Last week I made the decision to restore my insanely tweaked iPhone. At the time, the phone had more than 30 jailbreak tweaks and close to 100 apps installed. Things had gotten out of hands; sluggishness and crashes were daily symptoms.

Upon restoring I had a few minutes to spend on configuration, but there was no time to install tweaks or apps. Over the course of the following week, I never really got around to install anything, so I just went along with the default apps.

Looking back at the past week, these are five things I’ve learned from living without any third-party apps or tweaks.

1. I didn’t feel the need to constantly check my phone. I used to check my phone all the time, even though there were no new notifications. Some sources say we check our phones 110 times or even 150 times a day. Now, I only picked it up a few times a day. The phone seemed less attractive than before. In a group of people, meeting over lunch or fika, I often found myself to be the only one not staring at my phone’s screen.

2. Social media seemed very uninteresting. I still checked Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram once or twice a day on my laptop, but it felt very distant. I was more disengaged from these services than before; what was posted didn’t matter as much anymore.

3. I felt a huge relief over not constantly being interrupted. Text messages, group chats, emails, social media, and all sorts of other notifications. I quickly realized how few of these things you actually need to know about in real-time. By checking these when I had time, it felt like I was in control and could focus on what was important.

4. Things were running very smoothly. If you’ve ever restored your phone, you know the feeling; everything feels fast, clean, and stable. Not installing any apps helped in maintaining that feeling. Getting read of all the jailbreak tweaks helped as well. Battery life was great — I didn’t even have to charge my phone every day.

5. I was actually using my phone to be productive. Scheduling meetings, replying to work email, and making calls were my top three most common activities. What do you think was in the top three before? You guessed it.

“I was honestly surprised of seeing these effects after no more than a week. Even more so, I was surprised that it felt pretty great.”