A Day Without Notifications

I should explain that I am not a person of great resolve. I tried this on a Saturday because Saturdays are forgiving. I turned off every notification on the phone, banners and badges and sounds, and then, because I know myself, I put the phone in a drawer in the next room. I kept a log in a notebook. Here, tidied a little, is what it said.

Morning

7:10. Woke without an alarm, which is cheating, since I set the clock the night before. Reached for the phone. It wasn't there. My hand stayed on the bedside table for a few seconds, patting the wood like a small animal.

8:00. First phantom buzz. I felt the phone vibrate against my thigh. It was in the drawer, two rooms away. This happened four more times before noon, and each time I reached for a pocket that held only keys.

9:30. Made coffee. Watched the coffee. I can report that it takes a surprisingly long time to make a pot of coffee when you give it your full attention, and that the sound it makes at the end is rather beautiful. I'd lived beside that sound for years.

Afternoon

12:15. Lunch at the table, no screen, no book. I looked at the salt cellar for a while. It's a handsome object. I'd bought it ten years ago and never studied it.

2:00. The long stretch. Around two o'clock I got properly restless, like a dog that hears a door and hopes. I walked around the flat. I checked the drawer twice, without opening it. I wrote down in the notebook: I am waiting for something and I do not know what.

3:40. Walked to the park. Saw a man reading on a bench, a woman asleep under a hat, and two teenagers who were not looking at their phones either, which pleased me far more than it should have. It turned out to be a day for the whole neighbourhood, perhaps. Or perhaps I'd just never looked up before.

Evening

6:30. Opened the drawer. I'd missed eleven messages, two of which mattered, and neither of which needed an answer before Saturday evening. This is the thing I keep turning over. For years I've answered quickly, as a courtesy, and it never occurred to me that the courtesy cost me the day.

8:00. Cooked something slow. Didn't photograph it.

10:45. In bed. The notebook says: Tired in a clean way, like after a swim.

What I make of it

I don't want to oversell this. A single quiet Saturday did not change my life, and by Monday I was back to my old habits, the phone buzzing like a trapped fly. But I did notice something small and lasting. Since the experiment, I've been turning off notifications one app at a time. Not for virtue's sake, only because I now remember what the other state feels like.

It feels like being at home in your own head. It feels, I think, like being the person who lives there, rather than a receptionist for everyone else.

Try it for a day, if you dare. Write it down. Then report back, in a letter, with a postscript.