My 2019 Homescreen
Have you ever walked into a room just to forget why you even went in there? What did you do? If you’re like me, you walked in and turned around confused. What if that room had a giant TV playing your favorite TV show 24/7?
The modern equivalent of the empty room, at least for me, is my phone. The average American picks their phone up 80 times a day. I’m definitely above that average (I picked my phone up 128 times yesterday), but I’m getting better. The problem isn’t that I’m picking my phone up though. It’s that I pick it up out of habit, or because I thought it vibrated (PSA: it’s never a real vibration). Once my phone was unlocked I would usually jump into whatever app had a notification up or scroll through my Twitter feed for a bit which would inevitably put me in my social media cycle and an hour later I’d look having accomplished nothing all because I thought I felt my phone vibrate. So I began thinking, what if there was nothing on my home screen to distract me when I unlock my phone out of habit? My solution to this problem is simple — make a clean home screen. I’ve kept my essential apps on my dock: Phone, Messages, and Music; but outside of that I moved it all off the home screen. I have even took this whole experiment a step further and have only allowed myself 4 apps per page .
Yes, this is all a little more inconvenient, but that’s sort of the point. If I ever need an app and can’t find it, it’s not hard to search, but at least I’ll be doing it with a purpose. My phone has been like this for the past 10 days or so, and I honestly like it more. I feel more in control of when I use my phone, but also how I use my phone.
