Thank you. So do you think absent COVID you would have addressed these issues in your life or no?

Kelsey Green (05:08.334)
I mean, I like to think so, yes. I hope, I don't love the idea that this pandemic that killed so many people helped me personally. So I like to think that I just, I honestly, I was on a path that could have ended in not being alive. So it's, I guess it's tough to know. I like to think I would have done it regardless.

Christian Brim (05:35.022)
You use the word coping and I find that an interesting word. when you use the word coping, what does that mean? I mean, I know like the clinical definition, but like the way you're using it, what does that word mean to you?

Kelsey Green (05:52.748)
Yeah, that's a good question. Thank you. Well, in this case, the way I use that word is similar to buffering. Some people are confused by the term buffering, so sometimes I just say coping. But these are actions that you take in your life to not have to address the hard stuff. So for me, it was drinking, which...

Christian Brim (06:01.332)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (06:12.564)
Mmm.

Kelsey Green (06:17.504)
is funny because obviously alcohol doesn't help anyone's mental state, right, or physical state. So, so that actually can make things just like worse on the daily. But anyway, at the time, it sure seems like it's helping. So that, as I mentioned, being super duper duper busy, people pleasing.

Christian Brim (06:22.26)
Not my experience, no.

Christian Brim (06:27.4)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (06:38.006)
all these buffering strategies, not saying what was on my mind, not speaking up, all that kind of stuff, to sometimes these are necessary to help you get through the day and your life. But these are things that need to be addressed. And just to bring up a point salient to our conversation today, buffering these days can absolutely look like just kicking it.

on your couch watching Netflix scrolling social media for six hours every night before you just go to bed with your brain so frazzled out that like you don't sleep well and then have to do the same thing the next day after you take some uppers to get through your work day.

Christian Brim (07:20.936)
Yes, but I'm not going to stop using caffeine or nicotine. the reason why coping stuck out to me is, and I like your definition. I like the buffering. I think that entrepreneurs don't have good coping mechanisms.

Kelsey Green (07:25.317)
you

Christian Brim (07:50.101)
And I think oftentimes they use the business as a coping mechanism, which is dangerous on a lot of levels and can be very destructive. But to your point of the definition, the business allows us to avoid a lot of things, right?

Kelsey Green (07:58.939)
yeah.

Kelsey Green (08:06.175)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (08:17.56)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (08:17.684)
and so whatever your buffering of choice, your coping of choice, your addiction of co, choice, whatever label you want to put it on, put on it, you're, you're avoiding the feelings that you don't want to have and doing the work that you need to do.

Kelsey Green (08:37.228)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (08:43.324)
which entrepreneurs are not unique in that every, you know, every person has things that they avoid and things that they need to work on about themselves. So it's not that entrepreneurs are special. It's just they have a tool that other people don't and, and that tool is, is like a Swiss norm army knife in that you can find infinite ways to use your business to cope.

Kelsey Green (08:46.402)
it.

Christian Brim (09:13.824)
and it's socially acceptable and sometimes actually financially productive. So like it could seem like, I'm doing a good thing, right? So back to coping and specifically digital, what have you discovered?

Kelsey Green (09:17.25)
Right.

Kelsey Green (09:32.021)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (09:38.966)
Yes, well, Christian, I'd like to just table that great question just to address your point first. It is such a good point because I started my business because I needed to make some more money and I really needed that ability to control my time such that I could put more amounts of hours into the mental health work.

And that is what happened for a little bit of time because I was all of sudden free to manage my own schedule. So I had not been able to go to therapy at a time that worked for, you know, a lot of the therapists. I had not been able to go to work out yoga. I hadn't been able to do a morning routine, all this stuff. And finally I was. And so that did work.

But I also did fall into some of those same traps that entrepreneurs can, which is to your great point that I've known a lot of people who have used their business as a crutch, as a distraction, as an avoidance tool to not have to deal with some of this stuff in their life. this is such a critical point is that just like busyness, just like being super responsive on your phone, it can be glorified in our current society to look like a badge of honor, right?

