I’m excited for the next several months during which our family will be learning with a bunch of people in the valley about how to organize a number of grassroots conferences at the beginning of the new Nine Year Plan. It’s going to be a great opportunity.

One thing I am continuously learning about this year is the importance of habits. At my previous job, so often my life got into a dynamic where, as long as I was completing my responsibilities I could do whatever I wanted in my spare time. I would stay up late on my phone or playing computer games, eat whatever I wanted, and neglect exercise or personal care, but I felt like as long as I was honoring my commitments to work, service, and family, it felt like I had a license to do whatever I wanted for recreation. I am realizing now that the balance between these elements of my life was way off. I would take on responsibilities for work not because I was excited about doing them or growing professionally, but because it’s what I had to do to earn a check. I would carve out hours of my day to spend with my family, but would often be looking for reasons to leave the room to go engage in recreation. I would volunteer myself for service opportunities to the extent that it would give me a feeling like I was making and effort and it was a part of my life, but I wasn’t sacrificing. And I would game and watch videos to excess because I was addicted, and that was the primary place I was turning to for fulfillment.

Becoming more aware of these dynamics has been really helpful. I am now trying to establish new habits of exercise, cooking, extended prayer, study, planning service, and visiting people. But the biggest challenge has been staying off my phone and keeping those old habits away. I can’t access video games on my computer right now and I have deleted games off my phone (though I have wavered on this). But establishing a regular sleep schedule has proved to be a big challenge, largely because of phone addiction. Even just watching YouTube and Netflix, there are only so many hours in the day and if you constantly come back to your phone, it crowds out a lot of other things. So many of my health and personal problems can be boiled down to the fact that I spend too much time on my phone. It’s become a huge barrier and I sometimes feel like I would be more productive if I didn’t have one.