Facing my addiction to my phone

Hi. I’m Greg and I have a problem. I got an iPhone about 13 years ago. I didn’t mean for it to become an addiction. I meant for it to be a tool. A device I could use to get ahold of people. To talk with them and send messages. Over time, though, I found myself getting sucked in to the clutches of this little device.

I guess it was about a year and a half ago I started realizing I had a problem. Constantly checking my phone. Constantly engaging with people on it rather than people in the room with me. I am a grown man but, for some reason, I was acting like the teenagers we see all around us. Not engaging socially any more but scrolling through their phones instead. That was me. It was social media apps like Instagram or Tik Tok. Mindlessly scrolling. Watching YouTube videos all the time.

If I wasn’t scrolling social media apps, then I was downloading the latest productivity app. For some reason, Omnifocus or Things 3 was going to make me more productive. Todoist an TickTick are phenomenal apps but they cannot fix the fundamental problem here: procrastination. It doesn’t matter how many tasks I have in these apps, if I’m scrolling through instagram, I’m not working on them at all.

About a year ago, Vincent (creator of Scribbles) mentioned he doesn’t use a task manager. I found this baffling and intriguing all at the same time. How can you not use a task manager? Doesn’t everyone need this? So after several conversations with him about this, the intriguing overtook me. I decided to try this. I’ve had to do some tweaking because of job changing but I’ve come up with something that works for me and it does not involve my phone. That being said, I do have my bills due each month in the reminders app. But that’s it. Now, I keep a list of things that need to get done. Every morning, I write (in a notebook) the main one or two tasks that need to get done that day from my list and I work on those. The next day, the same thing. If something doesn’t get done, I can pick it up tomorrow. No annoying badge or reminder to tell me something is past due and nag me. I also started carrying a pocket notebook to jot down ideas or grocery list items. Instead of reaching for the phone, I reach for the notebook and pen. On a side note, I do still use a digital calendar because all of my work stuff is in there with meetings and scheduling. So I use that instead of trying to rewrite it by hand.

That was one problem down. The next one I decided to tackle was my social media addiction. At the end of 2023, I saw a YouTube video that talked about disappearing for a year. What your life would look like if you did this. So I decided to disappear off social media for 2024. Deleting all the apps from my devices. I’m here to report that nothing happened. Meaning nobody has noticed that I’m not posting and/or not even on social media. And nothing happened in that the world did not end. I haven’t missed some huge family emergency. Nothing. Life is still going on for them and for me. I still check Facebook every once in a while to see if there are any school game updates I need to know about. Other than that, I’m off the platforms. I must say, also, I couldn’t be happier. Pretty sure this is reason enough for me to know that I can probably delete all of these accounts and move on with my life.

I’ve had a minimal home screen setup for a very long time. I like the idea of having no apps on my home screen. The App Library makes it so easy to find apps and spotlight is so good that I can open apps just as fast that way. I keep three apps in my dock. On the right side is Drafts, which is my most used app. The middle is messages (but that may change. More on that in a minute). On the left is Apple’s new Journal app. I use it just about every day. I love this app  and how simplistic it is.

That brings me to my final dilemma with my phone. Messages and notifications. What I’m about to say is going to be both hypocritical and comical at the same time. I have never been a fan of notifications. I do not have badges on my apps at all. I do not like getting notifications on my Lock Screen. They’re intrusive and cause interruptions. But at the same time, I have a problem with wanting to reply to someone right away when they message me. Well most everyone. So I get caught in a cycle. I don’t like notifications but what if I miss a message from someone so I check my phone to see if I have any new messages. It’s a vicious cycle. 

Then I started thinking about this a little different. I think the problem with notifications is the sheer volume you get. As a sidebar (in case anyone from Apple is going to read this), I want Apple to implement VIP for messages. With mail, you can set up people as VIPs an customize notifications differently. VIP mail can be shown on the Lock Screen or have badges where other mail can have that turned off. I want the same thing for messages. If my wife texts me, I want to know immediately but I don’t need to know immediately if a coworker messages me. I know you can mute conversations and I do that too but that would be way too many to mute. So, Apple, fix this please.

In the meantime I decided to try something with Focus Modes. I setup a focus mode for my phone that I keep on most of the time. Only time it’s not on is when another focus mode is running (sleep, workout, etc). Those automatically turn on at different times. Otherwise this other focus mode is running. What I have setup is that certain people are allowed to message me and it come through on the lock screen. Other people not so much. That means I get notified of the messages from people I want. The other people’s messages I will see when I open the app. This has relieved me of some of the anxiety about wondering if I’ve missed a message that I need to respond to. 

It’s not the ideal fix. The ideal fix would be for me to stop feeling the need to check the phone all the time. This is a step in that direction I feel. I want to stop living with my face in a phone and start living the way I was intended to live. Being in the moment. Present. Intentional. 

So, yes I am Greg. I have a problem. But I’m doing what I can to combat that problem.