In progress #001

Going analogue online, plus January highlights

Some of things on my mind this month (apart from the general collapse of world order, which has also been on my mind almost constantly, but which I can’t bear to write about):

Thinking about… going analogue while online

One of my comments on someone else’s Substack note got a lot of love, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot since the end of December, as more and more people on Substack and Instagram started to talk about choosing analogue.

This was the original post, and this was my comment:

Have you seen these posts? Phones are bad, social media is bad, it’s time to go analogue. 2026 is the year of going offline. They announce on their social media platform of choice, through their phone.

There are so many posts from people who are clearly not living an analogue life at all. We’re all online posting about how offline we are.

AND. AND. I’m trying to be offline more and yet here I am, writing about it on a screen, where you’re going to read it on a screen. I get the instinct of wanting to share about this, I have that same instinct.

Unless there is a global power outage and we lose access to phones completely (likely to happen in my lifetime), I’m not going analogue anytime soon. I get a lot of positives from my phone, and I’m grateful that I have one.

But I’m also conscious that being on a phone means being less present in real life. I’ve read Four Thousand Weeks. I know that we all only have weeks to live and that this is our one wild and precious life.

I don’t want to be offline, but I do want to be less online. So although I’m not going analogue, I am making concerted efforts to be on my phone less. I am:

• 3-4 nights a week, plugging it in the kitchen when the kids and I have dinner. Then it’s not in my hand while we’re watching TV after dinner (still a screen, oops) or by my bed when I go to bed.

• Other nights I plug it in downstairs before I go to bed. It no longer comes into my bedroom. I have the cheapest Lumie alarm*, which I’m a big fan of. This has been the biggest change as it means I don’t just check one quick thing and end up scrolling for 15 minutes. It also means I don’t look at my phone for about an hour after I wake up.

• Putting my phone into my zipped inside coat pocket when I’m out and about so that it’s a faff to get out.

• Never ever going on the explore page on Instagram. There is all sorts to juicy content on there designed to keep to watching content for hours, but it’s all stuff I really really don’t care about. Like, I could easily spend an hour watching dissections of this Brooklyn Beckham saga but — I just don’t really care, so why am I spending my life on this?

• Spending more time on my other hobbies. I am:

  • scrapbooking

  • journalling (with a fountain pen, which is a wonderful writing experience)

  • messaging friends my random thoughts instead of sharing them on stories

  • working my way through The Times Fiendish Sudoku Book 17

  • emptying various boxes of kids’ tat on to the kitchen table and sorting through them

  • watching TV (see below)

  • reading the newspaper for my news

  • reading fiction (see below)

  • making bread

  • writing here (on my laptop, another screen, oops)

  • trying to get comfortable being bored from time to time

I still use my phone plenty. I 100% have not gone analogue. AND I feel like there’s a bit more balance now, which has got to be a good thing, right?

How are you with your phone usage? Are you going offline? Are you using it less? What kind of balance have you come to?

January in progress

A few of the things I’ve enjoyed over the past month:

• 📺 TV:

  • The Traitors — I have loved this year’s season of The Traitors, even I do find it a little depressing how quickly someone’s personal differences can make them a target at the round table.

  • Seven Dials — Agatha Christie remake. Silly, but gripping.

• 📚 Books:

  • Finished

    • Finding Grace — couple trying for a second child through surrogacy have a wild twist thrown their way at the end of the first or second chapter.

    • The Island of Missing Trees — quirky story about a teenager growing up in London with her Cypriot father, with flashbacks to how he and her mother fell in love in a divided city.

    • The List — Stressful but interesting look into how one couple reacts when the male partner is (wrongfully?) added to a list of known abusers in media.

  • Currently reading:

    • Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J Maas

• 📰 Articles:

  • The best post I’ve seen about why you should use your phone less is this one.

  • How one author makes a living from her writing.

• 🎤 Podcasts:

  • This story of trying to get from Texas to London, with the London flight being cancelled on the day of the journey was so stressful, but also had some good reminders about how to deal when things go really wrong. About 22 minutes in.

• 🛍️ Wishlist:

  • LOVE the look of this author clock*, which tells the time through book quotes.

• 🏙️ Bits and bobs:

  • I went to a spa in Wimbledon with some friends and it was so good. Sauna, steam room, hot tub, chill out space. I kind of broke my glasses by wearing them in the sauna, but I’ve more of less got them back into shape, so totally worth it. (And now I know for next time…)

  • I also went to a sauna in Clapham Common (two saunas in a month, when I can’t tell you the last time I went to one — so bougie!). Outdoors on a rcold, ainy day, I was very suspicious, but actually this was lush and I went fully into the freezing plunge pool.

ICYMI