Six years of life with an iPhone that does not distract me

In 2012, I realized that I had a problem. My iPhone twitched me completely. From the depths of my pocket, he called me, as the One Ring called Bilbo Baggins. The inspiration came to me in the living room, where I sat one evening and built a railway with children. My eldest son suddenly asked:


Dad, why are you looking at the phone?

He had no intention of shaming me at all or something like that. He just became interested. And yet, I did not know what to say to him. And really, why am I staring at my iPhone? I don’t even remember how I pulled him out - he just somehow materialized himself in my hands. All day I was looking forward to the moment when I could play with the children, and now, when this time has finally come, I keep my mind somewhere far away.
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For a second I froze, and then I began to remember.

In 2007, when the iPhone just entered the market, it was beautiful, shining and cool, and, to be frank, I wanted myself to death to myself. But I had to somehow justify the purchase, so I convinced myself that I needed the phone for work. After all, there is mail, a web browser and even a tracker for trading on the stock exchange - obviously a serious tool for serious people!

Therefore, I bought myself an iPhone and, in such a simple way, signed up to instantly read and answer letters at any time and in any place. I didn’t shine for it, neither the increase nor the increase in salary, and my boss didn’t even insist on it. In my case, the commitment was made completely voluntarily, just because I wanted to have a nice little thing.

As the years went on, new applications appeared - Facebook, Instagram, news services, games - and I downloaded them. They were all beautiful too, free and helped me “get the exhaust” from my phone. Each application contributed to the list of my obligations - mailboxes that need to be checked, tapes that need to be flipped. All of them stuck to the brain, as if stretching an invisible thread between my head and the telephone.


It was all my own choice. I handed out my attention right and left. And if I suddenly found that it was difficult for me to concentrate even in those moments when I was playing with children - in theory, the most pleasant time of the day ... there was no one to blame here.

If you figure out, why do I even need an iPhone?

I didn’t think about it before, and yet the answer was very simple: I wanted an iPhone to make my life better. I wanted to get this futuristic tool and dispose of it at will.

Then I took the evil on myself and on the phone. I had felt guilty about this before, but now I decided that it was enough to be tormented by torments of conscience, it was time to act somehow. With my heart pounding, I drove around the screen so that all the icons began to shake. And then he began to delete these damn applications. I started with those who steal the time completely too naked - deleted Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, deleted YouTube and ESPN, as well as all of their games. Then I went to the settings and removed Safari. I felt like Dave Bowman when he cut down a crazy HAL computer system in order to switch to manual control of the ship.

Finally left one mail. I love mail, ever since I sent the first letter in my life, and it was in the early nineties. I even worked on the Gmail service at Google. And nevertheless ... it was necessary to recognize that of all the mail that was installed on my phone was the most serious distraction. Under the cover of imaginary need, she made me a squirrel in a wheel that always chases after other people's priorities. So I clenched my teeth and deleted Gmail. And even went to remove the address in the settings to disable the built-in service Mail.


Seriously? Have you decided to remove Gmail? Completely crazy?
Cancel - Delete

That's all. Some sixty seconds since the beginning of the whole story - and HAL was turned off, and I got complete freedom of action. It was nice to get even, but when the excitement of destruction subsided, I felt uneasy. My iPhone turned into a pale likeness of what it was before. I had a premonition that without applications I would be tormented by anxiety and loneliness. So I said to myself: this is just an experiment. I will try to live like this for a week, in the end, to establish everything anew is a short matter.

The first few days were unusual. I removed the lock on the machine and immediately realized that there was nothing to look at. Previously, having run through all the alerts in the applications, I briefly imbued with a sense of accomplishment. Enough to unlock the phone - and voila! Like a burst of energy from sweet. And now sweets are taken away.

The feeling was strange, but at the same time, somehow ... pacifying. It became easier for me to keep attention on one thing. Time seemed to slow down, and it was nice. My head was free - not attached to anything.

