Throw away your smartphone
At roughly the end of 2023 I decided to get rid of my smartphone, as I was using it too much for my own good. Think at least 3 hours a day. That's a lot of time which I didn't even remember doing anything with. Most of it was spend on watching youtube videos which I forgot about the very next day. So to get rid of that, I decided to replace my smartphone with a dumpphone and get an ereader to use during my reading time.
Fake dumphone
Now, I couldn't get a real real dumbphone because I needed microsoft authenticator for work and whatsapp to message others, which meant I had to at least have an android. But that's alright, as after looking around a bit, CATS22 seemed like closest you could get to a dumphone with all that I needed.
So I got one myself for really cheap. It was something just below 100€. I have to say my first impressions was that it was badly designed UI wise, as android is focused on touch controls and you get a keyboard that seemed to not integrate well into that. But this phone has a touch screen. So it wasn't that big of an issue. I later learned though that the default keyboard implementation for it is booty cheeks. If you want a way better experience, download this. It's still not perfect, but it is a huge improvement.
Now after getting used to the phone, I have to say it actually is pretty good to use. I only spend like hour a day on it, I can call and text everyone I need to, check my mail from time to time, and have an alarm clock. So I'm satisfied. I did reach my goal.
Ereader
For reading, I got myself an kobo e-reader ereader. Which was one of the best purchases of my life. You can just put any document you want on it, So there's no vendor lock. So I could just move all the ebooks I had on my smartphone to it without a care. Plus it has a nice night time mode, which makes the screen all yellow-ish. Perfect for reading an hour before going to sleep every day.
Making it more intentional
My goal is to replace my smartphone further with other things which make it more intentional. As when you have to put in effort or meet resistence when doing something, you will do it more inentionally. And not use it mindlessly as a distraction. But I think I got away from most of my distractions. At least for now. So I can enjoy the time I freed up doing something more important.