Christian Brim (10:53.94)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (11:03.696)
that you are, you know, hustling, making money, always on your phone, you know, always really busy, all this stuff. And that can be tough to extract yourself from when it is seen, you know, it make you feel really important. Oh, I'm so in demand. I can't even keep up with all these phone calls. And I've met a lot of people who can't manage their calendar and they seem to think that makes them that did that seems like a really important person, which is so interesting because I feel like a person that can't manage their calendar.

Christian Brim (11:07.629)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:29.619)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (11:33.736)
that feels out of control is like just an out of control person. Like doesn't matter how important or busy you are, know, or how many meetings you have. You know, if you can't control it, you can't control it, Anyway, it's controlling you.

Christian Brim (11:44.159)
Yeah, I was having a conversation with an entrepreneur just last night and he was talking about he had gone to spring break with his family and they were in the pool. He was throwing the ball football with his son and there was another dad and son. They're doing the same thing. And the guy had his phone propped up on like the umbrella in the pool. Right. And,

My friend finally asked me, like, are you doing here? And he's like, well, I'm building an app with AI. And I'm like, OK. Turns out he was a dentist. And he's creating this app to show before and after of dental reconstruction.

Kelsey Green (12:17.708)
Yeah, okay. sure.

Christian Brim (12:33.446)
And one of the things I was thinking about as he was telling that story was one, that's a waste of time. but two, I, I was, I was thinking, wow, like you're on vacation with your kid in the pool in Mexico, I think. and you're on your, you're doing work, right? That matter, the phone being involved is irrelevant.

Kelsey Green (12:54.412)
Ugh.

Christian Brim (13:03.602)
You're doing work, right? It could, mean, the reality is for me personally, my experience, it could be that I'm just my head's at work. I'm thinking about work. I'm putting energy to it, right? What have you missed? What have you lost? How you weren't present there with your family, with your son. What does that, what impacts does that make? Yeah.

Kelsey Green (13:32.59)
these stories just break my heart. used to just like we were talking about before we started the interview. It used just annoy me. Like I just become annoyed. And now it actually makes me very sad. I just I feel sad. I feel sad that this is the way that things are going. And it's so accepted. my gosh. I just want to throw that guy's phone in the pool for that kid right now. Anyway, OK.

And you know, Christian, you made a good point too that I think is good to call out. And that is that sometimes you're, you know, you don't have to be on your phone. Your brain can be at work and okay, you know, we all struggle sometimes to manage our brains, right? But what's interesting is that the more deeply you fall into digital addiction with your phone, the more that you let yourself check it hundreds of times a day, the more that you're actually thinking about your phone when you're trying to connect with people.

Christian Brim (13:55.505)
What?

Christian Brim (14:24.104)
Hmm.

Kelsey Green (14:24.332)
And this is something, this is one of the reasons I make usually later on in the chat, but that this is important work to push against this addiction to a phone always present is not just because you're actually on your phone when you're with other people trying to connect or do whatever. It's that your brain's actually wired to just be thinking about your phone all the time. Yeah.

Christian Brim (14:47.828)
Yeah, because I mean, you see people that can't find their phones and it's like an existential crisis. Like, and I, I guess I, I think what might be helpful for me and the audience is defining what that looks like. So what, what is healthy versus unhealthy behavior?

Kelsey Green (15:08.334)
Yeah, so this is dependent on the person. Of course, there's not really just one size fits all, but I will point out a resource. This is Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Cal Newport is a wonderful thinker in this realm, and he's a computer guy. He's a computer science professor guy, right? So he's deep in it, and he believes so strongly. This is not a new phenomenon. We see a lot of these tech bros, these, you know,

super tech people that are inventing this stuff say like, ooh, yeah, I don't touch that stuff. Like I don't let my kids touch it, right? Because they know how detrimental it can be. And I'm going to cleave this conversation apart from the chatch bt, the AI land, but I'll just say like, you know, that that's a whole different thing. But people are starting to note very quickly the research is showing that this is really negatively impacting

our brains. OK, so what does it look like to put some of these practices in place? First, I'll say that when we talk about digital minimalism, it doesn't mean stomp your computer into pieces and throw your phone in the pool, right? And never use the technology. It's not really even possible anymore, unfortunately. The last time I took a flight, had been a little while, and I realized they almost make you have your boarding pass on your phone.

