The decision

Everything so far has been about seeing the habit clearly. This chapter is about what to do, and it starts with a rule.

The phone comes out for an errand, and it goes away when the errand is done.

That's all of it. It doesn't limit how many errands you run, or say which apps are allowed. There are no screen-time targets in it. It asks for two things. Know what you're picking it up for, and put it down when that's finished.

Notice what the rule doesn't ask. It doesn't ask you to give anything up for good, and there's some evidence that you shouldn't try. A German experiment split 619 people into three groups. One gave up their smartphones entirely for a week. One cut their daily use by an hour. One carried on as normal. Both changes helped. People reported less anxiety and low mood, and more satisfaction with life. But four months later, the gains had held up better in the group that cut down than in the group that went without. The authors' conclusion was that complete abstinence isn't necessary. I'd add that it isn't sustainable either, for a device that holds your train ticket.

Here's the method I'd suggest for keeping the rule. It has six parts. Each part rests on something from the earlier chapters. The combination is mine and nobody has tested it as a package.

Name the errand. Before you unlock the phone, say what it's for. Say it in your head, or aloud if you're alone. "Train times." "Answer Dan." If nothing comes, that was a reach, and you can put the phone down again with nothing lost. This is the whole rule in three seconds, and it's the part to keep if you keep nothing else.

Give the phone a home. At home, the phone lives in one place that isn't your pocket. A shelf in the hall or a spot on the kitchen counter will do. The ringer is on, so calls reach you. You go to it for errands and leave it there after. At work, its place is a bag or a drawer. This is the distance from chapter 10, and it does more than any of the other parts.

Leave short gaps empty. If a gap is shorter than about five minutes, it stays empty. That covers the kettle, the lift, the queue and the adverts. You don't need to do anything in it. The first week, these will feel longer than they are.

Have sittings. The things in your loop aren't banned. If you like the photos, the football or the videos, have them on purpose. Sit down at a time you've chosen, enjoy them, and stop at a time you've chosen. I call that a sitting. It might be twenty minutes after lunch and half an hour on the sofa at nine. A sitting is entertainment, as chapter 3 said, and it's better entertainment than the same material taken in ninety-second scraps. Set a timer if the end tends to slide. When you feel a reach coming at eleven in the morning, the answer is "at lunch", which is much easier to accept than "never".

Sort your notifications once. Go through the settings one time and make two classes. Things that can't wait an hour may make a noise. For most people those are calls, and messages from a handful of named people. Everything else is silent with no badge, and gets looked at in a sitting or when you choose. This follows the batching experiment from chapter 5. The urgent things can reach you, so you don't need to go looking for them.

Add friction to the loop. Move the loop apps off the first screen and into a folder on the last. Log out of the worst one, so each visit costs a password. If one app accounts for most of your lost time, take it off the phone and use it on a computer.

Habits respond well to plans made in advance in a "when, then" form, because the plan attaches a new action to the old cue. Three are worth making now, in your own words.

When I put the kettle on, then I leave the phone where it is and look out of the window.

When I find the phone in my hand and can't name the errand, then I put it back in its home.

When I finish an errand, then I lock the phone before I look at anything else.

The third one matters more than it looks. Chapter 1 described the errand that turns into a reach at the moment it's done. The end of an errand is the point where you're most likely to break the rule, because the phone is already open in your hand.

Here's what to expect. For the first couple of weeks your hand will go to your pocket many times a day and find nothing there. That's the habit running without its object, and it isn't a craving. It's mildly uncomfortable. Most people find it fades, and I can't promise you how quickly. Some gaps will feel tedious. You'll break the rule most days, particularly at first, and the next chapter is about that. I can't promise more energy or better concentration, because I don't know your life. What I'd expect is that within a week or two you'll be able to say whether your evenings feel different. That's the measure to go by.