The author Annie Dillard once wrote that, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

So how do we spend our days?

Too often, we “screen sandwich” our days by beginning and ending them with an hour of scrolling. Then we wonder why life starts tasting bad.

Self control is often won in the mornings and evenings.

In today’s newsletter:

Let’s dive in.

Imagine if the first thing you did after waking up was walk into a casino.

There’s little doubt that the lights, sounds, and stimulation might help “wake us up.” But it sounds overwhelming.

Waking up with our phones can affect our brains in a similar way. The most popular apps depend on the same “variable reward schedule” that casinos rely on, where sometimes we get what we’re looking for (dopamine), other times we don’t (disappointment), and we keep scrolling wondering when the next big hit of dopamine might come (dependance).

There are healthier ways to wake ourselves up in the morning.

I could give you a list of alternatives, but in all my years of studying this topic, coaching digital habits, and working on this myself, I have only found one thing that routinely helps people redeem the morning from screens.

Charge your phone away from your bed or out of the bedroom.

Be honest with yourself.

If your phone is within arms reach the second you wake up, you’re going to have a hard time resisting at 6am when you’re half asleep. Start plugging your phone up somewhere other than your bedroom. This can help build a little screen margin into your morning by default.

You might say, “But I use my phone as my alarm.”

Alarm clocks are around $15 on Amazon. Worth it.

By evening, we're worn out and looking for an easy way to rest.

Scrolling presents itself as a solution. But no matter how much you tell yourself you'll stop at 9:30pm, chances are you won’t. Not when the app is designed specifically to make stopping hard.

So program your phone to do the stopping for you.

Both iPhone and Android have this built in:

Set a downtime window that locks everything except calls and texts from the people who actually matter. Hand the passcode to your spouse or a friend so you can't just override it the moment it gets hard.

The apps were designed to pull you in. You're allowed to design your phone back.

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Two changes. One for each end of your day.

Neither one requires you to be a different person overnight. They just make it harder to stay stuck in the version of yourself you're trying to move away from.

Should we call this the “self control sandwich”?

Most parenting advice on screens falls into two camps: total ban or total surrender. Neither actually helps.

The Practical Parenting: Screen Time Series is a short video course that cuts through the noise with real science — so you can stop second-guessing every swipe and start making decisions you actually feel good about.

→ Get the course at selfctrl.com

A couple news stories I’ve been paying attention to:

My son and I are in prime "Dad, do you want to play catch?" season.

I'm trying to say yes every time or plan a time if I can't. We are playing catch with a football, baseball, or passing a soccer ball multiple times a week.

I'm loving it. ⚾

Hope you catch a great weekend!

— Ian