Hello!
Last week, as we were tracking down the last of the school supplies and finalizing details, I sighed rather loudly. The kids looked at me. I proclaimed:
“[College kid], I will miss you when you are gone. [High school kids], I am nervous and excited for you. I am sad summer is over.
HOWEVER, I AM SO GLAD WE’RE GETTING BACK TO A ROUTINE. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW GLAD.”
Lady Structure, this home welcomes you and your twin daughters, Schedule and List.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Tech Month 3/Helpful Tools for Adults
When we’re considering the role of our phones in our lives, we’d be best served to remember what the purpose of such a thing is.
For starters, I use my phone to communicate.
Secondarily, I use my phone to help me remember things.
Third, I use my phone to listen to things.
Those are the main things. Those are the “mule” purposes that we referred to back here at the beginning. Anything beyond those purposes runs the risk of dressing up a mule like a showhorse.
I even hesitated to add that third one, because if I’m honest, listening to things can be a distraction. Too often I fill the silence when I ought to be comfortable with it.
The following tools are actually quite helpful to me in managing my phone and putting it to good use. My phone is sometimes most useful when it is least useful — that is, when it is a phone for talking, texting, and not that much else.
Freedom: I’ve been using this app for several years, and a few of my family members use it, too. You can set it up with sessions for time limits, app blocking, and other limitations you might find helpful. I’ve tried several measures along these lines, and this one has been the clear winner for me. It’s a paid app, but you can install it on many devices. There is even a “locked mode” which prevents uninstalling while a session is running.
Loop Habit Tracker: This is a pretty simple little app that just helps me track habits, but also remember things. For example, I can see how often I exercised last month, but it also helps me remember when I last watered the plants.
Sometimes I need something to just help me quit the habit of picking up the phone. This silly little tree-planting app, Forest, makes you plant a tree, and then if you pick up your phone, the tree dies. I am surprisingly motivated by the health and well-being of a pretend digital tree.
Lastly, this is an insanely long article that I stumbled across a few years ago. I took a couple of hours on a Saturday and worked through it, using some suggestions but not all of them. Many of the things I set up that day are still helping me today, and they’ve become second nature. Read it here, but remember, I told you it was long. You’ll have to sign up for a free account to read the whole thing.
Next week I’ll continue by talking about what we’ve used with our kids.
For the Anglophiles
In what must surely be considered a win for Narnian culture, this summer, beavers are being reintroduced to the wetlands of Northamptonshire. They were hunted to near extinction in the 16th century.
Reads & Listens of the Week
If you weren’t able to view it yet, I’d encourage you to watch the Service of Praise for Tim Keller’s life. The program is here. A teacher to the end, Tim penned introductions to each of the hymns he and Kathy chose for the service, even in one case requesting that one selection be sung at a proper tempo: “keep it brisk.”
If you’re wondering where to start with Wendell Berry, here’s a good Twitter thread for you.
I wrote a guide to picking a Premier League team to cheer for, in case you want to dip your toe in that water. It is not serious.
It has come to my attention that I once again need to mention the brief, lovely run of the podcast Mystery Show. There are only six episodes, but if you are a fan of a good story, you’ll love it. I think my favorite episode is “Belt Buckle.”
For those who know Jesus, death doesn’t have the last say, it has the next-to-last say. - David Powlison