Six Years With a Distraction-Free iPhone

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Not necessarily to do with books, but quite possibly helpful for writing.

From Medium:

In 2012, I realized I had a problem. My iPhone made me twitchy. It called to me from my pocket, the way the Ring called Bilbo Baggins.
My moment of clarity happened in my living room. I was sitting on the floor one evening, building train tracks with my kids, when my older son said:

“Dad, why are you looking at your phone?”

He wasn’t trying to make me feel bad or anything. He was just curious. But I didn’t have a good answer. So why was I looking at my iPhone? I didn’t even remember taking it out — it had sort of materialized in my hand. All day, I’d been looking forward to spending time with my kids, and now that it was finally happening, I wasn’t really there at all.

He wasn’t trying to make me feel bad or anything. He was just curious. But I didn’t have a good answer. So why was I looking at my iPhone? I didn’t even remember taking it out — it had sort of materialized in my hand. All day, I’d been looking forward to spending time with my kids, and now that it was finally happening, I wasn’t really there at all.

I froze for a second. I thought back.

When the iPhone came out, in 2007, it was shiny and beautiful and cool and I flat-out wanted one. But I needed a justification, so I convinced myself that I needed it for work. After all, the iPhone had email, a web browser, and even a stocks app — this was a serious tool for serious people!

So I got an iPhone, and just like that, I signed myself up to check and respond to email wherever, whenever. No pay raise, no new job title, not even a request from my boss. For me, this was a 100% self-inflicted responsibility because I wanted a shiny object.

Over the years, as new apps came out — Facebook, Instagram, news, games, etc — I installed them. They were shiny, they were free, and they helped me “get my money’s worth” out of my phone. Every app created new responsibilities. More inboxes to check and more feeds to read. Every app latched onto my brain, tethering my phone to my skull with invisible string.

. . . .

Why exactly did I have an iPhone, anyway?

I’d never thought about that question before, but the answer was simple: I wanted the iPhone to make my life better. I wanted a futuristic tool and I wanted to be in control of it.

. . . .

I began [deleting] the obvious attention thieves. I deleted Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. I deleted YouTube, ESPN, and all my games. Then I went into the settings and removed Safari. I was like David Bowman in 2001, shutting down the psychotic computer HAL so I could fly the spaceship by myself.

. . . .

The only thing left was email.

I love email. I’ve loved it ever since I sent my first message back in the early 1990s. I’d even worked on the Gmail team at Google.

And yet… I had to admit that email was the very worst distraction on my phone. Hiding behind a guise of necessity, email was an infinite hamster wheel powered by other people’s priorities.

So I gritted my teeth and deleted Gmail. I even went into settings and deleted my Google account to disable Apple’s Mail app.

. . . .

The first few days were strange. I’d unlock my phone, only to remember there was nothing to check. Before, getting up-to-date on my apps provided a small sense of accomplishment. Unlock the phone, tap, boom! It was like a sugar rush. Now, the candy was gone.

It was weird, but it was also weirdly… peaceful. My attention span lengthened. Time slowed down, in a good way. My head was free. Untethered

. . . .

I’ve had a distraction-free iPhone for six years now. And there have been costs. I lost my reputation for instant email response and immediate task turnaround. Without the tug of my phone, I drifted off of Facebook and lost touch with some friends.

But there were rewards as well. Without infinite friends, I paid better attention to moments with my wife and kids. 

. . . .

Here’s the thing: When I stopped instantly reacting to everyone else’s priorities, I got better at making time for the projects I believed were most important—even if they weren’t urgent or nobody was asking for them.

Link to the rest at Medium