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Ask HN: How do you make the best use of a smartphone?
4 points by hidden-spyder on Jan 12, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments



I use it for phone calls, instant messaging, podcast listening, payments, and maps.

Everything else is on some other device. I try to put off casual browsing to the desktop unless i have something important to look up. Reading is on my Kindle. I keep most infinite scrolling and social media apps off my phone.


Exactly this + Spotify.


For me it's mainly about using the unique strengths of a phone compared to other devices. For example:

- My phone is always nearby, has a microphone and an internet connection. This makes it ideal for capturing ideas and todos in an app like https://braintoss.com/.

- However my phone has limited screen space and cannot have multiple windows open side by side, so for organizing my todos or expanding on ideas, I use a computer.

And:

- My phone has an easily swipeable touchscreen, so it's well suited to triaging incoming e-mail.

- However my phone has a small and error prone keyboard, so for answering e-mail, I use a computer.

Etc.


Good:

- Making phone calls

- Text messages

- Calendar

- Mail

- Occasionally looking stuff up on the internet

- Maps

- Payment

- Reading

Bad:

- Almost all entertainment stuff (social media, games, reddit, ...)

Sometimes I lie to myself about how little time I have, when I look at the daily screen time of my phone I see where that time goes.


Biz use: Slack, PagerDuty, 2FA




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