I want my paper boarding pass. I want to carry that thing around and like give it to somebody, you know. So this is just the reality these days. Right now, sometimes we have to order food on our phones. I just hate that. But okay, so fine. You know, it's here to stay. And obviously as entrepreneurs, you know, we need to leverage a lot of these tools. And there are lots of cool apps and tools that can help save us time and not have to be on our phones as much. Okay.

So having said all of that, some of the, this is like pragmatic land here, some of the stuff that we can do is, first of all, mindset shift around the concept. And, you know, there's a couple of strategies probably for lots of ways to change habits and change behavior. There's the actions really kind of white-knuckling the actions. And then there is looking at...

Kelsey Green (17:35.214)
in a holistic way, conceptual way, around, you know, what kind of person do you want to be? You know, how do you want to show up in the world? What's going to be important on your deathbed? Cliche stuff, you know, but we talk about it for a reason. Do you want to be the dad that's that was on your phone building a shitty app that no one's going to care about when you're with your kids in Mexico? Like, or do you want to be the dad that's like present? Right. So, yeah. OK.

Christian Brim (17:50.696)
Right.

Christian Brim (18:02.419)
Right.

Kelsey Green (18:05.142)
So that's why this book is great, Digital Minimalism, because he talks about looking at your digital use. The concept is so simple. Does your digital use support your core values or not? Right? So if you look at what are your core values, is it community, is it personal growth, is it wellness, family, whatever it is, however you state that.

Are your tools or the ways that you're showing up in the digital space, the time you're spending, does that support it? You know, or not. And can the actions that you're taking in that space be supportive of those core values in the world? And can you then let go of all the other stuff?

Christian Brim (18:53.62)
Yeah, because I think about my I'm going to be vulnerable here. Android gives me a weekly report of how much screen time I've had. And it's it's pretty consistent around two to two and a half hours a day, which always boggles my mind because I'm like, I don't I don't see how right.

But I know for a fact that there is a pattern of behavior where I will go and I'll check my email. I'll check the slack. I'll go to maybe LinkedIn. I might check a couple of different news sites. And if I'm really bored, I'll look at my news feed for for additional stories. But to your point, why am I doing that?

Well, largely it's because I'm bored, right? And I find this interesting dynamic as a GenXer that I try to imagine, remember, what it was like before, right? And I can't. I literally can't because I think about like, OK,

Kelsey Green (20:10.328)
Yeah, same. It's a fun exercise, actually.

Christian Brim (20:17.044)
You know, we're all going to meet up at their arcade on Friday at 7 a.m. And you show up at their arcade and no one's there. What did we do? Like, I know we did something. I know there was some way we communicated and we found out and we got together, but I don't know how. Right. And I think about the vast majority of time that I had as a youth that was unstructured. Like, I know that I did something.

It was probably outside with friends involving my bike or you know, something building a tree house. I don't know. But to me, the insidiousness of the digital is the ease of it, right? Like you don't have to do anything to get that dopamine fix. As opposed to well, I'm going to just go take a walk.

Right? Like taking a walk doesn't take any effort. mean, but it's a hell of a lot more effort than, you know, opening up your phone.

Kelsey Green (21:26.658)
Yeah, I love your example because I was just thinking that same thing I was thinking about in 2007 pre cell phone that already existed, but no one gave a shit about cell phones back then. You I didn't have one and I met up with friends in Spain in Barcelona. We met the train station. We were all coming from different parts of Spain and I had this thought how the hell did we actually pull that off? But we had no problem doing it and like.

