Your Phone Should Be Like Your Toothbrush

Here’s why and how to make it so.

Photo by Alex on Unsplash

If your phone was more like your toothbrush, your life would be a lot better.

Your toothbrush is the greatest tool of all time. You only use it when you’re supposed to, for as long as you need to, and then, you let it go.

That’s what the best tools do: They put you in control at all times, even when you’re not using them. That’s because all great tools optimize for mindfulness. They preserve your time, attention, and energy instead of draining them.

A tool must have three properties to achieve this:

1. It only triggers you when you actually benefit from using it.
2. It requires as little of your time as possible once you pick it up.
3. It prompts you to put it back down it as soon as you’re done.

Your phone does the opposite of all of these, and that’s why, in its standard configuration, it’s a terrible tool. Your phone calls for your attention 24/7, and once it has you, it never wants to let you go.

We now spend almost four hours on our phone, every single day. That’s 28 hours per week, which means on top of your normal job, you are basically working full-time at a call center. That is insane.