[playpause]

For the last 2 years I’ve been using an iPod touch as my “downtime” device. I usually put my iPhone away in a drawer from early evening until I’m ready to start work the next day. I found this impossible to stick to until I got an iPod touch, because in the evenings and mornings I often need to manage things like HomeKit devices or other Apple ecosystem things like Reminders. I don’t have any distracting or time-sucking apps on the iPod touch, and the screen is small and fiddly, so I barely use it except for a few seconds here and there for something practical. The difference in stress levels and mindset has been huge. I can’t recommend highly enough separating your phone usage into ‘social/work/news/comms’ and ‘practical/home/calm’ categories, on different physical devices.

I have tried using the new iOS Focus and Downtime features to make my iPhone work a similar way (hide all the time-sucking apps at certain times of day etc), but having a dedicated device for the purpose is much simpler and much more effective.

[brundolf]

I do something similar but not quite the same with my iPad: it has most of the same (non-work) apps that my phone does, but I've disabled all notifications for all apps so it never yells at me; it's an entirely chill-out/self-directed device where nothing ever grabs at my attention

[dwighttk]

I do something similar but with my main iPhone. There’s like 3 apps that have notifications and none of them make sound.

[darknavi]

You can still do this buy just purchasing an older iPhone and never putting it on a cell plan right?

[tomchuk]

I have an older iPad mini for this purpose (but an old iPhone without a data plan would work too). I setup a separate home@<domain> iCloud account under my family plan and use it exclusively for streaming music vi AirPlay, cooking w/ recipes on Paprika, HomeKit controls, reminders, timers, etc. - no Slack notifications, no calls, no calendar reminders. The AppleTV goes on the same account too. It's really been a great solution.

[idonotknowwhy]

I've got an old LG V40 for this purpose. It's got music apps, meditation, and a few other non-social things. It's also my flashlight if I wake up in the night, and alarm clock to wake me in the morning.