No resolutions, just one challenge.
For the past couple of years my resolutions have always been quite similar. They are variations of things I'd like to achieve in my hobbies, and various physical goals related to whatever I'm focusing on at that point (boxing, running, weights etc). Over time, these goals have naturally moved along and just become part of my everyday rather than set and tracked over the course of a year. This year, I wanted to try something a little different, so I'm going to do January with only single purpose devices.
Like everyone on here I'd like to use my phone less. I don't have an issue with screen time as much, but there's a certain agency I feel like I struggle with. My phone is constantly vying for my attention and part of the reason for that is that I use it for absolutely everything. I'm thinking this experiment might help quieten that siren's call. The other benefit I'm hoping from this is that I'll be more deliberate with the art I engage with. I recently finished Liz Pelly's book on Spotify and it got me thinking about how often I put on music to have something on while I go about my day, something to just fill a gap. It'd be nice to be a bit more deliberate about this in the future, so I'm loading up an iPod with some of my favourite albums and grabbing a bunch of recommendations from friends and seeing how that works out.
Here's what I'll be carrying around.
There's a little e-reader on the end there that I'll be using when I can't bring a book with me out. I'll bring the e-reader (It's full of short stories and essays).
In terms of my phone I'm just going to dumbify it, deleting instgram and using before launcher with only WhatsApp available. Unfortunately I need a two factor auth app for work, but aside from that I'll be keeping it in greyscale and on do not disturb.
I'm hoping to post once a week about how this is going, and if I notice that nagging call getting a little quieter.