Own Your Phone: Small Decisions That Add Up to Real Focus

WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. I'm
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Josh Negron, and this show is all about sharing
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lessons, ideas, and strategies that sharpen your
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thinking, strengthen your habits, and push you
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to grow beyond comfort zones. Let's dive in.
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Welcome back to the show. Today, I'm coming to
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you on location from MCO, Orlando International
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Airport. And there's a conference down here that
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I'm a part of. And so why not record an episode
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in a beautiful hotel room? Today, I wanted to
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talk about continuing to optimize focus. We talked
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about this in previous episodes, but specifically,
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I want to hone in today on the usage of your
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cell phone. Now, this isn't going to be an episode
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where we're going to talk about detoxing from
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our phones and putting them away. Let's approach
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it with the mindset that it is a device that
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we are going to use. If you want to go and get
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yourself a flip phone, then hey, who am I to
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stop you? But for the rest of us that need our
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smartphone, or at least, let's face it, we're
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going to use them, I'd like to talk about a few
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things that I thought were really helpful in
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allowing me to slowly optimize and changing it
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from the device using me, seemingly so, to me
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using the device. Now, I think you know what
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I mean. There's been times when we've picked
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up our phone, you had something in your mind
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to do, and then all of a sudden... You didn't
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know what you were doing. Or maybe you were getting
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to that app. Maybe it's your to -do list or your
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email. You needed to send something, but then
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you saw one notification or one popped up. Or
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maybe you saw a banner notification come down
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and you're like, yeah, I got to answer that text
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message. And then you answer the message. Well,
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what was I actually doing? There's other times
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where you pick up your phone, you open it, and
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you just start doing some stuff. And five to
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10 minutes later, you're like, man, why did I
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even open this? So it's instances like this that
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we want to be aware of and start to build systems
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to optimize ourselves back to a place where we're
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controlling our device more often than it's controlling
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us. One of the ways you can do that is through
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things like screen time. Now, if you're an iOS
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user, you may know what screen time is. That's
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something I've had for several years now where
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you can go in and look at your usage. Android
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phones have their version of this as well. And
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my encouragement to you in step one of this is
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awareness. Just going in there and looking because
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people will say, well, I don't spend that much
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time on social media or whatever. And I think
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sometimes when I look at those weekly reports
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that it sends me that notification, it's usually
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on Sundays. There are times where I'm like, man,
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yeah. That's more than I expected, to be honest.
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And so just go in there and look, look around.
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It'll show you things like how long you've been
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on your device altogether. It'll show you the
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most used apps. You can go by day or by week.
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And then you can see pickups, daily pickups.
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That's an interesting metric, which just shows
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you how many times you picked up your phone in
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a day. Sometimes mine has been as high as 160
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pickups. What am I doing? And so at that point,
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we're not making any judgments. We're just looking
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to see if we can identify what are opportunities
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for improvement like we talk about. This is a
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natural thing for us. We talk about this often.
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So what are those things? What are those apps?
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What are those notifications that are triggering
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those pickups? So these are the things that I
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think need your most attention. So remember.
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This is data before decisions. You just want
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to get the information so that you can make the
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best decisions moving forward. Identify your
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lowest hanging fruit, the easiest things to change.
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And if there's an app on that list of the most
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used apps, is it is one that you're like, I'm
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OK if I give that up. That's easy. Now, it's
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most likely that. If it's in the highest used
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apps count, you're probably not gonna delete
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it. But there's gonna be others where maybe they're
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part of your pickups or your notifications. Are
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any of those ones that you're like, nah, I'm
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good if I don't get notified of that app? Then
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that's a great place to start. This is going
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on the concept of making permanent micro decisions.
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And so these are decisions that are meant to
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create a compound effect over time. So if there's
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an app that you decide, you know what? I don't
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need notifications from this app anymore. Once
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you delete, and deactivate those notifications,
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you get all of those microseconds back. from
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now into the future. Now imagine if you do that
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for multiple apps, multiple days, you see where
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I'm going with this. So this can create kind
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of a flywheel over time that gains momentum.
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So you're like, I don't know where to start.