If someone's a day delayed, you just sort of figured it out. it is hard to remember how. And I was just writing a colleague from graduate school this morning. I went to grad school in the UK. And we had phones. again, the landscape really changed with the invention of the smartphone or the smartphone entering the market, like 2010s. And that was just about when I was.

Christian Brim (22:10.76)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (22:16.974)
in graduate school and I said to him, I'm so grateful that smartphones weren't really a thing yet because our cohort was so tight together and you hear so much about how this is changing in dynamics of groups and relationships and people connecting and I'm just, I'm glad to be our age that we remember a time before this because

Christian Brim (22:41.779)
Yes.

Kelsey Green (22:46.432)
If you know for the parents out there the book the anxious generation by Jonathan Haidt those scare the shit out of you I don't have kids and it scared me to death for young people and just the stuff that they are facing in terms of the development of their social skills and brains and ability to Create resilience in their lives and connect other people. I mean, it's just it's heartbreaking. Hmm So to your point Christian about the ease and the unearned dopamine

is what we call it sometimes where, things that may give you dopamine pre-scrolly time, pre-just deep state Netflixing, whatever, hobbies, gardening, baking bread, going on a walk, talking to people, creating things. The things that you can do to create that dopamine, earn that in your body is really different from

these quick sharp hits of dopamine that you get from scrolling, which we know has been modeled after slot machines. I, you know, no judgment, but I, you know, just don't, I'm like, I don't got no extra money to spend in casinos, right? And so I'm not, I'm not, I can't imagine myself going and sitting in front of the slot machines. That seems like, oh gosh, that'd be a bummer way to spend a day. But like all of us are just doing that same thing on our phones. I'm scrolling social media and

Christian Brim (24:09.972)
Mmm.

Kelsey Green (24:13.698)
to tie it back into the entrepreneurship piece. Again, for the average person doing this for their personal life use, whatever, they can justify that maybe for whatever reasons, but it's very, very easy for the business owner to justify it. And not just social media, the constant email checking, the constant responding on text and taking calls and all these things.

Christian Brim (24:36.094)
Sure.

Christian Brim (24:41.758)
Well, yeah, I mean, I think about the number of times I actually get a message after hours versus the times I check it. I mean, it's ridiculous. It makes no sense. I think in my life, the easiest way to change a behavior is to replace it with something. I mean, to me, it's very hard to just subtract without something filling that void.

Kelsey Green (25:02.03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christian Brim (25:12.468)
so, you know, but I, I think you, for people to think that this is all about, you know, phones, it really is not about phones. I think you can go back to television, frankly, as the beginning of the addiction. maybe even radio, but, but, but certainly, certainly TV.

Kelsey Green (25:12.6)
Yeah.

Kelsey Green (25:26.126)
Right.

Kelsey Green (25:32.161)
Yeah, sure.

Christian Brim (25:42.42)
I listened to at the very like right after chat GPT came to market. I was at a conference where a neuroscientist spoke and he was talking about so so LLMs had had no impact right at this point.

Kelsey Green (25:53.229)
Hmm.

Kelsey Green (25:59.946)
Yeah. Remember those days?

Christian Brim (26:01.756)
Right. And his statement was that there's a test that they give all incoming army enlisted men to assign them their education level. back in the 40s, it's been the same test for like 70 years they've been using. Back in the 40s, people were coming in at like a 10th grade.

average. Four years ago, it had dropped to eighth grade. Now, what caused that? And his his hypothesis was we stopped reading because of the way the brain processes things. Even though you're reading with your eyes, reading versus watching video is distinctly different in the brain.

And that was his simple solution was read write about what you read Read things that you don't normally read if you don't normally read poetry read poetry, you know Yeah, I I Read a lot I had I tend to read the same types of things and that's probably and I don't write about it Like I probably should do that So what hacks Do you have what things to replace the behavior with?

Kelsey Green (27:02.168)
Yes.

Kelsey Green (27:13.634)
Yeah, I like that.

