Own Your Phone
Photo by Rahul Chakraborty on Unsplash
I’ve consumed dozens of productivity books during the pandemic, and my favorite by far is Make Time by Google alumni Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky.
Knapp and Zeratsky frame their book around dozens of tips on building smart habits and avoiding what they term "infinity pools," apps with unlimited, updating content such as YouTube, Facebook, email, and Netflix. While I usually speed through books using Speechify, I followed the authors' advice to try a few tips at a time and see what works for me. That is the charm of the book: Knapp and Zeratsky "write at each other," agreeing and disagreeing with one another’s advice. For example, Jake argues for making time for projects at night, while John is an early bird. Therefore, unlike so many books of this type, it doesn't claim to have all the answers. Instead, it isolates four areas of our lives and invites us to throw different tips at the wall to see what sticks.
One of the tips found early in the book is the concept of the distraction-free phone. Since the authors have experience working on YouTube and Gmail as part of their role at Google, they know all too well how addictive these platforms can be. So, they recommend deleting the following from our phones for a week to see how we feel.
YouTube
Subscription streaming sites like Netflix
Email
Web browsers
Social media apps
Messenger apps other than texting
Dating apps
Games
Any other apps that infinitely draw out attention and leaving us with a sense of regret.
Here are the first two screens on my phone using the Make Time method:
Homescreen featuring my phone, texting, Japanese dictionary, and Notion productivity space
Second screen featuring my to-do list app, PDF audio reader, GPS, and Podcasts. None of these apps are so-called Infinity Pools.
A clean phone screen offers a last-ditch moment to ask, "Do I need to be looking at my phone right now?" And each of my other screens has only apps that are tools that I won’t later regret using. I can still download Instagram or my browser if needed, but that extra step makes it far less automatic.
It's been months now since I’ve done this and I don't want to go back. People know to call or text me in an emergency, and I can always check social media and email on my computer. That way, if my phone makes a noise from the drawer where I keep it, I know it's something I should check.
If you find yourself spending too much time on your phone, a leaner lifestyle is worth a one-week trial!
