Phone in the drawer

What you miss isn't the phone, it's what it plugs the pauses with. Twelve hours and you'll see which pauses.

The evening before, warn two people who might need you and leave them another way to reach you — a work number, a landline, a neighbour. In the morning set an alarm that isn't your phone, put the phone face down in a drawer and shut it. Decide in advance what you'll do in the first half hour after each meal and in the evening — those are the hours when the hand reaches out on its own. Keep a scrap of paper in your pocket and mark it every time you reach for the pocket; without the phone you won't remember the count. If you need to make a real call, open the drawer, call, close it — that's not a break. At eight in the evening pick the phone up and look at how many notifications there are before you open anything.

What did you do today in the minutes that usually go to a screen?