Kelsey Green (27:18.284)
Yeah.

Kelsey Green (27:26.915)
Yeah.

Kelsey Green (27:32.942)
Yeah, well, I just fully agree with you on the reading thing. I don't think content is the problem or learning or even entertainment. Yeah, I also read a lot of fiction and I read a lot of self-help ebooks and I'm trying to break into more, yeah, just different types, different genres, So reading is just, to your point, very different from these quick...

changes, these quick shots that are coming at you. now it's just, I do think though, it's quite a different ballgame from these like half hour sitcom shows to the way that AI is going to change how fast our brain is meant to be processing all of this information in like a given movie or whatever that of course, you now our attention spans are just like, shrinky, shrinky, shrinky.

Christian Brim (28:27.131)
Did you read about, this is in the last few months, how Netflix was telling their writers to dumb down the scripts so people could be watching their phones and watching Netflix because they can't follow the plot because they're not watching it, right?

Kelsey Green (28:36.215)
Right.

Kelsey Green (28:40.878)
I know. And I just saw for the first time, you know, because I'm pretty careful about my consumption. And I'll talk about what I do in a sec. But I just saw this new thing that there's QR codes on like screens now on TVs and movies and stuff. I just saw that for the first time. And I thought, holy shit, wow, they're anticipating that everyone is also on their phone at the same time. So the double screen is now becoming the thing that is even worse than

Christian Brim (29:09.263)
It's wild. And I get mad at my wife because we'll watch about an hour of TV every night and she'll be on her phone and she'll miss something because she wasn't watching. She's just listening. And then she'll ask a question. I'm not telling you. If you're not going to watch it, I'm not going to fill you in. Sorry.

Kelsey Green (29:10.83)
Yeah.

Kelsey Green (29:25.804)
Yeah. Yeah. So, and, you know, I just to be clear, there's no no judgment here. It's it's very easy to do this. And, you know, sometimes it's like shit, you know, spend an hour just shameless scrolling, watching stuff, not paying attention, whatever. But anyway, to move into the practicalities of what I work on.

You know, this kind of stuff is easy to fall into, it's tempting, and there's this fallacy that makes it easy to believe that if when you're tired, when your brain is tired, when you need a rest, that doing this kind of stuff is going to be restful. So scrolling and Netflixing and whatever, there's this belief that that's going to give you rest and that's a nice way to recharge.

Christian Brim (30:10.599)
Mmm.

Kelsey Green (30:21.774)
This is absolutely incorrect. Your brain has to process so much stuff when you are especially double screening that this is not restful. This is hard work for your brain. And I'm not saying there's not a place for it, but just to note that the things that seem hard to your to your earlier point going for a walk, the things that I was talking about, the hobbies you can do with your hands.

Christian Brim (30:35.027)
Mmm.

Kelsey Green (30:48.728)
creating, doing something, that just seems harder, right, than kicking it on your phone. But these are the types of things that, you know, create the ability within yourself to process emotion, to recharge because you are creating something, you're creating a dopamine within yourself that you've actually earned and to help you, you know, sleep better, right, and to just kind of feel better about your life, truly. yeah.

Christian Brim (30:52.679)
Right.

Christian Brim (31:14.387)
So I should take up crochet.

Kelsey Green (31:17.472)
Yeah, embroidering, crochet, knitting. Okay. So you asked about replacing things. So to be honest, I do think that is a valid approach and for most people what they need to do. And I am really working on being okay with silence, with there being no replacements, with being in my own brain. And so for me,

I'm trying to do that a little bit less because I just really want to honor the ability and cultivate that skill again of just being still and present. here's what I'm working on. 7 PM to 7 AM off of my phone. And everyone's going to freak out and say, wah, there's an emergency, whatever. You can set these call.

settings where your wife breaks through the call, do not disturb, any call that's repeated in three minutes breaks through, all kinds of stuff. So you can get through that. But I generally have no notifications on anyway, no sound, certainly no pop-up lighty things going on other than a text and a call.

