What a ride! It's Week 7 of 7 of the #TechLifeBalance Challenges!

How are you feeling? Are you thinking any differently about your relationship to your phone? Have you tried a #TechShabbat (a day of rest, without screens), or replacing any screen time with other activities you enjoy?

If your answer is yes to any of these, we'd love to hear from you. Reply to this email, or take a 5 minute survey to be part of our new research with UPENN about the impact of turning off screens regularly.

If not, no worries. Life is busy. So pull out your calendar, find a weekend that works, and schedule a #TechShabbat -- a day with no screens, filled with people and things you love.

Why? We don't break habits (like checking our phones an average of 83 times a day) by simply removing them. We change habits by replacing them with (healthier) habits with better benefits.

So imagine yourself in 5 years....

First, imagine yourself continuing down the slippery slope of screen use.

Really paint that picture.

• If you're waking up to look at your phone first thing in the morning, imagine the impact on your brain of waking up to stressful emails, news headlines, and feeds 1,825 more mornings (5 yrs x 365 days), vs 1,825 mornings of doing something else -- something that starts off your day with balance and joy.
• If screentime with kids is a battle now, imagine five more years of the habit.

Keep going down this path. What about work boundaries? What about the hours you'll spend sucked into the feeds when you don't even mean to? What about the hours you'll spend sitting near the people you love, looking down at a screen instead of each other?

Now, imagine your life in five years if you start changing those habits.

• Imagine your relationships -- with your partner, kids, family, friends -- deeper.
• Imagine your mornings and nights -- less stressful, and more joyful.
• Imagine your work or school life -- more productive, and with healthier boundaries.
• Imagine your weekends -- with an entire day, each week, to turn off the screens and tune into your friends, family, and yourself.

Finally, imagine how all this impacts your character.

Your creativity, curiosity, appreciation, love, gratitude, self-control, perseverance, perspective, empathy, and presence.

So what kind of person do you want to be?

We launched these challenges, and the sixth annual Character Day, asking, what's the relationship between character, social emotional wellbeing, and screen use? When and how does technology enhance who we are and who we want to be in the world? And when and how is it better to turn it off?

We're immensely inspired by what we're seeing and learning so far -- thank you to the tens of thousands of schools, companies, homes, and individuals that participated in Character Day and/or the challenges -- and we're just at the beginning of this exciting exploration.

What's Next?

New Films, New Content, New Ideas

In January 2020, our team at Let it Ripple (501c3) will be back with new films for The Dear Parent, Dear Student, Dear CEO series, Dear Legislator, Dear Fellow Human film series, new discussion content, and new ways to unpack these ideas in all different settings.

In the meantime, we're looking forward to taking a little breath and to hearing from all of you about your experiences and thoughts on the relationship between character, screens, and humanity. We'll be taking it all in, and -- we're Let it Ripple -- rippling it back out in new ways.