The decision

You've got the argument and the method. What's left is to decide, and I'd like the decision to fit in one sentence.

One stretch of my day is quiet, gaps under five minutes stay empty, and everything else I put on, I choose.

Three parts.

The first is the stretch. The walk, the shower, the kettle, daily, with nothing on, for as long as it takes. Let the itch. Let the drift. Look at the street.

The second is the small ones. Under five minutes, nothing. Headphones in the bag, radio off by default, phone dark in queues.

The third is the choosing. Everything else can stay, as long as it's a chosen listen with an end, and not the default. The test question before the switch.

There's a form of planning that helps with rules like this, and it's been tested many times. Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran reviewed ninety-four studies of it in 2006. You decide in advance what you'll do and when, in the form "when this happens, I'll do that", and people who plan that way follow through much more often than people who only hold the intention. So write three.

When I leave the house for the car, I'll leave the headphones in my bag and walk with nothing on.

When I join a queue or wait for anything under five minutes, I'll keep the phone in my pocket and look at where I am.

When I reach for the radio or a podcast, I'll ask whether I'm choosing it, and if I'm not, I'll leave the minute empty.

What to expect. This is my expectation and not a finding. The first three days the walk to the car will be four twitchy minutes and you'll arrive feeling that you've been deprived of something. By the end of the first week the itch will be shorter and you'll have noticed the street once, and been surprised by it. In the second week a thought will finish on the walk, one that's been half-formed for a month, and you'll realise that this is where it was always going to finish. The queues will be easier than the walk, because they're short, and you'll find yourself looking at shops. By the third week the kitchen will be quiet by default and you'll turn the radio on for a programme and off after and notice that cooking in quiet is a different thing from cooking with the hum. The podcasts will still be there. You'll listen to fewer and remember more. And around a month in, on a walk, you'll be bored for a minute, properly bored, and it'll be fine, and something will turn up, and that's the book.