A month with a broken phone

2025-07-29
productivity mental-health

It's been about a month since I broke my phone. It's been quite a good month honestly. I don't feel tied to my phone at all times and it's definitely become more of a tool for me than something I feel compelled to use. Unfortunately, iOS screen time is terrible so the UI doesn't actually show me any data before 2025-06-30. But my current week average usage is consistently below 3h/day. A lot of this is also comprised of Netflix for background noise or Spotify, which, for whatever reason, still counts up screen time even when the phone is locked. All this in mind, it feels like a big improvement, I just wish I had data to back it up.

In this month I have had a lot more free time and it's been great. I'd be lying if I said I spent it all well. There was more Shapez 2, ETS2 & Deadlock than I'd have liked, but it's much easier to play a single game of Deadlock and then decide to do something useful than it is to get myself off Reddit:

1. Deadlock games come in discrete units and they take up ~50 minutes maximum so it's harder to lose time
2. Deadlock is way less addictive than basically everything on my phone, so it's easier to pull myself away from it.

Overall I'd say this is a massive upgrade, because my phone still does what I need it to do, without most of the distracting stuff tacked on.