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I wouldn't say I was addicted to Phone to start with as my job involved interacting with phone all the time, but after I had to shutdown my startup due to healt

I wouldn't say I was addicted to Phone to start with as my job involved interacting with phone all the time, but after I had to shutdown my startup due to health issues I made some deliberate lifestyle changes which has reduced my phone interactions to negligible levels/day and some of which can help overcome phone addiction too. • Notifications I have a smartwatch mounted to my desk[1] which displays notifications as an when it arrives and since most of the notifications doesn't require urgent action; interaction with the phone can be avoided. Of course this can work with smartwatch on the wrist too, but having it mounted on the desk limits interaction with the watch itself. • More email My primary mode of professional communication has been email for past two years. No voice calls, No chats, No video calls just email. Avoiding real time communication has improved the quality of communication and my mental well-being in general by reducing anxiety. It does cost me several business opportunities, 'Sorry, I don't do calls, can we communicate via email' has become downright insulting especially during this era of 'Zoom'. But that's the price I'm willing to pay for better mental health. Fortunately email remains the last pillar against 'Mobile First' ecosystem and environment amidst several attempts to change it. When the availability of a smartphone is taken for granted from education[2] to COVID-Free Passport, using cellular connectivity is passively mandated (Mobile Number for unique identity, OTP[3]) I don't think it's even possible to someone to throw away their phone without some serious regulations mandating that freedom. [1]https://abishekmuthian.com/butt-pomodoro-a-butt-triggered-pomodoro-timer/#demo https://abishekmuthian.com/butt-pomodoro-a-butt-triggered-po... (A project which shows the said desk mounted smartwatch). [2]https://needgap.com/problems/149-remote-education-for-underprivileged-education-poverty https://needgap.com/problems/149-remote-education-for-underp... (How the availability of smartphone, taken for granted has affected education - Disclaimer: It's my problem validation platform). [3]https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1343461028256833538 https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1343461028256833538 (My tweet thread discussing mobile number for identity).

jlokier 6y ago
I did the opposite from you with emails: Stopped reading them for a couple of years as they had become too stressful. I couldn't face my inbox. It was because of a small number of overly demanding people that I worked with, I ended up in perpetual fear of overload from having to deal with yet another dreaded message, and the stress stuck after that. During that time I was still happy to talk with people face to face, phone calls, via chat, etc. It was only emails that I avoided. Eventually I returned to emails because the people stressing me had disappeared and because I'd found better tools to help filter my inbox; smart real-time filtered views essentially, to help with mental health. It turned email from something to be dreaded to something useful again. It wasn't just filtering out particular people. It was filtering by time and task with some automation. Now I don't find email stressful, but it's still secondary for me. I'd much rather have a voice call or video chat. I still don't understand people who love "async only" for work communications. Async is cool for some things, and I relate very much to the joy of not being interrupted. I will happily go for days without talking to anyone, focused on my tasks. But my email experience had people writing long and argumentative emails that seemed to require hours to reply to thoughtfully (or else consequences), and the back and forth felt like slow-motion difficult meetings where everything took much longer to be said than in a conversation. The adverse effect of those email on flow was much larger than some small interruption from a brief chat. My favourite thing now if something needs rapid iteration is scheduled voice or video calls about a single issue. I always liked them, but recently they have been rare, so they're a bit of a highlight. I keep telling myself to get back into being more involved with mailing lists, because that's where I used to be very active. E.g. on linux-kernel a long time ago, I scanned about 1000 mails a day, which was a little tiring but it was ok. But nowadays when I look at new projects, a lot of them have moved to various chat-like media, which doesn't stress me but seems to require an annoyingly large number of different tools to interact with, and have effectively more limited UI that lacks functionality because it's harder to make custom tooling to handle them. I like text chats when working with someone on a technical issue, for example debugging some code or a running system with them. Voice chat on headphones is pretty good too, as I can concentrate on things on screen at the same time, like pairing with someone. I don't like text chats when there's nothing else to do except the conversation itself though, as the timestamps show they go very slowly for what's covered compared with voice, yet just fast enough that it's not possible to pay proper attention while doing something else. I prefer faster conversations that cover more ground. For those, my favourite is voice, via headphones while going for a long walk.

jlokier 6y ago

I did the opposite from you with emails: Stopped reading them for a couple of years as they had become too stressful. I couldn't face my inbox. It was because of a small number of overly demanding people that I worked with, I ended up in perpetual fear of overload from having to deal with yet another dreaded message, and the stress stuck after that. During that time I was still happy to talk with people face to face, phone calls, via chat, etc. It was only emails that I avoided. Eventually I returned to emails because the people stressing me had disappeared and because I'd found better tools to help filter my inbox; smart real-time filtered views essentially, to help with mental health. It turned email from something to be dreaded to something useful again. It wasn't just filtering out particular people. It was filtering by time and task with some automation. Now I don't find email stressful, but it's still secondary for me. I'd much rather have a voice call or video chat. I still don't understand people who love "async only" for work communications. Async is cool for some things, and I relate very much to the joy of not being interrupted. I will happily go for days without talking to anyone, focused on my tasks. But my email experience had people writing long and argumentative emails that seemed to require hours to reply to thoughtfully (or else consequences), and the back and forth felt like slow-motion difficult meetings where everything took much longer to be said than in a conversation. The adverse effect of those email on flow was much larger than some small interruption from a brief chat. My favourite thing now if something needs rapid iteration is scheduled voice or video calls about a single issue. I always liked them, but recently they have been rare, so they're a bit of a highlight. I keep telling myself to get back into being more involved with mailing lists, because that's where I used to be very active. E.g. on linux-kernel a long time ago, I scanned about 1000 mails a day, which was a little tiring but it was ok. But nowadays when I look at new projects, a lot of them have moved to various chat-like media, which doesn't stress me but seems to require an annoyingly large number of different tools to interact with, and have effectively more limited UI that lacks functionality because it's harder to make custom tooling to handle them. I like text chats when working with someone on a technical issue, for example debugging some code or a running system with them. Voice chat on headphones is pretty good too, as I can concentrate on things on screen at the same time, like pairing with someone. I don't like text chats when there's nothing else to do except the conversation itself though, as the timestamps show they go very slowly for what's covered compared with voice, yet just fast enough that it's not possible to pay proper attention while doing something else. I prefer faster conversations that cover more ground. For those, my favourite is voice, via headphones while going for a long walk.