An evening without your phone.

The routine

1. A fixed time. At nine, or an hour before bed, the phone goes on its charger. Same time every evening.
2. A spot outside the bedroom. The hallway or the kitchen. A phone you cannot see is easier to forget. Why it matters for sleep: your phone before bed.
3. Let your people through. In Focus (iPhone) or Do Not Disturb (Android), allow calls from favourites, so an emergency still reaches you.
4. Five minutes on paper. Tomorrow’s first three things, written down, so you do not check them at midnight.
5. Something to do instead. A book, a walk, a call, cooking, a hobby with your hands. An empty evening fills itself with the phone again.
6. Screens together, if any. A film watched together is a different evening from four people on four phones.

Staying up on the phone to get some time for yourself has a name: revenge bedtime procrastination.

The first week

Expect to reach for the phone out of habit, often in the first hour. Notice when it happens, and let the moment pass. If you slip, start again the next evening rather than giving up. Your phone’s screen time report will show the change by the end of the week; the screen time calculator shows what it adds up to over a year.

What you might miss, and what to do

• Messages: your favourites can still call; the rest can wait until morning.
• The alarm: a cheap alarm clock.
• Reminders and tomorrow’s plan: paper, or a small device that does only that.
• Music or a podcast: a speaker or a small player, started before the phone goes away.

The other end of the day: a morning without scrolling. For a friend who could use an evening like this: gifts for someone always on their phone.

With the phone in the hallway

With the phone charging in the hallway, a turn of the hand is designed to show the time and tomorrow’s first meeting on the ring, and a reminder comes as a buzz on your finger. It is in development and makes no health claims.