My iPhone is used for four main purposes: as a phone; as a train timetable; as a listening device (podcasts, audiobooks and music); and for my meditation apps (more on meditation below). It also has a few utilities such as Uber that I rarely use. I don’t use my phone for social media, as a diary, or for email. Most of the day it stays in my pocket or on my desk. All notifications, except calls and text messages, are turned off. I rarely have any reason to look at it.
The whole post is interesting.
I think that it pays to evaluate your daily habits and try to reinforce the ones that you want to keep and eliminate the ones that you want to drop. I saw a reference recently to a “stoplight” system where you give yourself a list of 10-15 desired habits and, when you keep them, give a green check and when you break them, give yourself a red check. My current list is:
1. Do serious writing first thing in the morning (that is when I am sharpest).
2. Do foot stretches twice a day (to protect against the dancer’s habit of plantar fasciitis)
3. Review one dance using YouTube.
4. Read 20 pages in a book (in practice, I tend to binge-read or read nothing)
5. Straighten up an area
6. Organize web site (I am failing at this habit)
7. Aerobic exercise at least 2 hours
8. Touch base with any friend
9. Eat an apple
10. Eat broccoli
Arnold, set yourself free from your self-imposed obsessive-compulsive prison. Wake up in the morning and do what you feel like doing. Time is running out and none of your obligatory tasks are important. It’s too late for you to save the world.