How to Break Up with Your Phone Audiobook By Catherine Price cover art

How to Break Up with Your Phone

The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life

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How to Break Up with Your Phone

By: Catherine Price
Narrated by: Emily Rankin
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About this listen

Packed with tested strategies and practical tips, this book is the essential, life-changing guide for everyone who owns a smartphone.

Is your phone the first thing you reach for in the morning and the last thing you touch before bed? Do you frequently pick it up “just to check”, only to look up 45 minutes later wondering where the time has gone? Do you say you want to spend less time on your phone - but have no idea how to do so without giving it up completely? If so, this book is your solution.

Award-winning journalist Catherine Price presents a practical, hands-on plan to break up - and then make up - with your phone. The goal? A long-term relationship that actually feels good.

You’ll discover how phones and apps are designed to be addictive, and learn how the time we spend on them damages our abilities to focus, think deeply, and form new memories. You’ll then make customized changes to your settings, apps, environment, and mindset that will ultimately enable you to take back control of your life.

©2018 Catherine Price (P)2018 Random House Audio
Personal Success Popular Culture Time Management Inspiring Social Media Addiction
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Critic reviews

"A slim, insight-packed volume that's both a primer on the toll smartphone overuse can take on our mental and physical health, and a practical manual for a 30-day reset designed to put you on a path to moderation, this is a book whose message couldn't feel more timely, or more urgent. (No, really: after finishing the whole thing in one horrified sitting, I immediately pre-ordered 3 more copies for friends and family.)" (Sarah Karnasiewicz, Health)

"The most important book I've read in years. Life-changing." (Sali Hughes, The Pool)

"...a comprehensive, step-by-step solution to spending less time with your phone and more time doing the things you love." (Booklist)

What listeners say about How to Break Up with Your Phone

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Loved it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have started implementing a couple of the tips already (I had no idea about the auto responder with the driving focus feature). At the time of my review, there is a review labeled “No PDF? No Problem!” I believe from a Kate (May all your tables and chairs have even legs—you’re a lifesaver!). Screenshot or write down the time stamps as there is not an accompanying PDF. I think that would’ve been helpful, but the downfall to audiobooks sometimes.
I would recommend reading “digital minimalism” by Cal Newport to go along with this. I’m shooting for intentionality in every aspect of life, so this was a great fit for me.

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Great Resources & Advice

I did all the steps as they were presented, and I've seen a lot of improvement with my relationship with my phone.

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Very useful book

Great ideas, but breaks down as days, wish if it was divided to sections, that can easily navigate

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Fantastic book

All the tools and confidence you will need to make healthy habits around using/not using your phone

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Positive Reminder

This is an amazing reminder of what really matters. Detach from technology and make real connections.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Desperately Needs a PDF

Very good concepts but it is difficult to apply the 30 break up through audiobook alone. It desperately needs an accompanying PDF. Another user included time stamps for each day is a savior!

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if you're ready, leap with this

Not completely breaking up with but now I have a much healthier relationship with my technology & have recommended this especially to my parent friends!

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Absolutely life changing for a phone addict but...

I'm going to have to buy the kindle version as well because this really ought to come with some kind of pdf version or something as many others have stated. they're not wrong, but it's still worth listening to. I'll be recommending this to anyone who I suspect has a phone or social media addiction! It's so good!

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Overall good advice

this is a very straightforward Layman's guide to beating an addiction I highly recommend it.

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"51 Days of Interviews and a Book That Changed Thi

I was in the middle of the interview process for a company in the DC area. In fact, I was on the 10th day of what would become a 51-day process. This interview was with one of the owners, whom I had connected with years before in person, prior to COVID-19, and followed for a couple of years on LinkedIn.

In a post, a week before I applied, he shared with his followers that this book was part of the required reading for management. I figured ordering the book, reading it, and preparing an old-fashioned book report would be a nice touch. I brought a bound copy of my report to my interview but never received any feedback on it. I did, however, earn the chance at a lengthy interview process. There were 2 personality tests, 2 on-camera interviews, a 3-hour job shadow, and 4 additional 1–2-hour interviews in person. A pivot to apply for a different role, followed with 2 more 1-hour interviews in person, and then finally the answer from human resources: “we are not ready to hire” on the 51st day. Listed below is not the report I handed over, but a review of the book for recommended reading.

The lessons discussed are not only applicable to work life but also to family life; being able to disconnect and connect with loved ones. It provides guidance for more meaningful and intentional relationships and interactions.
Prior to reading this book, I had already deployed some of the habits discussed to curb my phone usage. The author is correct—the smartphone has helped us from never feeling alone or experiencing boredom. However, it has prevented us from holding open a door for someone or striking up a quick conversation on the elevator.

While I cannot completely break up with my smartphone, I now have a few more tips to have a much healthier relationship with this rectangular, brightly lit device that seems to ‘always pick me for their team’. If for some reason these practices do not end up helping, my last resort is to mount our devices onto media carts like we had in middle school. I can then feel like a superhero when I push the media cart into the living room like our teachers must have felt back then.

Adopting some of the methods in this book is critical to change in business. A more productive workforce that is engaged in human experience, be it a coworker or a dining guest, is a must. We need to focus on rebuilding our attention spans, enhancing creativity, being more present in the current situation/environment, and engaging with people around us. We need to be more intentional.

If you do not have any practices in place to reduce your phone time, this book can guide you as soon as your start to read it.

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