I should have done this years ago.
I’m not sure what got me thinking about it, but yesterday I went digging through Evernote for my personal mission statement.
It’s a statement I crafted years ago (18 years ago in fact) that applies as much today as it ever has.
As I was reviewing the statement, I thought to myself, “why is this buried in Evernote?”
“Why don’t I have this where I can see it several times a day and bring it often to mind?”
Then I realized, I have a perfect place for this that I see all the time!
My phone’s lock screen!
How many times do I pick up my phone throughout the day and look at the lock screen?
According to some quick research (I use the term loosely - I just googled it), I use my phone less than the average American.
Still, last week I picked up my phone an average of 77 times per day.
That’s 77 opportunities to remind myself what I’m trying to do with my life.
So I spun up mid-journey and generated an abstract background then pasted the text over the top using an app I built a while back called Typetastic (although I could also have used something like Word Swag).
Then I set it as my lock screen background.
Already since making the change, I’ve read all or parts of it over a dozen times.
I know many people who talk of posting a note on their mirror to remind them of their goals, the idea being that they’ll see it every morning.
Makes sense.
But how much more often do you look at your lock screen than your mirror?!
Why waste that perfectly good real estate?
Why not use your phone's lock screen to remind you of your goals, mission, or a verse that will encourage your soul?
One of my hopes is to bring as many people as I can along with me on this journey to change our relationship with technology.
I want to see us control our technology rather than becoming mindless users (as an aside, isn’t it strange that we use the same term for digital product customers as drug addicts? - but that’s a post for another time...)
Technology exists for people, not the other way around.
We can't forget that.
This little hack is just one of many ways we can choose the kind of relationship we want to have with our tech.
It a small step but you have to start somewhere...