Unless I'm like running an event or I'm expecting a call, you know, an important call, whatever, obviously. But the idea that I would have bleeping, blonging happening all day long, letting my attention be fractured from whatever I'm doing, it's just nuts. I just can't imagine it. And it becomes so irritating when I hear other people's shit, you know, phones going off and it's just it's just an ad or something like.

Christian Brim (32:59.699)
The one that kills me is people that have the pop-up notifications for their email or or slack and I'm like that shit wouldn't I mean it's just constant like how would you ever get anything done?

Kelsey Green (33:04.896)
Yeah, yeah.

Kelsey Green (33:11.278)
I don't know. Yeah. Right. And if you're talking to someone, even if your phone's out of sight, but it's still bleeping, of course you're thinking, what is it? I've got to check it. Oh, Yeah. So no notifications on to the extent that that is safe for you. If you're over the age of, what? I don't know, 35, 40, you remember a time that we didn't have this and we all are still here living. Right. So working on that and

Christian Brim (33:17.267)
Mm hmm. I'm missing something.

Kelsey Green (33:40.692)
setting no screen times. And I will say I'm not perfect at this. I got out of the habit and now I'm getting back into the habit because I go to bed early. So 7 p.m. for me is doable. I go to bed, you 830 ish. So if you go to bed at midnight, 7 p.m. is going to be, you know, kind of a long, long time. But I go to bed earlier because I started getting off screens earlier and

Right? And when your brain is not having to process all that blue light and all this stimulation, you just get tired earlier and you're also just kind of bored. So you just go to bed, right?

Christian Brim (34:16.847)
Okay, then I'm going to ask your unprofessional opinion to analyze my wife. She has to go to sleep with the TV on. And it's usually on some kind of murder show. I'm like, what what the hell is wrong with you? Like, are you plotting my demise? Is that

Kelsey Green (34:39.522)
Yeah.

Kelsey Green (34:43.886)
So calming.

Christian Brim (34:47.37)
No, but it's funny because I remember I would spend the night with my grandfather and my grandmother would go to sleep in the guest room and I'd sleep in the bed with him and he would fall asleep watching the Johnny Carson show every single night and I'd be laying there going like, I can't go to sleep. I can't go to sleep. And now 50 years later, I'm in the same place.

Kelsey Green (35:00.142)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (35:09.262)
Right.

Kelsey Green (35:14.37)
Yeah, well, I bet your wife is lovely. lots of lots of people have this thing where it's very comforting to kind of hear stuff in the background. And and I get like, it seems funny, right? The murder show stuff. But like, I can totally understand that. So, yeah, there's this there's a book called Peak Mind.

Christian Brim (35:18.106)
She is. She puts up with me.

Kelsey Green (35:38.606)
And it talks about sometimes you're able to process things when there's something else going on, like people that work better when there's kind of this like, shit happening over here. And so this is a thing for sure. yeah, that's.

Christian Brim (35:44.563)
Hmm

Christian Brim (35:54.58)
I definitely so she you know, she and I've had we've been married 33 years. We have talked about this She says it helps her mind Turn off like if she's if there's not noise there, then she starts thinking about things, right? I I need noise. I don't need noise. I like noise while I'm working in music. I like music, right? Because it does help me focus but

Kelsey Green (36:00.684)
Kelsey Green (36:04.59)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (36:24.401)
going back to what you said, being comfortable in the silence is something that we as a culture have completely missed. Like I, and I, and I'll tell you this, and this is something that's recent to me. I, and, and I don't, I don't know your faith background, but I, I have realized that

Kelsey Green (36:35.917)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (36:53.433)
When God speaks to me, it is in a very small voice, very small, like it would be really easy to miss. And I think about how many times I've been distracted by other things that I didn't hear it. Yeah. and so I, I'm, I'm really trying to be more intentional about being quiet.

Kelsey Green (36:58.638)
Hmm.

