Bloggings like these come up semi-regularly, and I sometimes wonder if they're just designed to troll people into deleting all the apps from their phone.
My year with a distraction-free iPhone
51–60 of 189 posts
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#52Tried this, and one of the big difficulties is that I send email to my todo list manager to create todos ("pick up milk", "Email person about important_thing"). I don't want to give this up, but can't find an app that only sends email. So when I opened Mail to send a todo email, I'd see all the new emails that were begging to be read. I could create a new email account that I use for sending only, but that seems like…
Is it really that much of a pain? It only takes a few minutes.
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#53Tried this, and one of the big difficulties is that I send email to my todo list manager to create todos ("pick up milk", "Email person about important_thing"). I don't want to give this up, but can't find an app that only sends email. So when I opened Mail to send a todo email, I'd see all the new emails that were begging to be read. I could create a new email account that I use for sending only, but that seems like…
Maybe you could set up a google number, and send text messages instead of email. Apparently google can forward the text message to your email.
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#54So I've gone the other way: everything that is distracting (fb, twitter, reddit, ideally HN but android apps suck for this) is on my phone. Then, my computer is for work, and my phone is for being bored. That way (in theory) there is no reason to be logged into timesinks on my computer, so I can use it without distraction.
You just have to be careful that this won't cause a boredom loop: https://xkcd.com/1411/
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#55So I've gone the other way: everything that is distracting (fb, twitter, reddit, ideally HN but android apps suck for this) is on my phone. Then, my computer is for work, and my phone is for being bored. That way (in theory) there is no reason to be logged into timesinks on my computer, so I can use it without distraction.
I think this also makes a great use case for an iPad. I have hosts-blocked all time sinks on my Mac, and unlike on my iPhone, I don't even have much time to use my iPad.
I do miss the convenience of a physical keyboard in FB discussions, though...
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#56You know what would make my life really distraction-free? Ban Hacker News on every device I have access to for a prolonged period :)
Life is good with noprocrast=yes and minaway=1000 in your profile. I can read HN exactly once a day. :)
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#57I dropped and broke my nexus 4. Now with a small dumb phone, a notebook and a mechanical pencil. Feels kind of good that the phone broke.
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#58I wonder if people keep a gazillion time sinks on their home screens is that they've paid $500 to be part of the smartphone club, and reducing its "use" would cause buyer's regret. I think I am somewhat guilty of that on my iPad.
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#59I think the biggest problem with the smartphone are the PUSH notifications. Disable them and your life becomes instantly better.
If deleting apps is a big leap for you then I think disabling all push notifications is the second best thing you can do.
Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone
#60I was away at a friends cabin about a month ago. Sitting on a lawn chair on their dock I shifted and my Nexus 4 fell out of my pocket, bounced off the dock, and into the lake. When I got back home I popped the SIM card into my old iPhone 3GS and have been experiencing a similar smartphone underload. I updated the apps I needed to, mostly 2-factor software tokens for VPN and my Google account, and realized that I wasn…
I acquired a Nexus 4 from a friend after it had fallen into a (clean) toilet. She sent it to me to attempt to fix, and I too started with silica gel, moved onto placing it near the boiler, and eventually set it beside a dehumidifier. After a couple of weeks the phone appeared bone dry, but I couldn't get past the boot screen.
Fast forward six months of the Nexus 4 sitting in a drawer forgotten about. I took it out and charged it. Amazingly, the phone now works 100%.