Hey, Kody here.

Braiden Belnap recently interviewed me on The Prosperous Life podcast. We had a great conversation about how you can build better habits to make 2023 your best year yet. Check it out on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

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habit example

When's the last time you organized your digital bedroom?

About 2 weeks ago, I was hanging out with my friend Stephen.

He wanted to race me in playing that day's Wordle puzzle. (spoiler: he crushed me)

After swiping through 7 pages of home screens to find my shortcut to Wordle, he about lost it! He couldn't believe the pages and pages of apps I had.

I didn't want to delete them all though...

Within seconds, he reminded me how on iPhones you can long press on an app and tap "remove from home screen". (don't worry - a quick google search will find you a way to do this on android as well)

Basically, it means you can still find the app (by searching for it or swiping right to access your app library), but it doesn't take up space on your home screen anymore.

It took me a full week of 5 minutes or so every day to get cleaned up.

Why? Because just like sorting through a box of old keepsakes, I had to pause at every single item and ask, "What value does this provide for me?" and more importantly, "Is this an app I want and need INSTANT access to?"

In some cases (like social media or games), it was a strategic decision to remove them from my home screen so that it requires more effort to find (making it less likely I'll use it as often).

In other cases (like scriptures, books, and Notion), it was a strategic decision to put them on my home screen (even though they weren't there previously) specifically because I want to find myself using them more often.

But when I finally finished and texted Stephen a screenshot, I got this reply as his stamp of approval: "Dude what a transformation! It's like your phone's lost 20 lbs."

It went from 7 pages of well over 100 apps, down to a half page of apps and a few widgets. (plus the app library at the end, of course)

Take a peek yourself:

Maybe you think it's silly, but it genuinely has felt as good to me as if I just deep cleaned and reorganized my bedroom for the first time in a long time.

It feels fresh, tidy, and oh-so simple. (as long as I don't stop to notice my 19,707 unread emails 🤣)

From now on, I'll be making a habit to remove any and all unnecessary apps from the home screen and be more intentional about keeping only apps there that I really want to be using on a regular basis.

After all, most of us spend more time on our phones than we do in our own bedrooms.

try it

Take a few minutes today organizing your phone.

1. Delete apps you don't need.
2. Remove from the home screen whatever apps you don't need as often.
3. And decide which apps you want more easily accessible to promote the other habits you're trying to build (i.e. journaling, learning, sharing).

Then hit reply to this email and tell me how it went 😉

inspiration

“When we really delve into the reasons for why we can't let something go, there are only two:

An attachment to the past,

or a fear of the future."

- Marie Kondo

actual quote from my 3 year old 😂

"When I was eating ice I thought,

I should eat that because I very like ice"

Thanks for reading!

- Kody

P.S. Been listening to this awesome new Flo Rida song that's guaranteed to make you smile.

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