Like many others, for me the first day of 2026 was just another Thursday (although I didn’t have work, hurrah!) : I start new things and change directions so often I don’t wait till January 1. The work break is more significant: I clear out the detritus of the previous year and set up new practices that I want to try.

For example, I often find myself caught between wanting to do more with my phone (productivity, don’t you know?) and wanting to be less enslaved to it (digital minimalism ftw). My solution so far has been to ride somewhere in between. There are many apps on my phone, but I have them on another page and silenced their notifications. The home screen has my most-used, mostly work-related utilities.

Apps I don’t need on hand all the time I leave on my iPad: Netflix, for example, isn’t something I watch when I’m out and about, but only when I get home of an evening. Social media doesn’t live on my phone, either. Introducing a little friction means that I have to take deliberate action before hopping onto Facebook, and the form factor of the iPad means I’m less likely to doomscroll.

My e-reader is actually the thing that frees me from my phone the most: a single-use device (I could take notes on/with it, but I don’t) that doesn’t beep or buzz at me. I can put my phone aside and just read my book. My watch suffices for bill payment and public transport access, and I’ve set it to wriggle on my wrist if a sufficiently important notification comes in.

(I was looking to an article to link to about the Kobo Libra Colour when I came across this one from The Verge, saying that the Kobo colour e-readers are held back by lock-in. This is silly: laptops read them as external drives and you can drag and drop epubs into them. This is even more laughable when you consider other e-readers (*cough*Kindle*cough*) are locked into similar ecosystems. Plus you can use them to read library books (via Overdrive integration) and articles saved with Instapaper, although with some minor caveats.)

Another thing I’d like to do is learn more, and put some of those lessons into practice. (See the previous post about how I finally got a subscription to a MOOC.) Unfortunately, I don’t have a great time reading nonfiction, especially since you can get the gist of a lot of pop nonfic by scanning the contents and the index, reading a couple of chapters, and perhaps using the worksheet provided.

Which perhaps is how they should be read: Blinkist is an online service that promises summaries from over nine thousand bestselling non-fiction books that you can read or listen to in 15 minutes (although many are longer than that). I’ve long been interested in it and was thrilled to discover my local public library offers access to Blinkist’s Pro plan (which costs $195.98 per year) absolutely free.

I’ve used it for a couple of days, and the results are much as I expected. It’s great for books that revolve around a couple of central ideas - you only miss out on the examples and anecdotes. For books that have more for you to do however, you might find the summaries lack the exercises and worksheets that you require. The best thing about it is that the summaries are also available as audio (some AI-generated, which I’m not thrilled about) so I can listen to them on the bus.

My best use-case is that it gives quick insights into the content of a whole bunch of books (I don’t know how to get to all 9,000) and then I can decide to buy them or not. Not having to pay for the service is a nice bonus. I wouldn’t pay for it, I don’t think.

I definitely miss having physical keys on my phone. It would be so much quicker if I could touch-thumb-type my replies or notes, and net-net I would spend less time using it, which is the point.

The certified open box Clicks keyboard case that I have arrived virtually as good as new, and while I liked it a great deal, the length of my phone meant that it was top heavy. Not ideal for the amount of typing I wanted to do. Instead, I’m looking forward to the newly announced Clicktech Power Keyboard - being able to drop it off my phone when I don’t need it (it attaches via MagSafe) means that I can easily return my phone to its usual form factor. I can’t guarantee that it will meet my every need, but I’ve pre-ordered one and I hope it comes soon.

I don’t think I’m the only person who’s trying to make sense of work and screens and the internet and phones. It’s the product of t’s good to know that I’m not alone.

New research suggests that children who had lots of screen time as babies (before two years old) showed changed brain development linked to slower decision-making and increased anxiety when they became teenagers. I find it heartening that teenagers and Gen Z seem to be figuring this stuff out on their own: witness The Great Meme Reset of 2026 which will hopefully free them from brainrot (but not from the irony of this being spread via TikTok) and how they’re “rawdogging boredom”.

Not quite the approach that I would take, but I already know the value of spacing out and not thinking for a little while.