Yesterday I saw some success in fighting off the doomscrolling, distraction, and brainrot by treating my phone as a landline.
When I was a kid we had one phone in the house. And it did only one thing. It rang, you talked then hung up. And what you did with the rest of your life, was up to you.
Nowadays, my phone is a huge distraction. Most of my free time is spent staring at it and scrolling endlessly.
I want my life back. So, I’m going to treat my smart phone as a landline: set it on my desk, and I leave it there. If it rings, I’ll answer it. If it doesn’t, well, then the rest of my life belongs to me.
Here’s a list of the things I would like the rest of my life to be about:
- Playing drums, guitar, making music, songwriting.
- Drawing, painting
- Writing, blogging
- Photography
- Reading books, listening to music, watching inspirational films
Those are all making and creating, not consuming. The exception is books/music/movies. But they are good consumption because they are inspirational. And I’m not addicted to them like my phone.
If I do want to consume on my phone, I take inspiration from Agile software methodology: do it standing up. This is so I can check the news and make sure there isn’t something I legitimately need to know. But standing up is an easy reminder not to get lost in it.