At the ripe old age of 28, I can remember using a telephone screwed to the wall.
Fast forward to 2017 and I’m FaceTiming from every room of my house while cooking, throwing in a load of laundry, and watering my tiny army of houseplants. I’m plopping down on one seat after another refreshing email, or googling something instead of dedicating 3 seconds worth of brainwaves to it. I was grateful for this convenience, but I also felt like I paid for it in terms of my presence and attention span when I was home.
I’d already silenced notifications, deactivated personal social media accounts, deleted phone games, and set Do Not Disturb quiet times, so I was annoyed that my phone checking still felt compulsive, mindless, and avoidant.
Enter the foyer phone method. This entails parking your phone in one place the moment you arrive home, and only using the phone in that place for the remainder of your time at home.
I first encountered this suggestion on Cal Newport’s blog series on digital minimalism.
(He’s gone on to write a book on Digital Minimalism which I highly recommend. Deep Work and So Good They Can’t Ignore You are also two of my favorites.)
Now, I don’t have a foyer because I live in a rowhome in Baltimore City, but I do have a command center in my kitchen and a highly choreographed arrival routine that involves me returning my work bag, my keys, my shoes, etc to their designated home. I was able to use habit stacking to add “park phone on the command center” to my routine.
It also helped that I had a lovely tray that became “home” for the phone.
Relegating my phone, and my use of it, to one spot of my house has had three benefits.
First, I’m more mindful about this highly addictive device. I don’t want to be scrolling endlessly, reading Game of Thrones tweets on my phone while watching Game of Thrones on my TV while searching Game of Throne subreddits on my computer. If I’m only using my phone while standing up near my command center, I’m not so easily lulled into that dead-eyed zombie scroll mode.
Second, I can get absorbed in all kinds of deep work without being tempted to slack off when I hit a snag. I need to concentrate to write a blog post, or to prepare an organizing workshop, or to read my stack of library books, or to try a new recipe, and I don’t feel successful at these tasks when my attention is fragmented. I also need a little boredom, solitude, and daydreaming to recharge my brain. If my phone isn’t next to me, I won’t check it absentmindedly when I feel stuck or bored.
Third, I sleep the sleep of the righteous. Banishing my phone from my bedroom ensures I’m not bathing my retinas in blue light as I’m trying to wind down from the day, or looking at my phone if I wake up in the middle of the night. Arianna Huffington would be proud.
Plus, in general, when I return my belongings to the same place each night, my life hums along more efficiently.