I liked it so much again to completely dispose of my brain that I didn’t even notice how the week ended. A month passed, then another, and another. In 2013, a few months after the start of the experiment, I wrote an article about my iPhone, on which there were no distractions, and a year later, in 2014, the second one . Apparently, people became interested - hundreds of thousands of people read this story of mine, neither the previous nor the opuses that followed did not even come close to such popularity.

Some readers pointed out (perhaps fairly) the fact that I am a self-satisfied idiot who does not know how to control himself. But many others have written words of support. Enough and those who wanted to also participate in the experiment. And even those who deleted only a few applications said that their mental state had improved.

I shared their feelings. For my taste, even without applications, the iPhone has remained an excellent device. On my own, I still upload music and podcasts. In addition, it stores devices that seem to be pulled straight out of Harry Potter: the Night Knight bus (Uber, Lyft), the Weasley watch (Find Friends). With the help of Google Translate I can read in foreign languages. I can talk with Siri, and she understands me (sometimes). Excellent maps and amazing camera, too, have not gone away. Yes, there is even a flashlight! In short, if I had been given such a telephone in the eighties, when I was a child, my roof would have gone from happiness. An iPhone without distractions is a futuristic device that I fully control. That is exactly what I wanted from the very beginning.


I have been living with an iPhone for six years, which does not require my attention. And, of course, it was not without victims. I had to abandon the reputation of a person who always instantly responds to requests and performs tasks. Without calling the phone, I gradually abandoned Facebook and lost contact with several friends.

But, on the other hand, advantages have also opened. Without being distracted by a crowd of friends, I began to devote more time to my wife and children. For me, this very reason became the main reason for redesigning my own phone. But it is very personal and relevant precisely for my situation, so I will not dwell on it.

But I wanted to make out another advantage in more detail - it turned out to be a big surprise for me.

Do not be distracted - it means to have a competitive advantage.

I will be honest with you: even though everything is going well for me, I still doubt that you will follow my example and eliminate distractions. And I understand the reason. It looks like complete nonsense - to cut down the functionality of your phone, especially considering how we have been used to always stay in touch over the past ten years. Nevertheless, I highly recommend you to do this. At the risk of sounding like a bore (although it’s already there, it’s obviously too late to worry about), I’ll point out another reason to remove applications from the phone.

The point is this: by ceasing to react all the time to what is important for others, I finally managed to find time for projects that had more meaning in my own eyes - even if they were not particularly urgent and no one wanted anything of the sort from me . I put a lot of effort into documenting and promoting my design sprint. Also, after many years of postponing to “sometime later,” I finally started writing and eventually published two books .

What percentage of such productivity should be attributed to an iPhone that does not distract me? I think big enough. Work on large projects consists of a large number of long sessions over a long time. You can compare this process with the construction of a pyramid: each session is like a block that you cut out of stone, and you plant it on the others.

Let's imagine that we, with the Double of Jake, whose phone still has all the applications, are building speed pyramids. He reacts faster in the mail and Instagram subscribers have more, but at the same time, it is harder for him to concentrate.


Double Jake is constantly reacting to all sorts of little things. Whenever I manage to master a couple of blocks at this time, the distance between us grows. Whenever he pauses to look at the phone, he breaks the block. According to research, it takes an average of 23 minutes to get involved in the process after something has distracted us. This number may seem overstated, but in my experience, it is somewhere.

Double Jake does not know how to put their own priorities at the forefront. I am able to focus attention and therefore I can work on blog posts, illustrations, slide sets and book chapters — that is, what is important to me even if no one asked.


This was the most significant change in my workflow in the last six years. I have not grown for no reason at will power and self-control. I am far from perfect. But the fact that I do not burn the pocket of the application, gives me a competitive advantage over the person I was before.

Do not expect help from the giants

Just a minute. But after all, Apple, Google, Facebook release all sorts of tools to reduce the time we spend in front of the screen. It turns out, the problem is already solved?

