Why I turned my iPhone into an "iPod"

Here is the rewritten text in a well-structured article format:

**The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Distractions and Boosting Productivity**

As I sat down to write this article, I couldn't help but feel frustrated with my current setup. My laptop screen wasn't even backlit, and for $350, it was an absolute no-go. But then I realized that maybe, just maybe, the solution wasn't about buying a new device, but rather about creating a distraction-free environment.

**The Power of Pen and Paper**

I've found that the old-school approach of using a pen and paper can be incredibly effective in staying focused. A small notepad and a tiny pen can go a long way in jotting down notes, and it's amazing how much more organized I feel when I'm writing things down by hand. The key is to buy a notebook that you don't particularly care about, so you can just throw it away or lose it without worrying about it.

**Using Smartphone Features to Boost Productivity**

I also want to talk about the features on my smartphone that help me stay focused. Focus modes and Do Not Disturb are two features that keep notifications and other app activity down to a minimum, making it easier for me to concentrate. And if I'm being honest, sometimes I just can't be trusted to toggle these modes on and off myself.

That's why I've set up triggers to do it for me. For example, when I step within 100 feet of my office, my iPhone automatically turns on Focus mode, which moves all of my productivity apps to the front of the screen and silences notifications from distracting apps like Discord and Twitter.

**Customizing Your Focus Modes**

One of the coolest things about Focus modes is that they can be customized to fit your needs. On my iPhone, I've set up a specific Focus mode for work that centers on my most used productivity apps, while another Focus mode centers on social media and chat apps when I'm not working.

Apple also lets you tie wallpapers to different Focus modes, which helps me visualize what mode I'm in at a glance. And if I want to get into the zone with music, I can use a dedicated Music Focus that plays calming tunes and centralizes all my music-related apps.

**Finding a Balance**

It's not just about finding one solution, but rather creating a balanced approach to using your smartphone. By using Focus modes, buying a notebook, and staying organized, you can create an environment that supports your productivity goals without feeling like you're sacrificing too much of your life.

So, if you're struggling to stay focused or simply want to boost your productivity, I encourage you to try out these tips and see what works for you. And if you have any favorite tricks or tools for staying focused, share them in the comments below!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is an iPod and I think it needs to make a comeback in 2024 but not for the reason that you think let's Jump Right In the other day I came across this 9 to-5 Mac editorial and it resonated with me a lot basically the writer was a nostalgic for the good old days when music was quote a core product for Apple both iTunes and the iPod were key profit drivers for the company back in the mid 2000s and while they're not losing money on music by any stretch of the imagination with apple music contributing to over 6% of the company's profit by some estimations Apple actually made something like 40% of their revenue in 2006 all thanks to the iPod certainly the market has shifted in the past two decades or so as technology and ux has evolved but I as well am yearning for the good old days you see I hate to say it but I think I'm starting to hate Smartphones at least somewhat and that's because they are hella distracting don't get me wrong these slabs of glass are incredibly empowering phones are useful for finding out information on the world around you it's for getting stuff done and it's nothing short of amazing that the smartphone in your pocket has unlimited access to content on demand hell statistic St istically speaking at least half of you are probably watching this very video right now on a phone although with having all of this power also comes great responsibility as to not get distracted with all the stimuli now if what I'm about to say doesn't apply to you well congratulations I'm jealous however being honest with myself which is very hard to do having that mental fortitude is way easier said than done especially as someone that works on the internet and is also terminally online I am terminally ill just mentally something as simple as picking up my phone to play music in the background while I'm working can snowball into bigger distractions that kill my focus it is so easy to Cave into the temptation to scroll Twitter for a few minutes or watch a Tik Tok or two when these apps are simply a swipe away but luckily there are a few Solutions out there to help combat this before I get to the meat and potatoes of this video I'd like to take a moment to talk about today's sponsor paperlike paperlike for the iPad is not your average screen protector it's actually better than that with their Nano dots micro be technology not only does it help to cut down onscreen glare without sacrificing Clarity but it also gives your apple pencil A satisfying amount of texture and resistance that that makes writing on your iPad feel more like real paper while also feeling soft enough to avoid damaging the apple pencil tip I especially love it on my iPad Mini which I've already been using for quick Doodles and taking notes with around the office but now it feels even better with the pencil and this screen protector is super thin at2 mm for precise feeling inputs as well paper like for iPad is perfect for illustrators graphic designers or anyone that loves to take notes on their tablet and if you decide to buy their Pro bundle you also get a handy cleaning kit and pencil grips to round out the overall experience if you'd like to check out paper like for iPad and support the content that we make here on Deni head over to the link in the description seriously this is a cool product and huge thanks to paperlike for sponsoring this video now let's talk iPods probably the most Brute for way I have to eliminate distractions is to move key tasks away from your distraction device of choice whether it be your phone or computer over to single purpose devices for example since I like listening to a lot of music as I work a device such as the iPod Classic checks a lot of boxes not only did it come from a time when physical headphone Jacks were still popular but there is absolutely something to having a device that is not connected also I just like the fact that the iPod Classic has physical touch buttons as well of course owning an iPod in 2024 by itself has a bit of novelty to it but I do like the fact that this one in particular is not connected to the internet which means it'll keep us in Focus this is actually a 5.5 gen iPod Classic that I modded myself for a video a couple of months ago on the channel and I really like the way that it turned out the yellow color is of course Charming I also have custom firmware on here that allows us to play whatever video and audio files we want obviously if you rely mainly on streaming services and don't already own your own music getting an iPod like this all set up with the tracks that you want could be quite tedious though personally for me I had a bit of fun updating my library sourcing everything like it was back in 2003 and I can rest assured knowing that I actually own all of my favorite music should they disappear from my favorite streaming services down the line for whatever reason so that is for music but another area that I've seen people talk about with regards to finding distraction free devices is for typing up documents and writing notes and so I have found this the freewrite smart typewriter so the idea with a device like this is that it's supposed to bridge the gap between something like a laptop and also something analog like a typewriter so you can type up documents on here with the built-in mechanical keyboard and the eink display and once you need to actually hop stuff onto the internet it will sync with whatever cloud service you use whether it's Google Drive Evernote and notion work as well so it's not completely disconnected from from the internet but connected in ways that are actually useful and also most importantly not distracting while we're waiting for the free right to boot I must say that the build quality is very nice feels like it's made out of metal charges via USBC and we have a nice looking mechanical keyboard as well going to connect it to Wi-Fi it is not a touchcreen here I am trying to tap it it's on a touchcreen I'm so permanently connected to my smart phone that I think everything's a touchcreen these days two very boring minutes later all right so it took a moment to set up connect to our Wi-Fi and also have the document sharing all sorted but now that we are all good we can actually turn off Wi-Fi have all of the documents live on our device until we connect it onto Wi-Fi again and we can just start typing there's no distractions on here it's literally just a blank slate uh let's just do a test of the keyboard this is a test of the Freer smart typewriter yeah I mean it works just as intended the eink display doesn't refresh all that fast but when you're just typing up documents it is totally fine also I do like the backlight in here it makes reading whatever you're typing a lot easier the only gripe that I have is that the mechanical keyboard on here isn't exactly the best it honestly sounds like they put a $30 mechanical keyboard onto a really expensive piece of hardware which is a shame because this device it costs $650 what I know it's kind of insane I will give them this if you wanted to carry it around from office to your car or transport it does have a handle don't think that that's worth 650 bucks though it is also made out of metal but really if you want a cheaper alternative Freeride also has the Freeride Alpha which is around $350 and the concept is generally the same you have a screen that you type on and a simple keyboard and Wi-Fi connection to sync all of your documents over the internet but yeah this is made out of the cheapest plastic in the world at least it has a kickstand to level with your wrist a little bit when you're typing but it's a cheap ass membrane keyboard they sound like my knees I think these devices are cool in concept but should anyone really buy these probably not man this screen isn't even backlit yeah man for 350 bucks H this ain't it you have to really be all about that distraction free typing life in order to want this but I think this might be a little too Brute Force if I'm being real what I do think is a better alternative is the good oldfashioned pen and paper I think grabbing a small notepad even like this that you can keep in your pocket and a tiny pen goes a long way to jotting down notes even compared to using your smartphone as long as you keep yourself roughly organized scratching on a piece of paper like this reminder payuk see I remember this time I'm going to Triple underscore it just so I remember I can eat this week yeah yeah food no for real all of this is super useful and one of the biggest pieces of advice that I've heard from anyone when it comes to taking notes and whatnot with pen and paper is to buy a notebook that you don't particularly care about really having a notebook that you can just throw away or lose without worrying about it really goes a long way to building the habit I can't stress that enough now if for whatever reason you cannot live without your smartphone for chunks of your day turns out most phones have built-in features to help you keep your focus that are often ignored Focus modes and do not disturb are features that keep the noise of your notifications and other app activity down to a minimum now how much you are actually able to control will depend on the phone you are using but if you happen to be on Samsung 1 UI or iOS there are pretty robust options for these features especially if you are like me and can't be trusted to toggle these modes on and off you can actually set up triggers to do it for you based on time location or even the apps you're using on my iPhone for example I have a focus mode specifically for work that automatically turns on when I step within 100 ft of the office so I don't have to worry about toggling it myself and why this mode is important to me is because it moves all of my productivity apps such as notion slack YouTube Studio Etc front and center on my home screen and it also mutes my Discord and Twitter notifications which were the most distracting things on my phone then at 5:00 p.m. when my work is all done and I leave overclock media my personal Focus mode turns on muting all of my work rated notifications and centers on my social media and chat apps that I can use to catch up on what I missed throughout the day again what is really cool about all of these Focus modes is that they switch automatically I don't even have to think about it which goes a long way towards me actually using these features and caring about things like mental mode switching and balanced phone use it might sound like a bit of a pain to set up but you can also have fun with this as well Apple lets you tie wallpapers to different focuses which not only helps you visualize what Focus modes you are on at glance but you can also play them to particular themes as well if it helps for example when I want to Zone into my music I have a dedicated music focus it has a music related anime wallpaper music widgets and centralizes all of my music related apps plus it is configured to mute literally every notification phone call text message Discord whatever kind of making it like a modern-day interpretation of an iPod it's great as a I'm going through it right now I'm just going to listen to my music don't talk to me and I like it because it literally cost me 0 to set up as opposed to things like an iPod that you have to refurbish or dedicated Android music players such as the m300 or wman a306 that we really liked a lot but in the scheme of things are pretty expensive especially compared to $0 what's better than free 3.99 no that's that is not free for real I think this is a solution that most people could compromise to in order to rein their smartphone use in if some of you guys out there are terminally online like me and are also trying to curb your usage as well let me know if you found anything useful in the comments below and otherwise thanks for watching this video on Dany Channelthis is an iPod and I think it needs to make a comeback in 2024 but not for the reason that you think let's Jump Right In the other day I came across this 9 to-5 Mac editorial and it resonated with me a lot basically the writer was a nostalgic for the good old days when music was quote a core product for Apple both iTunes and the iPod were key profit drivers for the company back in the mid 2000s and while they're not losing money on music by any stretch of the imagination with apple music contributing to over 6% of the company's profit by some estimations Apple actually made something like 40% of their revenue in 2006 all thanks to the iPod certainly the market has shifted in the past two decades or so as technology and ux has evolved but I as well am yearning for the good old days you see I hate to say it but I think I'm starting to hate Smartphones at least somewhat and that's because they are hella distracting don't get me wrong these slabs of glass are incredibly empowering phones are useful for finding out information on the world around you it's for getting stuff done and it's nothing short of amazing that the smartphone in your pocket has unlimited access to content on demand hell statistic St istically speaking at least half of you are probably watching this very video right now on a phone although with having all of this power also comes great responsibility as to not get distracted with all the stimuli now if what I'm about to say doesn't apply to you well congratulations I'm jealous however being honest with myself which is very hard to do having that mental fortitude is way easier said than done especially as someone that works on the internet and is also terminally online I am terminally ill just mentally something as simple as picking up my phone to play music in the background while I'm working can snowball into bigger distractions that kill my focus it is so easy to Cave into the temptation to scroll Twitter for a few minutes or watch a Tik Tok or two when these apps are simply a swipe away but luckily there are a few Solutions out there to help combat this before I get to the meat and potatoes of this video I'd like to take a moment to talk about today's sponsor paperlike paperlike for the iPad is not your average screen protector it's actually better than that with their Nano dots micro be technology not only does it help to cut down onscreen glare without sacrificing Clarity but it also gives your apple pencil A satisfying amount of texture and resistance that that makes writing on your iPad feel more like real paper while also feeling soft enough to avoid damaging the apple pencil tip I especially love it on my iPad Mini which I've already been using for quick Doodles and taking notes with around the office but now it feels even better with the pencil and this screen protector is super thin at2 mm for precise feeling inputs as well paper like for iPad is perfect for illustrators graphic designers or anyone that loves to take notes on their tablet and if you decide to buy their Pro bundle you also get a handy cleaning kit and pencil grips to round out the overall experience if you'd like to check out paper like for iPad and support the content that we make here on Deni head over to the link in the description seriously this is a cool product and huge thanks to paperlike for sponsoring this video now let's talk iPods probably the most Brute for way I have to eliminate distractions is to move key tasks away from your distraction device of choice whether it be your phone or computer over to single purpose devices for example since I like listening to a lot of music as I work a device such as the iPod Classic checks a lot of boxes not only did it come from a time when physical headphone Jacks were still popular but there is absolutely something to having a device that is not connected also I just like the fact that the iPod Classic has physical touch buttons as well of course owning an iPod in 2024 by itself has a bit of novelty to it but I do like the fact that this one in particular is not connected to the internet which means it'll keep us in Focus this is actually a 5.5 gen iPod Classic that I modded myself for a video a couple of months ago on the channel and I really like the way that it turned out the yellow color is of course Charming I also have custom firmware on here that allows us to play whatever video and audio files we want obviously if you rely mainly on streaming services and don't already own your own music getting an iPod like this all set up with the tracks that you want could be quite tedious though personally for me I had a bit of fun updating my library sourcing everything like it was back in 2003 and I can rest assured knowing that I actually own all of my favorite music should they disappear from my favorite streaming services down the line for whatever reason so that is for music but another area that I've seen people talk about with regards to finding distraction free devices is for typing up documents and writing notes and so I have found this the freewrite smart typewriter so the idea with a device like this is that it's supposed to bridge the gap between something like a laptop and also something analog like a typewriter so you can type up documents on here with the built-in mechanical keyboard and the eink display and once you need to actually hop stuff onto the internet it will sync with whatever cloud service you use whether it's Google Drive Evernote and notion work as well so it's not completely disconnected from from the internet but connected in ways that are actually useful and also most importantly not distracting while we're waiting for the free right to boot I must say that the build quality is very nice feels like it's made out of metal charges via USBC and we have a nice looking mechanical keyboard as well going to connect it to Wi-Fi it is not a touchcreen here I am trying to tap it it's on a touchcreen I'm so permanently connected to my smart phone that I think everything's a touchcreen these days two very boring minutes later all right so it took a moment to set up connect to our Wi-Fi and also have the document sharing all sorted but now that we are all good we can actually turn off Wi-Fi have all of the documents live on our device until we connect it onto Wi-Fi again and we can just start typing there's no distractions on here it's literally just a blank slate uh let's just do a test of the keyboard this is a test of the Freer smart typewriter yeah I mean it works just as intended the eink display doesn't refresh all that fast but when you're just typing up documents it is totally fine also I do like the backlight in here it makes reading whatever you're typing a lot easier the only gripe that I have is that the mechanical keyboard on here isn't exactly the best it honestly sounds like they put a $30 mechanical keyboard onto a really expensive piece of hardware which is a shame because this device it costs $650 what I know it's kind of insane I will give them this if you wanted to carry it around from office to your car or transport it does have a handle don't think that that's worth 650 bucks though it is also made out of metal but really if you want a cheaper alternative Freeride also has the Freeride Alpha which is around $350 and the concept is generally the same you have a screen that you type on and a simple keyboard and Wi-Fi connection to sync all of your documents over the internet but yeah this is made out of the cheapest plastic in the world at least it has a kickstand to level with your wrist a little bit when you're typing but it's a cheap ass membrane keyboard they sound like my knees I think these devices are cool in concept but should anyone really buy these probably not man this screen isn't even backlit yeah man for 350 bucks H this ain't it you have to really be all about that distraction free typing life in order to want this but I think this might be a little too Brute Force if I'm being real what I do think is a better alternative is the good oldfashioned pen and paper I think grabbing a small notepad even like this that you can keep in your pocket and a tiny pen goes a long way to jotting down notes even compared to using your smartphone as long as you keep yourself roughly organized scratching on a piece of paper like this reminder payuk see I remember this time I'm going to Triple underscore it just so I remember I can eat this week yeah yeah food no for real all of this is super useful and one of the biggest pieces of advice that I've heard from anyone when it comes to taking notes and whatnot with pen and paper is to buy a notebook that you don't particularly care about really having a notebook that you can just throw away or lose without worrying about it really goes a long way to building the habit I can't stress that enough now if for whatever reason you cannot live without your smartphone for chunks of your day turns out most phones have built-in features to help you keep your focus that are often ignored Focus modes and do not disturb are features that keep the noise of your notifications and other app activity down to a minimum now how much you are actually able to control will depend on the phone you are using but if you happen to be on Samsung 1 UI or iOS there are pretty robust options for these features especially if you are like me and can't be trusted to toggle these modes on and off you can actually set up triggers to do it for you based on time location or even the apps you're using on my iPhone for example I have a focus mode specifically for work that automatically turns on when I step within 100 ft of the office so I don't have to worry about toggling it myself and why this mode is important to me is because it moves all of my productivity apps such as notion slack YouTube Studio Etc front and center on my home screen and it also mutes my Discord and Twitter notifications which were the most distracting things on my phone then at 5:00 p.m. when my work is all done and I leave overclock media my personal Focus mode turns on muting all of my work rated notifications and centers on my social media and chat apps that I can use to catch up on what I missed throughout the day again what is really cool about all of these Focus modes is that they switch automatically I don't even have to think about it which goes a long way towards me actually using these features and caring about things like mental mode switching and balanced phone use it might sound like a bit of a pain to set up but you can also have fun with this as well Apple lets you tie wallpapers to different focuses which not only helps you visualize what Focus modes you are on at glance but you can also play them to particular themes as well if it helps for example when I want to Zone into my music I have a dedicated music focus it has a music related anime wallpaper music widgets and centralizes all of my music related apps plus it is configured to mute literally every notification phone call text message Discord whatever kind of making it like a modern-day interpretation of an iPod it's great as a I'm going through it right now I'm just going to listen to my music don't talk to me and I like it because it literally cost me 0 to set up as opposed to things like an iPod that you have to refurbish or dedicated Android music players such as the m300 or wman a306 that we really liked a lot but in the scheme of things are pretty expensive especially compared to $0 what's better than free 3.99 no that's that is not free for real I think this is a solution that most people could compromise to in order to rein their smartphone use in if some of you guys out there are terminally online like me and are also trying to curb your usage as well let me know if you found anything useful in the comments below and otherwise thanks for watching this video on Dany Channel