Taking a Week Off

So there wasn’t a post last week. I had an idea for one, but I just couldn’t get it off the ground. The idea was there, but the words were not and when that happens, instead of struggling through, I just don’t write the post. And then I left it too late to come up with a new one to publish in time. So I took a week off. It’s fine, nothing major has happened.

I recently made a lovely new friend. Whilst getting to know them, they introduced me to an app which simplifies your smart phone, it’s called Minimalist Phone. It costs you money to use it, but it’s good. It essentially simplifies your phone to a time and date widget at the top, little widgets at the bottom for the phone and camera apps and then a list of your most used and more importantly useful apps on the front. Also you can set it so notifications that come in are ‘captured’ and then just kept in a list somewhere that you can view at your leisure. This filter helps to weed out the constant buzz of shit that gets sent to your phone and only the most important stuff comes through. There’s some more settings, but I didn’t need them and it is customisable to your needs.

Now I never felt like I spent that much time on my phone before, but it has helped me to cut down on it now. I think I average three hours a day. I use my phone for emails at work and keeping up with friends and family on Whatsapp and for music and podcasts and a bit of social media. So three hours sounds reasonable to me. What it minimises is the flashy colourful whatsits that catch your attention. By taking away that colour and noise and grasp for attention, it means that I only pick up my phone when I actually need to, rather than because I’m bored for a second.

But it hasn’t quite worked yet. I still reach for my phone when I’m bored for a second. If I’m watching a tv show and there’s an ad break, the first thing I do is grab my phone and check my social media. Why? What’s happened in the last fifteen minutes, that I desperately need to know since I last checked. And it’s beginning to really fuck me off. Because I don’t like the feeling that I’m controlled by this machine. My attention isn’t on a big screen so my attention must be on another smaller screen. Fucking, pisses me off. Why can’t I be bored for a couple of minutes? What’s the issue with just closing my eyes and relaxing whilst some soul sucking ad is trying to sell me something? I’m not interested in that, so why am I so interested in my phone?

The Minimalist Phone app is good and all of your apps are still accessible, they’re just in a separate long list. A small annoyance is you have to remember the name of an app you use less regularly when you require it. And also I don’t get to see the lovely scrolling art I used to have on my ‘off’ screen or the pictures I would have on my wallpaper. Normally it was of a niece or a nephew looking angelic. They’re not like that in real life.

Anyway, coupled with my phone use, I’ve threatened this before, but I’m getting to the point where I consider Facebook to be completely fucking pointless, apart from the fact that I know some of you lovely readers find my posts via Facebook. So I really would advise you to subscribe, because my Facebook might be going very soon. You can subscribe below.