7-Day Presence Challenge – Less Scrolling, More Real-Life 

Before we get to week 5, let’s talk about week 4. How did it go? Did you purge some items? Tackle a drawer? Donate a bag of things you definitely should have gotten rid of two years ago but kept because “I might need that someday”?

I hope so. But if you opened the closet, made eye contact with the chaos inside, quietly closed it back, and walked away like nothing happened, we don’t judge here. We just try again tomorrow.

Now. Let’s talk about Week 5.

This Week, We’re Talking About People and Presence.

Being here. In your own life. With your own people. In the actual moment you are currently living in, instead of three tabs over in your brain. It’s easy to declutter a closet. It’s satisfying to organize a drawer. Those things feel productive, measurable, and done.

But putting the phone down when your kid is trying to tell you something about Minecraft for the fourteenth time today? Being actually present for that? That takes real commitment.

Why Presence Actually Matters

Here’s what I’ve noticed about myself: I can have a clean house, a meal prepped, a color-coded calendar, and still somehow feel completely disconnected from my own life because I’m physically in the room, but mentally, I’m somewhere else entirely. Scrolling. Planning. Responding to something that could absolutely wait until tomorrow, but my brain has decided is an emergency.

Sound familiar?

We live in a world that is specifically, deliberately, aggressively designed to steal your attention. Every app, every notification, every perfectly timed dopamine hit is engineered to keep you somewhere else, anywhere but the actual moment you’re in.

And the moments we’re missing? They’re not the big ones. Those we show up for.

It’s the small ones. 

The conversation at dinner that never happened because everyone was half-looking at a screen.

The kid who wanted to show you something and gave up after you said “one second” four times.

The quiet moment that could have actually restored you, but instead you spent it watching a stranger on the internet make a smoothie bowl.

This week, we’re taking some of that back.

What We’re Resetting This Week

Week 5 is about reconnecting with the people around you, your own thoughts, and the present moment. Not by becoming a monk. Not by throwing your phone into a body of water, tempting as that is. Not by downloading five mindfulness apps and immediately forgetting about them.

Just by choosing, a few times a day, to actually be here.

Things like:

• Putting the phone down at dinner like it’s 2009 and smartphones haven’t been invented yet
• Sitting with your own thoughts for five minutes without sprinting toward a distraction
• Unfollowing the accounts that make you feel like your life is a before photo
• Going outside just to go outside, with zero goals and no podcast

Not perfect. Just more present.

This Is Not About Becoming a Wellness Guru

Quick pause, because I can already see some of you mentally building a meditation altar, buying a linen journal, and planning a full digital detox while burning a sage bundle.

That is not what we’re doing.

This week is not about quitting social media forever, sitting in perfect lotus position for an hour, or achieving some kind of transcendent inner peace by Friday. It’s about small, intentional moments of actually showing up for yourself and for the people around you.

You can still have your phone. You can still scroll. You can still be a regular human person who enjoys the internet. Just maybe not every single second of every single day while simultaneously half-listening to everyone around you.

Week 5 Nudges—Pick a Few and Actually Do Them

Same rules as always: don’t do everything. Pick two or three, actually do them, and feel unreasonably good about it.

5-minute brain dump: Before you open your phone in the morning, grab something to write on and dump everything that’s rattling around in your brain onto the page. Worries, to-dos, random thoughts, the thing you said at a party in 2014 that suddenly resurfaced at 2 AM—get it out. Your brain is not a storage unit. Stop treating it like one.

No social media until after 5 minutes of mindfulness: Before you check Instagram, you have to do five minutes of something intentional first. Breathe. Sit quietly. Journal. Stare out the window. Whatever mindfulness means to you. THEN you can scroll. This sounds like nothing and is somehow genuinely difficult. You’ll understand once you try it.

No complaining day: For one day, catch every complaint before it leaves your mouth about traffic, the weather, the thing your coworker does with their chewing, all of it, and just… don’t say it. You will become very aware of how much you complain. That awareness is uncomfortable and also kind of life-changing.

No phone during meals or around your kids: Put it in another room. Face-down on the table doesn’t count, we all know you’re still thinking about it. Actually away. See what the conversation sounds like when no one is half-somewhere-else.

Go outside for 10 minutes: Not to exercise. Not to accomplish a single thing. Just to be outside like a person who lives on planet Earth. Walk around the block. Sit on the porch. Stand in the yard and look at the sky. Ten minutes of actual fresh air does something for your nervous system that no supplement, no app, and no amount of scrolling wellness content can replicate.

Journaling: Write something down every day this week. It doesn’t have to be deep or poetic or make any sense. Three sentences counts. A list counts. “Today was a lot and I’m running on fumes and someone ate the last of the good snacks and I’m fine” absolutely counts.

Put your phone away when you’re in line: At the grocery store, at school pickup, waiting for your coffee, just don’t take it out. Stand there. Look around. Be a person existing in a space with other people. It’s weird at first and then kind of peaceful. You might even make eye contact with another human. Wild stuff.

Unfollow 10 accounts that don’t uplift you: You know exactly which ones. The ones that make you feel behind, or not enough, or like everyone else got a manual for life that you never received. Unfollow them. No drama required. Just quietly remove them and make room for things that make you feel good instead of vaguely terrible.

Ready to Level Up? Here’s Your Bonus Challenge:

If you’re feeling ambitious this week, try the Level Up Challenge:

48-hour negativity detox.

Two days. No complaining. No gossip. No doomscrolling. No venting spirals that start with one thing and somehow end with the entire state of the world forty-five minutes later.

Now, before you say “that’s impossible,” you’re not wrong. It is hard. You will catch yourself mid-complaint and have to stop. You will reach for your phone out of sheer muscle memory and have to put it back down like a toddler being redirected away from something dangerous. You will notice exactly how much mental energy you spend on things that are negative, optional, and completely draining.

And that noticing? That’s the whole point.

You don’t have to be perfect at it. You just have to try. And maybe fail. And try again.

If 48 hours sounds like too much, start with 24. Or just a morning. Or just dinner.

Progress over perfection. Always.

A Little Reality Check

Will I be perfectly zen and present and phone-free all week?

Ha. No. I run a business on the internet, and I have eight kids who need things from me every 45 seconds and a brain that genuinely believes every notification might be urgent.

But if I put my phone away at dinner, do a brain dump in the morning, go outside for 10 minutes without a podcast playing, and unfollow a few accounts that make me feel like I’m failing at my own life?

That’s a win.

And if you do the same? That’s a win too.

We’re not trying to achieve enlightenment here. We’re just trying to actually show up for the life that’s already happening around us.

1% better. Every day.

We’re In This Together

I’ll be on Instagram this week sharing how the presence challenge is actually going — including the moments I completely failed at it, grabbed my phone out of habit like a gremlin, and had to start over.

Come find me and tell me which nudge you’re trying!

• Sign up for weekly emails — every Sunday, the new theme and nudges land in your inbox
• Follow along on IG — daily updates, behind-the-scenes, and more shenanigans than I probably should share publicly
• Download the 90-Day New Page Challenge calendar – download and print the free 90-Day New Page Challenge calendar and write down your nudges each week to help you stay organized. (If you printed this last week, we made a few small updates, so you’ll want to print a fresh copy!) 
• Tag me and use #90DayNewPage — I will find your posts, cheer loudly, and repost you. Share the messy parts. Especially the messy parts.

If you’re just finding us and want to join, learn more about the challenge here: https://lifeonanewpage.com/the-90-day-new-page-challenge-lets-level-up-together/

Let’s keep getting 1% better every day. Now put your phone down and go be present for something. I’ll be here when you get back.