This is the way, I think. I try to do the same with apps on my phone. Basically I’m trying to use my phone as little as possible and make it as unappealing as possible. More specifically I’m trying to stop filling every interstitial period of a day with my phone. Embracing quiet, boredom even. Allowing my brain to wander in a checkout line. That sort of thing. I think it’s really a numbers game. Like if you carpet bomb your brain with inputs and stimuli all day you’re not going to give your brain any space to be creative, make deeper connections, wander, observe, and generate unscripted/unprompted thoughts.
Discussion
Ditto. Have you tried going greyscale in your phone? It’s an interesting setting that makes the device significantly less appealing to use. (Easy to turn off/on again as needed in the control center once your configure.)
In the mid-aughts, inspired by Tim Ferriss’, The Four Hour Workweek, I embraced the remote-only life of a digital nomad. This was before for iPhone, mind you, but I adopted an accessible-anywhere lifestyle and ran multiple businesses using the services that were available at that time VOIP for phones & fax, DocuSign, LogMeIn (now GoTo), DropBox and, later, Evernote (which now sucks), Trello, Asana, and Slack.
I prided myself on being completely reachable during extended trips to India and East Asia, productive from any random beach or cafe, efficient across time zones, for over a decade. I travelled so much, the State Dept. had to reissue a passport for me after I filled up the extension pack that had been added to my book.
Now older, my staff knows I’m not reachable when I travel unless there’s fire, flood, or blood.
I want to be offline as much as possible now. There is simply no way my brain can keep up with the constant barrage of notifications. For my own sanity, I have to reduce, limit, cut away, via negativa (to borrow from Taleb), to allow myself room to breathe in this new attention economy.
The idea of going grayscale has crossed my radar before but for some reason I haven’t taken the time to implement it. Probably should though. You find it effective?
I couldn’t agree more with everything else you said. I have my assistant trained similarly now that I’m essentially not to be bothered when I’m out unless the proverbial shit is hitting the fan, blood, death, flames, etc.
Learning to be offline, to subtract as much as possible, to resist the algorithms and the quick dopamine hits, the mindless scrolling, the infinity of ads…it’s a survival skill at this point.
I found grayscale to be…almost too effective. It made me nearly despise my device… which was the intention! Lo, how attractive these pretty colors doth hold my interest tightly!
Got to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut > Color Filters
This makes it simple to turn it off/on when, for example, you *need* to see color… like when you want to view/take a photo:
