2026 Intention

These kids and their damn phones!

At the start of each year, I set an annual intention for myself. This tradition began out of a silent protest against New Year’s resolutions and the arbitrary demarcation of suddenly transforming into a new person. Someone without vices or impulses, with spartan discipline and dedication. These resolutions seemed a clear setup for disappointment.

Almost exactly a decade ago, in January 2016, a simple goal fell into place: move to NYC and find a new job by the end of the year. Achievable yet meaningful, this objective provided me sufficient latitude to achieve success. It made no prescription on how or when I’d make this transition, but the directive was clear and measurable.

The takeaway was obvious in retrospect: focus matters. Rather than juggling competing priorities on a daily basis, anchoring on just one goal oriented my year. Less concerned with policing my daily activities, I laid out an explicit prioritization with a measurable outcome over a relatively long time frame. It worked.

I see reason to focus on outcome. My 2016 goal, for example, provided me with direction. But outcome obsession ignores everything upstream that precipitates it. Since my first goal, I’ve thought carefully about this relationship. While fluid, I view the rough flow: mental model → daily activities → desired outcome.

As a result, I’ve transitioned from setting concrete goals to defining mental models. Following a stressful year of self-imposed expectations, I wanted to ground 2025 in gratitude. To that end, I chose: Turn ‘got to’ into ‘get to.’ While hard to measure, I marked this year as successful. I noticed fewer moments of unhealthy comparisons. I felt calmer during challenging periods. I stayed focused on what matters.

The last few months of work, however, have been particularly consuming. At the end of the day, I felt mentally depleted. Equal parts exhausted and wired, my mind kept whirring after I closed the laptop. I replaced good habits - reading, writing, meditating - with cheap dopamine hits. Scrolling, it turns out, is much easier than pursuing analog activities.

As I reflected on my priorities for the upcoming year, I immediately thought about this vicious cycle. Consistent with my previous intentions, however, I wanted to articulate a mental model that could help me break free from what I recognize as brain rot: An escape from big tech, free from the entrapment of digital stimulation. Should be easy.

But screen time on my phone, at least for me, necessarily follows this mental model. The two are inextricably linked: Screen time is both a consequence and cause of overstimulation. I expect that screen time replaces many of the virtuous daily habits I wish to re-establish. And defining the ideal end state - free my mind from the digital matrix, man! - feels uniquely unactionable.

I decided to make my intention this year more outcome-oriented than usual, akin to my first annual goal in 2016: I want to reduce my daily average phone screen time to less than two hours.

I currently clock ~4 hours per day, a bit better than average for adults in the US. I plan to sleep with my phone in a different room and will try to spend an additional time away from my phone each day. I’ve already completely deleted all social media - not just the apps, but my accounts and history.

I’m not concerned about any negative consequences on my work or personal life. I suspect that beneficial phone use cases - answering emails or messages, checking maps, calling friends or family - can be completed in a limited window. Extensive research point to the same the conclusion: Phones are mentally draining, socially isolating, and detrimental to good sleep.

Establishing a healthy relationship with technology feels societally existential, but my prior attempts to find the right balance were halfhearted. In my experience, this effort requires dedication. In 2026, I plan to take this commitment.