Phone Cleanse

I’m going conduct an experiment, starting tomorrow, October 1st.

As I’ve written about earlier, I’ve managed to get my attention back from social media/the internet enough that I’m able to focus on things for long durations if I need to. What I still have some trouble with is the idea of not doing something at all times – either reading, listening to music/podcasts/books, stuff like that. I still find it difficult to just … be.

I recently went for a long walk to think about the next year of my life – intentionally think of one subject with no external input – and my mind kept drifting, and I had to pull it back each time.

I know this is just a matter of practice, and I’ll get better at this (I don’t have a problem with similar walks when I’m thinking about a story, for example), but I was wondering what might make this easier – and realised that while my phone is largely “distraction-free”, it still has a lot of apps that are for my entertainment.

I’ve removed all the streaming apps from my phone about a year ago (I only watch films and tv shows on my big tv anyway), but I’ve still got YouTube on there. Apart from that, I have a profusion of reading apps – Kindle, an RSS reader, Readwise – and audio apps – there’s a podcast app, there’s music, Audible and Bound for audiobooks. And I’ve got a few games on my phone too – mainly Sudoku and word puzzles. All things that I could look at or listen to if I feel bored, which means if I have my phone with me, it’s still an active effort not to look at it.

We’ve got too many ways to stop being bored, and focus and thinking hard are only achieved in a state where you’re allowed to think or be bored, but nothing else. Anything else creates drag.

So, coming to the experiment. I’m taking all these apps off the phone.

You might have heard about people using a dumb phone as a second phone that they might carry when they need to focus on something. I think it’s an honourable practice, but it needs you to consciously pick up the second phone instead of your regular phone.

My thought is, I’ve got a device which can take all these apps that I want to remove from my phone – my iPad – which can stay at home, in my office. And whenever I’m away from that, I’d automatically be carrying a device that has none of those things.

The downside I can see is that I only listen to audiobooks when I’m out and about – when I’m at home, I just read books instead. So I’d be listening to fewer audiobooks and podcasts overall. But even that is something I’ll only miss because I’m not ready to just look at the world around me, or think about something.

I might find this one to be a waste of time. Unlike the other cleanses/declutters I’ve done, this isn’t a straightforward positive.

But I keep wanting to put time aside just to think, and find myself at the end of most days not having done that. Maybe once I figure that out, I can put some of these things back on the phone.

So for the month of October, we’re doing this.