My wife and I spent some time last week planning some goals, events, and projects for 2018. Among other things, I’d like to read more, blog more, and be more intentional about how I spend my free time.

A first step to achieving this: on the 1st of January, I deleted Tweetbot from my phone. If I want to check Twitter, I can do so on my iPad, but I’ll only look once a day. The payoff has been great, even after only one week:

• I used to be a timeline completionist (I had to read every tweet), but now I’m letting it go. It’s freeing.
• I’ve found I’m no longer carrying my phone around the house, everywhere I go. Why did I do that before? What was so important?
• It’s not just that I’m carrying it around less though. I’m using it less in general. I feel less attached to it. I don’t feel anxious if I don’t know where it is. The other day I left the house to go and work from a cafe, and accidentally left my phone at home because the need to have it didn’t really occur to me.
• I’ve started charging my phone in a different room at night (not the bedroom), so it’s not the last thing I look at before bed. I also don’t rush to get it first thing in the morning – I’ll generally pick it up before work. Again, it’s one less thing to think about.
• Instead of constantly checking my phone, I’ve started ensuring my Kindle is always to hand. Before bed, I’ll read some of a book. Any downtime I want to fill, I can read some of a book. As a result, I’ve already read two books in the first week of the year, and that’s unheard of for me in recent times.

Hey, and here I am writing a blog post.