I’m setting my phone in Flight Mode every night ever since I own a smartphone, for more or less 5 years. The idea behind it is quite simple: what’s so important to disturb my precious sleep? This can wait the next morning.
Before 2012, nobody would write me past 1am via SMS or I was still awake for the most part of the night, playing and trying to reach the top rankings of online video games. I found this uninterrupted time, disconnected from everything the most productive, as nobody was there to interrupt, tag, write, email me.
Throughout the years, for every break I’d have, I caught myself using my smartphone more and more often, most of the time trying to reach the end of my infinite Facebook or Twitter news feed. It’s endless.
So I thought, “What if I’d disconnect also during the day?”. I deleted all social media apps from my phone and removed notifications from WhatsApp and Messenger last month. If something really is urgent, people can directly call me.
The immediate effect was that I suddenly had 2 to 3 spare hours per day, and had to fill the gap. I made the mistake not to set a fixed activity for this and making those hours count, mainly using this spare time on YouTube or simply browsing the web versions of the apps I deleted. I just replaced a bad habit with another one.
In hindsight, I realize that consciously removing a bad habit has to immediately come with a replacement or a plan in mind, if not you’ll catch yourself falling in a vicious circle. Old habits die hard.
