The free Find Your Starting Place worksheet

Two questions. Four starting places. One printable first step.

Download it, print it, or use it with a family, class, client, team, or community group.

No email needed to download.

Built for libraries, workplaces and schools

Toronto Public Library
Toronto Public Library
Halifax Public Library
Halifax Public Library
Waterloo Public Library
Waterloo Public Library
Kitchener Public Library
Kitchener Public Library
St. Catherines Public Library
St. Catherines Public Library

How it works

The worksheet is the paper version of the Offline.now Matrix. Answer two questions about motivation and confidence, find your starting place, and choose one small first step. Take the quiz online for a personalized result, or print the worksheet and use it on paper.

Use it in your community

The worksheet is free to share. Use it as a conversation starter, a workshop handout, or a simple first step for people who want a healthier relationship with screens.

Libraries

Offer it on shelves, in branch programs, or as part of digital-wellbeing displays. Co-branded versions may be available.

Schools

Give students and families a shame-free starting point for screen-habit conversations.

Workplaces

Add it to wellness programming as a practical, low-pressure first step teams can actually use.
Offline.now A Practical Guide to Healthy Digital Balance

Go deeper into the Matrix

The quiz and worksheet help you find your starting place. The book takes you further, with type-specific guidance for changing screen habits in a way that feels practical and doable.

Available at
Available at Amazon

Digital balance is an ongoing conversation

Read stories, ideas, and practical guidance from the Offline.now community.

Being available and being present are not the same thing. Most leaders know this abstractly. Far fewer have examined what constant digital availability is actually doing to their capacity for the second one. This is not a wellness argument. It is a leadership performance argument - and the evidence behind it is precise enough to be worth taking seriously.
You don't need to overhaul everything at once. This practical checklist gives parents eight small, consistent actions to take this week - from observing patterns before intervening, to protecting sleep, to co-regulating before setting limits. Start small. Stay steady.
Most debate about gaming addiction swings between alarm and dismissal. The research offers something more useful: a precise clinical distinction between heavy use and addictive use, measurable markers that tell them apart, and honest prevalence data that sizes the risk accurately. Here is what the evidence actually shows.
You deleted the app. You set the limit. You tried the detox. And within days or weeks, the same pattern returned. If you have been treating that return as a personal failing, there is a more accurate explanation. Habits that feel compulsive persist because they are serving a function - managing stress, regulating emotion, filling a relational gap. Changing the behavior without understanding the function is why the pattern keeps coming back.
You know how to handle hard things. But somewhere along the way, the part of you that learned to stay ready stopped being something you switch on when you need it and became the default. You are alert when you do not need to be. You cannot fully rest. You have been told to relax and genuinely cannot get there. This is not a character flaw. It is a nervous system that learned to do its job extremely well - and has not yet received the signal that the conditions have changed.
Most advice about digital well-being focuses on one thing: use your phone less. But a growing body of research suggests that raw time reduction is the wrong target. What actually matters is self-regulation, social quality, and intentional planning - and understanding that difference changes what you should try next.