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Well, screen time's gonna be a great way for
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you to do that. Identify certain ones that you're
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like, yeah, I don't need these. Another one's
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gonna be going through your phone and seeing
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where the red badges are. Now, some of you are
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so OCD, you're like, dude, you're implying I
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have red badges right now? That's crazy. Anyone
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who has those is a psychopath. Well, hello, I
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must be one because I just can't keep up with
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them all. And so that's a great exercise. And
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some of them I feel like are just geared against
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you. Have you ever gone into an app, cleared
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all the notifications, gone out of it, and it's
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still got a badge? I mean, that's crazy, right?
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So they're really trying to keep you in their
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ecosystem, in their app. They don't have your
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best interest at heart at all in this deal. So
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if it's an app that you're like... I don't really
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need those. Go in there and deactivate at least
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the badges because whether or not it drives you
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crazy, it could draw your attention. It could
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distract you on your phone. The next step is,
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is just dealing with notifications as you get
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them. So when you receive a notification from
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an app, pause for just a second and ask yourself,
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is this a notification that I need or I want?
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Or if you want to kind of do it in a specific
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session, a lot of times, unless you clear every
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single notification that you receive, you can
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just swipe up in the lock screen of iOS and you'll
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see a bunch of notifications from that day. And
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I want you to ask those questions. Is this an
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app that I want notifications from, from now
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into the future? If the answer is no, swipe left.
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And you should be able to clear those, not just
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now, but also stop all future notifications altogether.
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You don't even have to go in the settings anymore.
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You can just do it right there from the notification.
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Huge game changer. Because when you swipe left,
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you're going to get view options. And then at
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that point, you can put turn off. Huge advantage
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for you. Another one I like to do is going through
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my app updates occasionally. So about once a
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week, I'll go in my app store and then I go into
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app updates and just check out the apps that
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have recently updated. And that's a perfect.
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opportunity that I can take to see apps and I'm
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like, I didn't even know that was still a thing.
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And then I can again, just swipe left, hit delete,
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boom, and I can delete the app right there. Another
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good one is in your email. Man, email will suck
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your soul if you let it. And if you're like me,
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I have like nine different email accounts for
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different places and different purposes. And
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so it can be super, super time consuming. And
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all of them get junk mail all the time. And so
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I kind of do the same approach with email as
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I do with notifications. Now, you can go into
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your email and just triage and go into a bunch
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of them and highlight them. And usually most
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email clients now have advanced ways for you
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to unsubscribe from things. You don't have to
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go into the emails. scroll to the bottom and
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do that old school thing. They have buttons that
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you can just click and some of them even have
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buttons that you can click that simultaneously
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unsubscribe you. and delete all past emails from
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that source. Pretty sweet. One button does it
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all way faster. So that's something I love to
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do from the notification side. But also if I
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get a little extra time, you can clean up a lot
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of stuff in your email. And again, you're getting
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that off your plate from now till forever. All
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of these things that we're doing are like just
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tiny little micro tweaks to get ourselves an
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extra couple seconds back every couple days.
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Over time, that adds up and just kind of clears
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the digital clutter, if you will. Another one
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I've started doing recently is I get a lot of
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marketing texts because I've signed up for things
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of like, hey, you get 10 % off, 15 % off, get
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on our text list, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
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And then I might not use their service for years.
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So when I get those texts and I ask myself, have
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I used this app? Have I used this service in
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six months to a year? The answer is no. All right,
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guess what? I'm texting stop. Chances are. If
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I need something from them again, I'll just go
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search for them and get what I need. And I think
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this is a good semi -passive system of all of
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these things to take action as they come because
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they're already distracting you. Now take them
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reaching out to you as an opportunity for you
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to claim your time back. They're essentially
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raising their hand for you to judge them. And
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then you get to say, you know what? No, I'm good.
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And so try it out this week. Do it with some
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emails, do it with some notifications, and even
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maybe see if you need to delete some apps. Again,
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this isn't about digital detoxing and putting
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your phone away, but it's about knowing where
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your time is going, what is distracting you so
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that you can own your phone. Now, this next one
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is an interesting one that I had not heard of
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before. But it was something that I thought was
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interesting. So recently, iOS got the ability
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to have tinted icons and even like scaling it
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down to have way less color than what they all
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come with stock. And I was somebody that did
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that early on because I thought it looked cool.
