5,203 Things to Do Instead of Looking at Your Phone

It's time to put down the phone and: visit a botanical garden create a palindrome solve a brainteaser Phone addiction is a modern epidemic. With social media, texting, games, and other apps, it's far too easy to get sucked into an endless spiral of scrolling, wasting hours while missing out on life. So why not:

play a board game
try a breakfast burrito
focus a day on hearing every sound you can

Barbara Ann Kipfer, author of 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, Self-Meditation, and other books with more than 2 million copies in print, has a great gift for inspiring us to appreciate the little things in life, especially through her obsessive, mesmerizing lists of ideas that surprise and inspire. Bringing that sensibility to an issue we all struggle with--our phones and how they co-opt one of our greatest assets, our attention--5,203 Things to Do Instead of Looking at Your Phone is a quirky compilation that encourages you to put down your phone and do this richer, more interesting, more meaningful and fulfilling thing instead:

make shadow puppets
paint a watercolor at dawn
notice a beautiful sky