Kelsey Green (37:03.755)
yeah.

Christian Brim (37:22.407)
meaning I'm not talking, I'm not listening to anything except like the ambient noise. mean, maybe you're outside and you're hearing birds or whatever, but like just being present with nothing, I think we all need more of that.

Kelsey Green (37:33.656)
Yeah, right.

Kelsey Green (37:40.862)
couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. And I will say this is now a skill. This is like a skill, right? So it used to be the default. We'd all just be like staring at the wall, like shit on board. Like, you know, there's nothing to do, whatever. And now this is, yeah, like, you know, just,

Christian Brim (37:47.411)
Hmm

Christian Brim (37:56.647)
Watching the fly crawl up the wall.

Kelsey Green (38:03.7)
So this this was the default before now it's a skill like you've got to work on like any other skill like I'm just learning to lift in the gym and I'm like this sucks. This is hard. I don't know how to do it. I feel awkward. It's uncomfortable. Sucky. I don't want to be here. Yeah, if you think that but there's actually you know, there's no one's no one gives a shit right? But

Christian Brim (38:18.331)
And people are looking at you.

Christian Brim (38:26.995)
But that's what you think. People are like, I look stupid, what am I doing?

Kelsey Green (38:33.05)
my god. So this is something to cultivate. I just, you know, a point I made earlier was that this seems maybe arbitrary or not worth your time. And it is so important, so important. You're talking about the voice of God. You know, this is something people can experience or their own.

their own ability to process their emotions, their own good ideas. These kinds of things happen in silence. And one way to get to this, because if you go from full on screen addiction to trying to do what you're talking about, just kicking it in silence, that is hard. That is very hard. As a quick aside, I run these screen free Sunday challenges. It's a free challenge. It's just like it sounds. No screens.

on Sunday, which means for most people no music either. Woo, I can like really like spin people out. Right. and I, know, honestly, I thought at first this is going to be so dumb. Like everyone can do this. Like no one needs to sign up for a challenge to have me send them emails to be like, come on, let's go like screen free. And it turns out no one can do it. Like, you know, not no one there's people.

Christian Brim (39:31.346)
Yes.

Kelsey Green (39:51.346)
Usually people who have been practicing this to some extent in their lives can do it or that really want it, you know, and they're just going to white knuckle it through. But, you know, the step down approach, I think, is really good. So starting to put boundaries on how much time that you're spending on your phone, on screens. You talked earlier about looking at your your screen time. It also does shock me like, wow,

The other number I think that can really help people get motivated around this is their pickup amounts. How many times you've picked up your phone, which at least on iPhone that shows you that data as well. Holy shit, shocking, shocking numbers. You cannot remember picking up your phone that many times because you're just doing it on autopilot. So looking at those numbers and then trying to step it down. if you are used to watching Netflix all the time.

Christian Brim (40:26.833)
Mmm.

Kelsey Green (40:49.134)
try to step it down to less Netflix, more podcasts, right? And then, I'm never gonna say cut out podcasts. Like, you we love podcasts here, obviously, but if you are like, so once I stepped it down from watching streaming so much, then I was like, all I listen to is podcasts all day long, never in silence. I was like, well, if there's a moment of silence, like I could be learning more, I could be listening to more podcasts. So I was just like all day long, just absorbing content. But that meant that I wasn't creating.

I wasn't, and I'm not talking about just creating content, but I'm talking about creating order in my life, creating calmness in myself, creating more relationships, just thinking about what I want to do with my life, you know? And so then I toned it down to a limited amount of time on podcasts, more music, and just trying to step that down. When I went to sleep, I used to listen to meditation apps, which, you know,

Christian Brim (41:18.099)
Mm-hmm.

