As you might know by now, I am on a quest to bring more calmness and mindfulness into my life. For example, I have written about awakening from the meaning crisis and my Swedish shorter versions of these themes.
Today, I will continue on this path but tell you about an app and a launcher that really have helped me: Waking Up by Sam Harris and the minimalist Before launcher by Before Labs. These are no affiliate links, meaning I mention these apps since I genuinely like them and not because they pay me.
Waking Up is by far the best mindfulness app I have tested, and I think I have tested at least 10. Tim Ferriss was right when he said:
“I’ve been incredibly impressed with this app. Whether you want to sharpen your mind or experience more peace, this can help in dramatic fashion. The power of its progression is hard to overstate.”
For example, Sam Harris has a 50-day long introduction where you learn mindfulness, and then a lot of other very useful material such as daily meditations. You can test the app for free and see what you think.
The other phone-related idea is the Before Launcher for Android. I have used the Nova launcher for years with all its built-in tools, but now I got what I needed: You can only select 8 apps on the front page, and there are nearly no notifications! It is like they say about their app:
✶Open your phone 40% less.✶
✶Reduce distractions with our notification filter. 80% of all notifications don’t warrant interruption.✶
✶Focus on what matters.✶
Already the first day of using the launcher I started to bother less about my phone. Since there are no notifications and distractions, there is no point, and I can go on my the rest of my life instead. Our phones are hauntingly seductive but this removes much of the temptation. Yes, in this case, less is more.