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But this was something that was suggested as
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something to try to make your phone less fun
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-looking and less gamified. So they said, find
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a way that you like to grayscale out your icons,
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tint them a certain way, or even make them with
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a liquid glass, make them closer to clear or
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just less colorful, and that this is a way for
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you to kind of make the phone itself way more
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boring because it's less colorful, less distracting,
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and then you're looking for only what you need
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and what you're looking for. It's an interesting
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idea. I don't know if that's how it worked for
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me, but... I thought it looked cool at the time.
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Sometimes it made it harder to find apps because
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sometimes the pattern recognition in your brain
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is actually looking for a certain color combo.
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And when you get rid of the color, you realize
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that those things are things that your brain
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uses to map out your phone, essentially. And
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so when those things are gone, it can make it
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a little more frustrating to find an obscure
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app, especially when it's inside of a folder
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and it's that tiny little guy that you're like,
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wait, is it in that folder? Is it in that folder?
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Your mileage may vary on that. But I thought
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it was an interesting thing to try. So I wanted
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to mention it. So this last step is where we
00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:09.740
really get into throttling some things. So let's
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say on the very beginning when you did your audit
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and you're like, man, the time on social media
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was much more than I thought. What can I do about
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that? Well, thankfully, there's amazing tech
00:10:19.700 --> 00:10:21.799
in our phones these days that you can really
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leverage. In screen time, you can go into limiting
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apps individually themselves. So if you notice
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that it's, you know, Instagram itself, that's
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really... leading your time or TikTok or whatever,
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you can go in there and limit the time for even
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particular times of day or durations or all sorts
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of things that might better fit your schedule
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or your life. Or there's also categories. So
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you can map out certain things to fit categorically,
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whatever it fits for you. If there's if you're
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like, no, it's all social media, like I need
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to stay off of it until whatever you can go in
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there and really customize to your heart's content.
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There's also like we've talked about in the previous
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episode about focus. Taking advantage of focus
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modes, you can control which apps and which app
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types are allowed to notify you. You can make
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it really, really narrow or maybe widen it out
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a bit, just depending on what your purpose is.
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And so those kinds of things can really help
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you kind of customize what your phone is doing,
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again, to keep you in the driver's seat. Sure,
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the easiest solution is just, you know, leaving
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it in the other room. But if you want to have
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more control while having the device, again,
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these small, tiny decisions that you can make
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are ones where you can get. your time back one
00:11:29.980 --> 00:11:32.120
app, one notification at a time. Because remember,
00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:35.159
we're not just stopping that notification today.
00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:37.620
We're stopping from getting it seven more times
00:11:37.620 --> 00:11:39.899
that day. And then seven more times tomorrow,
00:11:40.120 --> 00:11:42.539
you get the picture. Now, that's not to say that
00:11:42.539 --> 00:11:44.879
putting your phone in another room is a bad idea
00:11:44.879 --> 00:11:47.100
all the time. There's plenty of people that I
00:11:47.100 --> 00:11:49.460
know that part of their nightly routine or even
00:11:49.460 --> 00:11:52.080
their family routine is, hey, phones go over
00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:55.200
here after this time, no phones at dinner. That's
00:11:55.200 --> 00:11:58.200
an awesome one. I have been working on getting
00:11:58.200 --> 00:12:00.960
my phone off the table and then getting it away
00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:03.360
from the dinner table because that's such a special
00:12:03.360 --> 00:12:05.399
time that you can have with your friends and
00:12:05.399 --> 00:12:07.879
your family. And so the phone can really be a
00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:09.659
distracting thing. There's a lot of articles
00:12:09.659 --> 00:12:12.600
out there that talk about what it does psychologically
00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:16.980
for someone who's eating with you when you have
00:12:16.980 --> 00:12:19.559
your phone on the table and how much worse it
00:12:19.559 --> 00:12:22.480
is if the phone's facing up. It's like, hey man.
