But the ominous messenger gives me a way to extend that time beyond just an extra hour, though it will require sacrifice on my part. I can get an extra 40 days—doubling the time I thought I had—by doing something even more drastic: I can’t check texts or work emails, scroll Safari, or look at the ESPN app anymore on the weekends or weeknights.

 

It would be the quickest and easiest 'yes' to anything I'd ever been asked. And then I’d ask what else I could do for even more time.

 

But here's the thing: this isn’t a fake scenario. It’s not hypothetical. It’s not a dramatization. It’s real. This decision stares us down every single day, but we pretend it’s fake. But it’s not. It’s the most important thing in any of our lives, and it’s the thing we control most.

 

By the time our kids are 18 years old and move out, 90% of the time we will ever spend with them will be gone. And if we’re lucky, we might get 40 focused minutes with our teenagers per day now. The math works out. That means if your kids are 14 years old, you have 40 more days with them at home.

 

We have no idea how little time we have, and we are wasting it by scrolling. And I know this sounds a little preachy, but I wish someone would have shaken me by the shoulders a few years ago to tell me this. We have to stop rationalizing. We have to stop pretending we have unlimited time. We have to stop wasting our lives scrolling through other people on screens when the people we made are on the other side of those screens!!!

 

We all intend to be great Dads and to achieve our intentions, we must eliminate distractions. And while we know that phones are the greatest source of distraction in our lives, most of us have them with us all day and night (stats tell us that 91% of us have them within arm’s reach 24/7). It sounds obvious, but studies tell us the only way for us to reduce screen usage is for our phones to be out of sight and away from us. But this can be easier said than done.

 

We started Aro to make it easy to put down our phones so that we could be fully present for our families. Candidly, I felt a little ridiculous that I struggled with this. It should be easy to put down my phone, right? But it’s the same reason I pay money to belong to a gym when I could burn calories for free running in my neighborhood. If we take something seriously enough, we will go to whatever lengths we need to prioritize it.

 

You can create immediate and sizeable impact today just by putting down this device when you are with your family. It can literally double the time you have with the most important people in your life. So, start today. Put your phone away when you get home tonight. Be fully present. Engage. And do it again tomorrow. And the next day and the next. If you need some help, Aro is here to make it easy and sustainable. If you can do it on your own, we are here cheering you on.