Its been a while since I posted, and life has seriously improved. My wife and I love going on our daily wellness walks, and have found assorts of new and exciting places, but have also started to talk about other things that don’t revolve around work.
Ebay
I used to use my iPhone for taking photos of things when selling items on eBay. Last week, I used my wife’s camera, and the items are now up for sale, and doing well.
Anxiety
Our levels or anxiety have dropped rapidly since introducing our wellness walks, and reducing my time on social media. I still pop onto Twitter using my computer from time to time, but the lack of notifications means that I spend much more time being productive, and less time… wasting time. When you set yourself time to post on Social Media for work, it becomes a tool, instead of just something to fill in the gaps.
What’s happening with my iPhone?
For the last 11 days it has spent time with a flat battery, tucked into my wardrobe. Yesterday however, I found some videos on Youtube about how to do minimalist setups, and using widgets to great effect. I plugged in my iPhone and charged it, resisting the urge to go on social media. The videos explained how you can own a smart phone, and with a few simple tweaks you can have a great little tool, that you control!
By changing the background to black, and removing the majority of apps / screens I reduced the functionality of my phone, whilst still keeping it as a phone.
The tray still holds my Phone icon, text messages and contacts, but instead of a folder with social media apps in it, I now have a shortcut that allows me to speed dial my wife (especially useful in an emergency).
I have also installed a program called widget, which allows you to have a blank widget on your main screen, and free up some space, to give it a less cluttered look.
The “Check Email” shortcut I have created, means I only view emails when I want to… with no notification square, and no nagging notification either… I am now in control of my email yay
The “Drive Home” shortcut, is for those times when you just want to go home, and don’t want the faff of opening the app, typing the address, etc… it’s just one click of the icon, select the mode of transport and hit “GO”.
And I have changed the colour scheme… it’s now black and white, very easy on the eyes, and way less distracting.
This has made it ready for me, should I decide to return to my iPhone after the end of the month.
Issues with Alarms.
I have had no issues whatsoever switching to my flip phone… except for one small problem. For some weird reason, my alarms seem to run late. For example, this morning I set an alarm for 10:15am, and it went off at 10:22am instead, which is kind of frustrating. Other than that, the phone is great… I managed to get 4 days of life out of it… something I could only dream of with my iPhone!
Distraction free Writing
One most important reason I am doing this, is to get a much better, distraction free writing experience, and it’s working 🙂 I have both phones in front of me at time of writing, and apart from taking a screenshot and uploading it, to show you what the new minimalist look is like, the lack of notifications, and the fact that I have taken back control, is simply amazing. I have been able to concentrate for longer, task switching has improved, and I even think the quality of my work has improved.
The best thing
The very best thing about this whole experience so far, is the fact that my wife and I are spending more quality time together, talking about the things that matter, not catching up on work, or the latest 5 second wonder on Social Media, but going out and spending time in the world, in a way that has felt almost impossible for the whole of the last year.
Thanks for Reading.