I would not say that. My expert opinion as an iPhone addict is this: these new-fangled applications-timers are too difficult to set up and too easy to ignore, and the limits that they set by default are much more generous than necessary. What about the fact that the Double of Jake will spend on Youtube not two hours, but an hour a day or receive notifications after 15 minutes of sticking to Instagram? From the call of the Ring he will not go anywhere, he will not stop spoiling the blocks of the pyramid. Slightly loosen the pressure does not mean to gain freedom.


"You spend too much time with the phone!" - "Yes, I know ..."

If the phone crowds out the activities and people that are important to you from your life, do not make any compromises. Take the situation into your own hands and design just such a phone that you need.

Start with a two-hour experiment.

It is not at all necessary for you to immediately make the final decision and forever part with all the distractions. Just try to understand how you will feel in such conditions. I advise you to go to the end and remove all applications that require your attention in order to experience the feeling of simplicity and clarity that arise when you absolutely nothing attracts to the phone. Do not forget: to install everything back is easy.

Here is an action plan:

1. Understand exactly what you want to pay more attention.

I set a goal to be more attentive to children. You may be motivated by the desire to give more time to friends, work projects or hobbies. Whatever you choose for yourself, knowing the reason is a good help, because forcing yourself to remove applications is not so easy!

2. Adjust expectations

Tell colleagues and friends: “I want to focus on one important matter, so I will not answer right away. If something urgent - call. "

3. Remove Social Platform Applications

Do not forget that you can always log in to your account from another device or reinstall the application, if absolutely not at all.



4. Remove news services

It may seem to you that it is frivolous to not follow the endless chain of “emergency news”, but in fact, taking pauses is both acceptable and useful .



5. Remove streaming video services and games

Nobody forbids you to still watch TV shows or play, just add an additional barrier - having to download the app again or switch to another device.



6. Remove browsers

There will have to delve into the phone settings. On the iPhone, you need to go the following way: Settings → Screen time → Content and privacy → Allowed programs, and disable Safari.



7. Remove mail and other tools for "productive" communication.

This step may be the most difficult (I did), because these applications are directly related to work. Of course, a small percentage of people - for example, doctors or technicians working on call, and representatives of other similar professions - are really obliged to respond instantly. But the rest must ask themselves: and until tomorrow it can not be postponed? You can familiarize yourself with the study , which showed that you will work more efficiently (and even less nervous!) If you start checking messages less frequently.

Wait two hours and listen to yourself.

Two hours is enough to experience a sense of freedom. But if you want, you can extend the experiment until the next morning, or for the whole day, or even for a week. But no matter how long it lasts, be sure to take the time to the lesson that you chose for yourself as a point of focus in the first stage and observe whether there are changes in the level of attentiveness. I think you will also notice that it has become easier to concentrate, although, of course, all people are different.

If all this sounds too radical, start small - remove only a couple of applications that are most annoying to you, and see how long you can survive.

Whichever method you choose and whatever term is set, a telephone without distractions is not a monastic vow. If you do not like it, return everything as it was. If any application is badly needed, just reinstall it - it only takes a few seconds, and when you're done, you can delete it again (or leave it if it doesn't bother you). I definitely reinstalled remote applications for various reasons. Every time I worked with her for several minutes with pleasure, and then I deleted and felt a rush of relief that I could concentrate again.

In general, this is the whole point: to control what my attention is spent on. During these six years I have been increasingly able to work more closely with my wife and children when we are together. I increasingly feel like the kind of father I wanted to be. I repeat: I am not saying at all that everything is immaculate now. There is a whole world around me, full of distractions to the brim, and every second you have to struggle with temptations in order to keep the focus on what matters. And yet, now that I no longer have a portal to infinity in my pocket, the chances of success have increased.

Perhaps you have more willpower than me, but if you feel that you are following your phone, do not accept the conditions that the settings page offers you. Remove applications and gain control.