I don’t like to brag, but over the past few years, I’ve become reeeeeeealllllllly good at the following skills:

• Keeping 100% up-to-date on my entire Twitter feed at all times
• Avoiding quiet moments by whipping out my phone anytime one threatens to sneak up
• Collecting enough coins in Madden 14 Mobile to buy Brian Hoyer, which takes much, MUCH longer than it should
• Ignoring my wife while honing the aforementioned skills

Last month, while I was deeply involved in the last skill, Deserae scooted over to me.

“Hey, I thought this was cool,” she said. She showed me an article where this guy deleted everything on his iPhone because it was keeping him from enjoying his life. He called it “The Distraction-Free iPhone” and said it was the best decision he ever made.

“Huh, cool,” I said. Then I refreshed Twitter again.

That article stuck with me, though, and I thought about it again last week when I read The Dip by Seth Godin. If you haven’t read The Dip, you should because it’s really good and really short. It also does that thing that short books do sometimes where they include an illustration every few pages to make you feel better for spending $10 on a 70-page book.

Anyways, in The Dip, Seth talks about why becoming the best at something is so important. He says that most people don’t become great at the things they set out to do because they quit when they get to the hard part (or The Dip!) and spend too much time on things that don’t matter to devote enough attention to the important things.

While reading the book, I thought about the things that I’d like to become the best at – writer, husband, etc. Then I thought about all the things I was actually becoming the best at. They pretty much all had to do with my phone.

Then I did something that seemed very brave and dramatic to me at the time, but would maybe not be quite as impressive to someone who was like on the beaches of Normandy or something. I held down the little Twitter icon until it started wiggling, then clicked “Delete.”

“Deleting this app will also delete all of its data. Are you sure?”

YES!

Doing that felt so good that I did the same to Facebook and Madden and 30 other apps that I didn’t know I had. Basically, I got it down to one page of apps that help me get better at one of the things that I want to improve. It felt a lot like:

Happier than ever, I got right to work writing on my computer. After a full five minutes of uninterrupted work, my laptop started its daily tradition of randomly slowing to a crawl for 15 minutes in the middle of the day. No problem, I’d just wait out the spinning beach ball by taking a quick drive by Twitter Town and…

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Uh oh.

I repeated this process in the bathroom, waiting for the elevator, inside the elevator, leaving the elevator, and 20 more times that day. Then 50 more times the next day. I’d pull out my phone, stare at it for a few seconds, then slowly, sadly put it back in my pocket.

Turns out, that when you haven’t had a quiet moment in three years, you don’t really know what to do with yourself when you come across one. I had only two options: wait them out or read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that has been sitting untouched on my phone’s Kindle app for at least two years.

I’ve stayed strong for a week and a half now. Here’s what I’ve learned during that time:

• The first habit of highly effective people.
• There’s nothing wrong with my phone. Over the last few months, I’ve become increasingly suspicious of my phone, as it’s been burning through data and draining battery faster and faster. Once I went distraction-free, that all magically cleared up. Oops.
• I can forget my phone at home sometimes, and the world doesn’t stop.
• Deserae really enjoys spending time with her husband and not the small, rectangular third wheel.

Most of all, I learned that I’ve become scary good at distracting myself with things that don’t matter. Once I got rid of those things, I found out that there are a lot more moments in the day to focus on the stuff that does matter.

I definitely don’t think the distraction-free phone is for everyone. I just know that for me, an adult who could no longer face two quiet seconds without checking to see if @badbanana had tweeted a joke, it was life-saving.

If you’re in the same boat, a week of the distraction-free phone might be perfect for finding out what you’ve been missing. Don’t worry, you can always go back. Your phone’s only trying to scare you with that “Lose All Your Data” message.

Just don’t be surprised if you discover that those quiet moments aren’t as bad as they seem.

LIFE LESSON #41

If you’re looking for more out of your day, start by looking up from your phone.