Yes, I am addicted to my smartphone.
The f*****g thing is in my hand all the time. I don’t even know how it gets there.
I deleted FB, TW and LI, but now just access them through the browser. I’m even using https://duckduckgo.com/ to make that harder, and I’ve figured a way around that.
It’s insane. My wife hates it. My 3 year old tells me to get off my phone. At breakfast.
Enough is enough.
The Goal
My goal is to restrict my smartphone usage to “business hours” – 830 to 530. Anytime outside of that is either back on the laptop, or it waits until tomorrow.
However I still need to be accessible. I’m a freight manager, and the trucks don’t stop. I also have 5 kids, three of them young adults. Stuff happens and they need to get me instantly.
The Plan
So, I’ve bought a “burner” dumbphone – the Nokia 8110.
(Yes, I am Neo).
It can make and receive calls, and send and receive SMS. It is terrible for anything else.
I’ve switched both phones to an Optus biz plan, and set my smartphone to forward all missed and “phone off” calls to the dumbphone. So I never miss a call.
I’m trialling an SMS forwarding service called PhoneLeash to send all SMS from the smartphone to the dumbphone.
So, if it’s urgent, people will call or SMS. Everything else can wait, be it email, or, well, email.
The Challenge
Today is afternoon 1. The challenge starts at 530.
Stay around for updates.
