Block out the noise
Blog, Tech ·How does an old phone help me focus?
I have an iPhone SE… not the new one, but the old one. The very old one. In fact, I was hanging out with my 6 year old niece a few weeks ago and she said, “You don’t have a phone, you have an iPod.” It is that old. It has turned into a joke whenever I am with friends, customers, etc. Some think it should be in a museum. I really love it. Why?
- Form factor: it is small, it can fit anywhere
- Lack of performance: it is not fast. In fact, at times it can be frustratingly slow
- Small screen: I cannot use most apps because it requires way too much scrolling
So, if it is slow and I can barely use apps in it, why do I love it so much? Focus. With very few apps to annoy me, I can focus on being in the moment wherever I am and with whoever I am with. This is what I use on my phone:
- Navigation
- Calls
- Texts
- Rideshare
- Calendar
Most importantly: I have no notifications besides the aforemetioned apps. Again, this provides focus. I haven’t had other notifications on my phone for 3-4 years. You realize after a while that the notifications do not matter. The notifications are to get you drawn back into an app and away from what you’re currently doing.
So, you have a choice: uninstall a lot of your apps, get ride of their notifications, or get a old crappy phone like me.
This way of being is a huge divergence from the Justin of a decade ago. I remember my original Nokia brick phone, the Motorola Razr, finally my first smart phone in the HTC 7 Pro; it was super cool; yeah I sideloaded Android 1.6 on it. But, I digress… phones were a lot of fun. They were a hobby. Apps were fun and innocent. Now, apps are noisy; they are all competing for your eyeballs.
Good luck. You won’t miss those notifications.
p.s. my iPhone SE was acting up recently and barely holding a charge. So, I installed a new battery. It now has a new lease on life and is back to being my old crappy iPod look-a-like.
p.p.s Ugh. So sad, but the iPhone SE finally passed onto into the afterlife. I ended up buying a iPhone 12 Mini; which is what most closely resembled the venerable SE. But, in the spirit of the iPhone SE, I still don’t have any apps. :-)