Kelsey Green (41:46.36)
could be viewed as much better than like say TV, but I think it's fulfilling the same purpose, which is just that you need something else external to be helping you deal with your own freaking thoughts, right? But the goal is being able to sit with your thoughts. And so now I started working on, you know, 20 minute meditation apps before bed, like yoga, nidra, and once in a while I still do it. I'm like, I can't turn my brain off and eat this, whatever. But you know,

less and less of that and and then more just time to just like be in that uncomfortable space and so when you push back you expand out the time that you can be in that silence honestly your life just gets better that's my that's my opinion

Christian Brim (42:31.539)
I would agree with that. I was having this conversation with my son just this weekend and we were talking about, we were having lunch and talking about how there is no off switch in the modern world. Like it's always on. We weren't really having this digital conversation. We were just talking about more the pace of life and work and these other things. And I was talking to him

Kelsey Green (42:55.192)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (43:01.007)
and I was reflecting all of this week on it. Like I, for the last few years have been trying to be Sabbath observant and the idea that there's a rhythm of life and that rhythm requires a break. Like there's not just one thing after another. But then I was talking to him about like the

Kelsey Green (43:13.368)
Whoa.

Kelsey Green (43:19.745)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (43:30.763)
ancient tradition of the Jewish people where there was a Sabbath, not a Sabbath, maybe they called it a Sabbath, but every seventh year they were not to grow anything. They were to let the whole fields go fallow, like it was a reset every seven years. And I was like, what would that look like?

Right? If you designed your life that every seventh year you didn't work. Of course, everybody's like, well, I couldn't do that. I'm like, no, you could. I mean, if you structured it. But then to me, it's like, well, what the hell would I do for a year? Like, I got to be doing something, right? I mean, that's my reaction is like, I don't know what I'd do with myself for a whole year if I didn't have, you know.

Kelsey Green (44:13.646)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (44:29.779)
It's just an interesting thing to reflect on. I'm not suggesting we do it, I'm just...

Kelsey Green (44:36.654)
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because when you say doing something, presume, you know, I had that same thought of like, well, I'm not going to be doing businessy stuff. Like, what am going to be doing? And like, well, the things you could be doing are being with your family, taking care of your health, growing, well, you know, growing. So I know in this example, you're talking not growing stuff, but, know, in your life, you're not, you know, growing the field. And so it's interesting because of course we place more value on the

Christian Brim (44:44.861)
Right.

Christian Brim (44:57.383)
Right, no, you could, yeah.

Kelsey Green (45:05.016)
profitable activities, the things that make us look like entrepreneurs, and cleaning the house while you process things in your own life and your feelings just as valuable. It's interesting, too, because I feel like every seven years is about the length of time between when I identify with one self and I move into a different identity. It tracks about every seven or eight years.

And so that's so interesting because for me, not saying that's for everyone, no data here. I'm just talking about my own life.

Christian Brim (45:39.706)
No, I think that there are natural rhythms built into creation. Day and night being the first one, right? But look at day and night. We've eliminated that with electricity. It doesn't never have to be night, right? You can always have a light on. Try to go to sleep with a light on. There are things that are in the natural order that we just like

Kelsey Green (45:45.57)
Yeah.

Kelsey Green (45:56.206)
Right.

Christian Brim (46:09.179)
Now, we're gonna make it better. You don't ever have to be in the dark. You need to be in the dark sometimes.

Kelsey Green (46:17.42)
we did actually evolve to need the sleep to function. Yeah. Right.

Christian Brim (46:20.339)
Exactly, Kelsey, how do people find out more about you and what you do?

Kelsey Green (46:28.066)
Yep, so you can find me at KelseyLGreen.com and same handle on Instagram. Not on there a ton these days. It's been delightful taking Instagram off the phone and just using it on the computer. that's one good way to do it. So Kelsey L Green and I run the screen free Sunday challenges. I write about digital minimalism and big and little ways that you can.

change your life for the better in this realm and delighted to talk to anyone that's interested. So thank you.

Christian Brim (47:01.053)
Thank you very much for coming on the show sharing your experience listeners will have those links in the show notes If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast share the podcast subscribe to the podcast until next time remember you are not alone

Kelsey Green (47:03.128)
Thank you so much.