Jethro Jones: Welcome to Avision for Learning.
I am Jethro Jones, your host.
Thank you so much for being here today.
I'm gonna talk about the phone fast that I did yesterday and what that was all about.
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Let's get on with the show.
Yesterday I did a phone fast and part of that was in preparation for getting
the Apple Vision Pro this weekend.
I am very much aware that getting a new device I.
Is going to take a lot of time.
Doing a podcast about a new device is going to take a lot of time,
probably more than I want to admit.
I'll be honest, it always takes longer than I think it will.
So I did a phone fast yesterday to give myself a break mentally and
physically from these devices that I seem to be using all the time.
First and foremost, I feel like I've just been using my phone a lot lately and I
keep saying I'm using it for productive purposes and that's all well and good.
Am I just saying that or is that really what I'm using it for?
I think it's important to acknowledge that upfront.
Maybe I'm using it for too much and to put some limits on myself to say maybe I don't
actually need to use it for that much.
I had a couple of realizations that I wanted to share with you today.
Number one, I've already started to put some other things in place to lock
myself in, as it were, and I'm gonna talk about this more in a minute.
So one of the things is creating different focus modes on my iPhone that I.
Make different apps on the home screen when I'm doing different things.
Like I have a whole work focus, I have a exercise focus, I have a
morning routine focus, and those apps change throughout the day.
Notifications change, who can get through to me, that kind of stuff,
and that has been really helpful for me to find some focus and
prioritization of what I want to do.
Here are a couple things that I found that I didn't really like.
I've been thinking way too much about the people I associate with online and
what they think or how they feel about something, and I've just been putting too
much of an emphasis on that in my mind.
I need to be better, so I don't want to do that.
i's one thing, number two.
I noticed over the past couple weeks that I've been using my phone when
my kids are around a lot more and have not been as present with them.
And so I wanted to make some changes there as well.
and one other thing that I have been thinking about is that the
phone is on me all the time.
It's pretty much always accessible and I need to have some.
Things in place to keep me honest about what I'm doing.
so that's one of those things.
So let's talk about this lock-in piece.
My daughter, as she gets ready for basketball games or cross country
races or whatever else she's doing, she'll often say things like, I
can't right now, I'm locked in.
She is locked in and focused on that thing that she is doing and preparing for.
And over the past several weeks, as I have been locked in and focused,
I've lessened my time on social media.
I've lessened my time interacting with different communities online and
overall, I've found that to be a overly positive move in the right direction.
So that's been really good.
A second thing about that is part of the thing that I think is gonna
make the Apple Vision Pro compelling.
I.
For me as a productivity device is the ability to lock in and say, when I put
this thing on my head, I am in work mode.
Now let me just share what I mean by that, because you could conceivably
get that and that makes sense.
But what I've been doing for last few weeks is I've been tracking my time using
an app called Time and Time has this little device that is an eight sided.
Dice basically that you set with a certain side pointing up and you can
then see this is what I'm working on.
And so I have different categories put in there of whether I'm thinking
or selling or delivering or doing a podcast or whatever the case may be.
And by having that physical device sitting there.
Pointing up saying, this is what Jethro's working on.
It makes it a lot easier to be focused on that thing and to stay locked in
because I see a visual representation, a physical representation saying, this is
what I'm spending my time doing right now.
Now, do I have to have that?
I don't know.
Is it helping me?
Yeah, it really is.
And so when I think about the Vision Pro as a productivity device, I have one other
comment about that before I get to it.
And this is, as I've been writing my books, I have a playlist.
That I use whenever I'm writing my books and it's called my Awesome writing music.
And when I hear those songs, it gets me in the mood to write.
So headphones on over the ear headphones, preferably not in ear
headphones or AirPods or whatever.
But when I hear those songs, they're not normal songs.
They're instrumental, they're, by artists that I wouldn't typically listen to.
When I hear those songs, I know it's time for me to write and I can be
focused and focus for longer because I know that I'm in that mode and
that I think is really important.
So now let's talk about the Vision Pro.
When I put that thing on and I get into work mode.
If that's what I'm using it for, it's gonna be a very clear indication to
me and to people around me that I'm getting into work mode if that's
what I'm using it for right now.
When I first got a smartphone and I was able to do all these things
on it, I was able to do that.
I was able to use it for work and use it in a productive manner.
And I still use my phone a ton in my day-to-Day work.
I'm curious how this is going to be with the Apple Vision Pro, if it is
going to really help me lock in like my playlist does, like this Ular
device does, or is it going to be a short-lived gimmick type of experience?
And I just need better discipline now.
I'm not arguing that I need better discipline.
I am sure that I do.
But I've grown a lot in that regard over the last year as I've lost 70 pounds and
create a lot of new daily habits that I just never thought I had time for before.
And turns out I do have time for the things that matter to me.
So doing this phone fast was an intentional opportunity.
To see, can I be disconnected and will I survive?
Of course, I know that I'll survive, but it helped me think about things
in a little bit different way.
One of those things that it helped me with is that there's a lot of wisdom
in budgeting our time, our money, attention, our relationships, and
it gives us permission to do those things that we are budgeting for.
I know that budgeting can be a frustrating thing and a difficult thing to do, but
there is real power in intentionally budgeting for specific things.
So one of the ways that I'm looking forward to this is that during the day,
at least during my workday, as I define it, because I get to choose when I work.
I am going to use my Vision Pro as a work device and be focused
and intentional about that.
I'm gonna use it to lock in and do specific things.
I don't know what exactly yet.
I.
But maybe it's more writing, maybe it's more podcast production.
Maybe it's podcast editing.
Maybe that will turn out to be a really amazing experience on it.
Who knows?
That's part of what I'm excited to see and experience when it comes to this device.
What is that really going to look like?
What does locking in really look like?
One of the things that I'm also curious about, I know that there are apps that
are only designed for the Vision Pro, but I also know that there are apps
that already work on your other devices, and I'm curious about how they're
going to load on the Apple Vision Pro.
This is something I haven't seen anything about just yet.
But I'm interested in that and wonder what that will look like.
Do I have to individually identify what I want to have?
Am I only gonna go to the app store in the Apple Vision Pro, or will it
be like my watch where I can load those things on my phone and then
they automatically go to my watch?
I'm not sure what's gonna happen there, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
So here we are, just a couple days out from getting the Apple Vision
Pro and seeing what it's like.
These are my current thoughts.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about it as well.
Feel free to reach out to me with any thoughts or questions, a vision
for learning.com, and thanks for listening to a Vision for Learning.