A smartphone—like an iPhone, or one that runs Android—is capable of many things. It can help you do your shopping. It can keep you in touch with thousands of people. It can notify you whenever someone is reaching out to you. Whatever your laptop computer can do, you can probably do it on your smartphone now. 

The challenge is this: the smarter your phone gets—the more capable it is, the more it can do for you—the more addictive it becomes. That’s a serious problem when the device is around you all the time.

You don’t need to use your smartphone for everything it can do. You can set up guardrails. You can make your phone dumber by doing fewer things with it.

For example, I don’t download any apps that let me do shopping on my smartphone. I only shop online on my laptop. The laptop doesn’t fit in my pocket, so I can’t go shopping everywhere. When I’m not with my laptop, I’ve also decided not to do any shopping.

I log out of my social media apps, or delete them altogether from my smartphone. I mostly use the web browser. When I’m not with my laptop, I don’t do much work. (Social media is work.) I install Slack when I need to keep a closer eye on work, for a day or two, and I also remove it right after.

I write at this blog every day, and the process doesn’t involve my phone much. I write in my Notes app that comes with my phone. I don’t have the WordPress app. I only upload these posts through my laptop. When I don’t bring my laptop with me, I also decide I’m not going to upload posts to my blog. 

I made my phone dumber by not letting it do all of these things. I also made it much less addictive. One of my friends even turned on greyscale on their screen, so the colors don’t look as enticing—making their phone much less addictive. The extreme application of this mindset is buying a so-called dumbphone—which can’t install any apps at all. While I’ve considered it, I haven’t made the jump yet.

In the meantime, you can choose your smartphone for specific tasks. My phone is mostly for phone calls, messaging, and moving around in the physical world.

The more you can separate your devices for specific purposes, the more freedom you have to focus on the present moment.