My Minimalist Phone Screen
Why?
It first started when I decided to delete almost all of my social networks (Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest) to reduce all of the mindlessly scrolling through my phone. Later that year, I was introduced to this book The life-changing magic of tidying up which I haven’t read it fully but I get the concept of the method. Then I began the journey of tidying up my room, closest and my desk setup. I sold my mechanical keyboard (I know!) and I went all wireless. I haven’t got the blog for those up yet as I’m still in the process. I moved on to tidy up my phone (iPhone 6s) because I feel like it’s way easier to do.
Apps
The beginning of all thing; Apps. I’m still experimenting with this setup as I don’t want to go to absolute minimum just yet.
These are the only apps I use in day to day life and work. I still download new apps from time to time but if I don’t use it for 2 weeks straight I will just delete it immediately.
The apps that I’m still considering deleting are Twitter, Reddit, Spotify and banking app (I consolidate everything with Mint which I will blog about that next). The reason is I can use those on my laptop but I’m still keeping them just for the convenience. To all the front-end developers please make good webapp and don’t prompt me to download the native app unless it’s absolutely necessary.
I’m thinking of deleting Spotify because I change my habit to listen to podcasts more when I’m working out or commuting. Podcasts are free and the Podcasts app that comes with the phone works just fine.
No notification!
I turned off all of my notification from every app. If I really need it I will just have the Badge App Icon only. So, I won’t get any alert whatsoever. My phone is always on No Disturb mode and on silent.
No games
I decided to delete all of the games I have. I didn’t play much anyway and I feel like all the games these days need connection which doesn’t make much sense for my commute when I spend most of the time underground. If I’m going to be sitting on the plane for a longer period of time I might download games that I can just kill time. However, I realise that I would rather just catch up on my podcasts.
Web apps
I experimented with this by deleting YouTube. Now I’m using the Web app version instead of the native app. It’s been great even though the experience of the app is not that great but I get what I wanted which is watching videos. I also switch to use the web version of hackernews which is my source of getting latest tech-related news.
Download on the go
With the fast connection that we have these days, most of the time I would just download the app as needed. For example, if I get lazy one day I would just download Lyft or Uber to get home. If I’m going to travel I would download Booking.com or AirBnb or other related apps and delete them after completing the trip.
Go native
What I mean by that is I use whatever comes with the phone. For example, I would just use Weather app rather than downloading other app. Or I would just use Stock rather than Yahoo Financial. I find that all the advanced things I really need, I would get a better version on my laptop. I use to have Adobe Lightroom but I found out that the functionality that comes with iPhone is more than enough for my need. If I really want a heavy editing I would rather just use my laptop.
Benefits?
Apart from everything looks clean, my phone is fast because I still have 30GB left on my device out of 64GB. I often upload all my photos to my laptop so I free up space. The battery life is also great because I don’t have all the apps constantly pulling data in the background. I also don’t have the need to upgrade my phone so I save some to invest in Apple and hopefully I get 7% return :-).
I also feel like I don’t miss out on anything. I still get messages from my friends and coworkers. I still get in touch with my family. I can still be productive when needed. I can still keep myself up-to-date with my financial or what’s going on in the world. I don’t live in the woods just yet :-)
Inspiration
Til next time,
noppanit
at 00:00
