If you’re reading this and you love your phone have at it. But most of us have issues around our phones.
As do, I imagine, the mom who pushes her stroller and scrolls through her feed. The family at a restaurant, rendered wordless by their screens. Or the fellow tennis parent who started texting someone else while talking to me. (No offense taken, really, just don’t expect much of an investment in us the next time.)
So I wish to share merely the things I’ve done to reduce and eliminate my own addiction (mild by some standards but replete with all the hallmarks of impulsivity toward instant gratification) and to take back a vast swath of my life and turn it into productive, creative, gratifying time. (Hint: my phone is nowhere near me at this moment.)
Delete Apps
Marie Kondo was right to point out the clutter in our closets. I’d propose we need to point out the clutter in our digital lives. Get rid of some shit, a lot of shit.
Like Kondo with physical stuff I went through my own digital closet of apps and deleted those that I hadn’t used in recent memory (e.g. FoxNow, Knots 3D, Highway Crash Derby).
I also deleted those that I knew were wasting my time. For example, the video game that I picked up whenever I was bored or slightly anxious—the same video game I had trouble ever putting down.
Next I set limits on all those apps (via Apple’s Screen Time, for which the company should be praised) that I assessed were taking up an unsatisfying amount of time. Does anyone really feel good after scrolling through Insta for 30+ minutes? Instagram got reduced to 12 minutes and later nine, and then deleted. (This may not be forever but I’ve been off for over eight months.) MLB Trade Rumors, perhaps the app I used most impulsively and that had a troll-filled message board to further induce me, got reduced to five!
I discovered two things: I could live without the apps, and in time I grew to like them much less. The apps got put into proper perspective vis-à-vis my life.
Delete (or restrain) some “needed” apps
This may seem counterintuitive but it was vital if I wanted to pick up my phone less. And picking up the phone less and staving off the impulse to do so is what’s most needed to win the war. And, like quitting smoking, it’s a war.
Wear a watch. Casual, formal, status-y… doesn’t matter (unless it’s an Apple Watch!). Wear a watch. It’s quicker, more convenient and less clumsy. It’s… smarter. My watch also has a stopwatch, a timer and an alarm. I use it everywhere, including on drives and the soccer pitch, in the kitchen and the weight room. No phone required!
I use an actual alarm clock to wake me up. The phone is no longer, by seeming default, the first thing I pick up in the morning. In fact, it stays powered off for the first hours of my day. (Since I like to know the weather and have found the phone the most convenient way to do this, I check it the night before, which prevents another pick-up.)
I keep small flashlights throughout the house and in my glove box. (And, yes, in a pinch I reach for the phone and its light.)
For news, it’s vital I not get pulled into the algorithmic vortex. I simply do not read daily news on my phone. (Longer form feature pieces are still in play.) I refuse to. I read a newspaper instead. An actual broadsheet newspaper, delivered to my door. People increasingly comment on it, saying things like “I haven’t seen one of those in a long time.” Yep. Consuming news is not another reason to go into my phone; it’s simple and easy quiet time away from my phone.
For photos the phone can be ultra-convenient. I’m glad I have a way to capture certain moments. But where I know there will be video available through other sources (a sporting event, my kids’ music recitals) I put the thing away and embrace the moment. I value my personal experience and and trust my memory of it over the iPhone version which, in order to produce it, only interferes with the experience itself.
And please don’t equate capturing an image using an iPhone with actual photography. Look through a viewfinder, then make some needed adjustments and you’ll see what I mean. Some of those photos are now on the wall of my home. And for those wanting a non-bulky high-end camera a revolution is taking place, an advent known as the mirrorless camera.
Decide what you want
Decide consciously what you want to use the phone for. Use the phone for things that it can be really good at, like maps, calendar, phone calls and text.
I live a busy life. A calendar with different colors for types of events, the ability to easily repeat those events with a tap and to set prompts for upcoming ones is a true advance. I use AllTrails for my hikes both to locate them and to download maps onto the phone during my hike. It’s kept me from getting lost in the deep woods on more than one occasion.
Having a GPS by way of maps apps is also useful. It directs me, gives me transit options and traffic updates. That’s an advance. As is much that’s going on in map development these days. But how much of this or this would I actually use? Very little. Unless I prefer staring into my phone rather than the new world in front of me.
I limit email, especially who can access me by way of it. Many people, I’ve come to realize, just want my email to sell me something, even when they seem to have a legit reason (e.g., getting a home repair estimate). I’ve taken to telling them “I don’t use email.” Their confused look is amusing, and we make other arrangements.
Keep it in its place
I spend a lot of time with my phone turned off. Powering it back on for each little task—answering a text, checking email, the latest sports score—becomes too much of an inconvenience.
Turning my phone off is, assuming I’m not going to rid myself of the phone altogether, the most powerful tool I have for controlling my use of it.
At times I need to do more than power it off. In studying my own anxiety I found that having it anywhere near me while, say, reading a book or even watching a film or eating dinner was a source of great agitation and anxiety. So, I also, and this is key to my productivity, move it out of sight and out of arm’s reach.
Research is beginning to back this up.
So my phone just sits there. Alas, it becomes, in its irrelevance, delightful.