00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:24.480
You're important to me right now. But if that
00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:26.539
thing buzzes, it's more that, you know, just
00:12:26.539 --> 00:12:29.139
sends a psychological quiet message that I don't
00:12:29.139 --> 00:12:31.659
think most people intend on communicating to
00:12:31.659 --> 00:12:33.840
the people that care about. So this whole episode
00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:36.759
was practical step after practical step. Let's
00:12:36.759 --> 00:12:39.330
review. The first thing is. Taking a look at
00:12:39.330 --> 00:12:42.529
your phone and looking at what is taking your
00:12:42.529 --> 00:12:45.710
time and where are you putting your time. There's
00:12:45.710 --> 00:12:47.009
going to be a difference. You're going to know
00:12:47.009 --> 00:12:49.490
if, you know, sometimes YouTube is four hours
00:12:49.490 --> 00:12:51.809
a day. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I watched
00:12:51.809 --> 00:12:54.509
four podcasts today. Makes total sense. Or, you
00:12:54.509 --> 00:12:57.429
know, two long podcasts. So just look at that.
00:12:57.509 --> 00:12:59.210
And if it's something that you're like, yeah,
00:12:59.230 --> 00:13:01.690
no, I know. That's totally, yeah. You know, I
00:13:01.690 --> 00:13:03.409
had a billion people text me today. So I know
00:13:03.409 --> 00:13:05.470
that was a couple hours in text messages. Whatever.
00:13:05.950 --> 00:13:09.240
Maybe you were in a pit. particular AI app, building
00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:11.240
something or having conversations with, yeah,
00:13:11.340 --> 00:13:13.580
totally makes sense. But then there's other things
00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:15.899
that you may not expect that might surprise you.
00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:17.960
You're like, oh man, didn't know that was there.
00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.700
That's interesting. So even for the first couple
00:13:20.700 --> 00:13:23.919
days, just do some observing, see what the patterns
00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:26.399
are, and then you'll know. Now, some of the things,
00:13:26.500 --> 00:13:28.240
like I said, some of them will be easy decisions.
00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:29.899
You're like, I don't need notifications from
00:13:29.899 --> 00:13:32.450
that app. Let's turn those off. But inform first,
00:13:32.669 --> 00:13:34.970
then start making these micro decisions and then
00:13:34.970 --> 00:13:36.990
just make it a habit. The more you do that, the
00:13:36.990 --> 00:13:38.950
more you're going to get in the habit of catching
00:13:38.950 --> 00:13:41.429
those things in the moment as they happen. When
00:13:41.429 --> 00:13:43.990
you download a new app, if it asks for access
00:13:43.990 --> 00:13:46.809
to notifications, maybe say no at first, unless
00:13:46.809 --> 00:13:48.559
it's something you absolutely need. You know,
00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:51.000
like you're downloading Slack for communication
00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:53.399
at your work. Probably want to turn those notifications
00:13:53.399 --> 00:13:55.279
on. They may not be too happy with you if you
00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:57.379
don't. So we're just looking at ways we can make
00:13:57.379 --> 00:14:00.059
those micro decisions every single day. One badge,
00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:03.200
one notification, one app, one marketing text
00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:06.259
at a time. So a great way to view this is we're
00:14:06.259 --> 00:14:08.620
not talking about going back to a Nokia brick,
00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:11.440
although that is pretty nostalgic and indestructible.
00:14:11.539 --> 00:14:14.299
We're talking about how we can make sure that
00:14:14.299 --> 00:14:16.919
every time we do pick up our phone, it's on purpose.
00:14:17.639 --> 00:14:19.419
doing it for a reason, and there's something
00:14:19.419 --> 00:14:21.759
we have to do. People say all the time, I'm too
00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:24.259
busy, I don't have enough time. Well, that single
00:14:24.259 --> 00:14:28.559
device, this one thing, is responsible for stealing
00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:31.519
so much of our time. So the more you're in the
00:14:31.519 --> 00:14:34.179
steering wheel, I would argue, the more time
00:14:34.179 --> 00:14:37.720
you will get back. And that is so valuable. Thanks
00:14:37.720 --> 00:14:39.539
for listening to the Optimizing Beyond podcast.
00:14:39.840 --> 00:14:41.860
Remember, growth happens when you take action.
00:14:41.919 --> 00:14:44.080
So subscribe, share this with a friend, and most
00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:46.259
importantly, put what you learned into practice.
00:14:46.519 --> 00:14:49.279
And until next time, remember, daily anything
00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:50.840
changes everything.