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Marcus Taylor

Pledger at Founders Pledge

CEO @VentureHarbour. Entrepreneur & early-stage investor. Youngest enterprise fellow & patron of @PrincesTrust

Highlights

Aug 31 · linkedin

At the start of the year, I was clocking up 3.5 hours/day of mostly unproductive screen time on my phone.

I’ve been trying to curb this habit for years without much progress. I’ve tried the Light Phone, app blockers like Freedom, disabling notifications, and much more.

This month I made a few changes which made a big difference:

  1. Automating toggling between colour/grayscale based on which app is open. This alone made a massive impact (greyscale reduces dopamine and makes the phone feel less toy-like). Comment below if you'd like the instructions.

  2. Putting charging docks around the house outside of the bedroom so I’m not tempted to take it to bed or look at it first thing in the morning)

  3. Using a Brick (https://getbrick.app) – a 3D-printed fridge magnet with an NFC chip inside that bricks your phone (blocks apps) when you tap it. The only way to unblock the apps is to tap it again.

  4. Moving non-essential apps to a backup phone that I keep out of sight.

  5. Disabling voicemail (you can do this by calling #404#) – people just send a text or email if it’s important enough.

  6. Disabling face-detection open & requiring a long password to open.

  7. Removing any widgets, utilities or apps from the home screen.

  8. Removing all social media apps (except WhatsApp).

  9. Removing all email apps (I can still access email via a browser but it’s clunky).

  10. Making my wallpaper/screensaver a black rectangle (less dopamine-inducing).

  11. Using the app “Should I Answer?” which shows whether an unknown number is spam or not – and automatically blocks them if so. 

  12. Putting my phone permanently in Do Not Disturb (only five people who I’m happy to be distracted by can get through).

  13. Disabling all notifications, badges, vibrations and distractions.

The result is I'll be spending ~700 hours less on my phone over the year.

✉️ This was 1 of 3 stories I shared in my personal newsletter this month which you can get @ https://marcustaylor.co

Aug 29 · linkedin

Personal newsletters are massively underrated IMO.

It's a brilliant way to keep in touch with friends, create conversation jumping off points and share some of the more private aspects of what you're up to and thinking about that wouldn't be appropriate on social platforms.

I also love the ritual of making a nice coffee, sitting in the garden and reflecting on what I've been up to each month.

August has been one of the most energising, social and productive months I've had in years, largely thanks to conversations off the back of starting one.

If you have a personal newsletter or decide to start one I'd love to sub :)

I'm just making the finishing touches on my next email which will go out tomorrow afternoon – feel free to drop your email here if you'd like to read it: https://marcustaylor.co

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Marcus Taylor
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Experience

Pledger at Founders Pledge
Chief Executive Officer at Truenorth

Education

King Alfreds College

Location

Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom