Screwing With The Phone-Autopilot—Goodbye Chrome

My phone and I have a very questionable relationship. We're like me and my "friend" back in high school. We won't speak to each other in class but we'll REALLY be all over each other when we're drunk at a party. We love each other. We resent each other. We can't live with each other but we do not want to let go either.

I love my phone.

I hate my phone.

Lately, my biggest time suck has been "the internet". I pick up the phone to check for a message, tap the Chrome icon, and before I know it, I'll be half a mile down some google rabbit hole.

This has become so habitual that I don't even notice when it happens.

My phone and I have worked very hard on our relationship over the past years. We’re not all-clear yet, but we spend a lot of time without each other. When I am awake and aware, my phone and I have a polite working relationship.

Alas, I am still vulnerable to my phone’s darker corners when I am tired or zony.

In the morning right after waking up, and in the evening before bed are the times when things still go awry between us.

I have a good reason to pick up the phone at both times. In the morning, I switch off my alarm. In the evening, I do my mood/habit tracking and make sure I have all my alarms set up properly. Then I use my phone to listen to a Terry Pratchett audiobook to fall asleep. There is something about Stephen Briggs reading Discworld novels that just soothes me.

Even though my admission about time lost on my phone sounds alarming, my campaign for less phone in my life has been going well overall. I now uninstall apps that I find myself using too much (Bye Twitter!). I log out of websites that I spend too much time on (Bye, Atlantic!) and I turn off and hide features or apps that draw me in (Bye, Google Newsfeed, and Youtube!).

The amount of time I lose when I do get sucked into something on my phone still bothers me, though.

I don't want to get rid of the internet or Chrome, though because most of my usage is benign, but I still want to make sure I am less vulnerable when my guard is down in the mornings and evenings.

So, I came up with a way to kick the pesky habit at least a few feet further away from my inner peace.

The way I tap and open chrome is mostly automatic. It's not like I think "alright, let's spend some time on the internet". It's more that after checking something else, I automatically tap the chrome Icon at the bottom of the screen and then I disappear from there.

Alice’s rabbit hole is a boring hole in the ground compared to the depths I can access with a web browser, an internet connection, and a sleepy brain. I once spent half an hour before bed just looking up recipes for eggplants. I do not even like eggplants!

There are two ways to beat automatic behavior that works for me. Removing the thing that enables the behavior—in this case, the phone, the web browser on the phone, or the internet—or inserting space between the automatism and its execution.

I chose the second way.

I removed Chrome from my home screen where it was easily accessible. I then put my meditation app at the spot where the Chrome icon used to be.

The number of times I opened my meditation up today is ridiculous. I was aware that I had an autopilot situation going on, but I was still surprised by just how often that sequence—check message, open Chrome—triggered.

Anyway, making sure Chrome is buried somewhere in the jumble of my app tray makes opening it just "difficult" enough so that my consciousness can catch up with the autopilot. Thanks to the second longer it takes to open my app tray and look for the Chrome icon, I can think before I act. Once my brain has caught up, I close the app tray and put the phone away.

In a sense, I am using the principles of habit building in reverse. If you want to build a habit, you need to make it stupidly easy to complete and add a trigger to it. If you want to get rid of a habit, you need to make taking action a little harder and remove the trigger. Everything depends on the little window of time between autopilot and execution. If you can extend that window wide enough for your awareness to catch up with your muscle memory, you can stop yourself before you’re off on the wrong track.

For now, this minor change works well enough.

If the habit pops back up, though, I am going to have to take more drastic measures. The next step would be to remove the phone from my bedroom because that’s where I am when I am vulnerable. To do this, I’ll need to get a normal alarm clock and a solution for my audiobooks. Perhaps, I’ll get myself an iPod. I am 10 years late to the party, but I still think the iPod Nano is REALLY PRETTY. I’ve always wanted one anyway!

In any case, altering my environment, even if slightly, is the best way I have found to alter my behavior. Things never really change just because I want to. The change, when I put them in my way or remove them from my path.