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Where it sleeps
Pick a charging spot outside the bedroom and know why that is the deal, not a punishment.
1Watch
Half past eleven
The glow
A dark bedroom. A phone on the pillow lights up. Then again. Then again. Eyes open each time. It ends with the phone in the kid's hand at 11:34 and a message waiting for a reply.
22 secondsNobody made him pick it up. That is the point.
2The idea
It is not a punishment. It is a door
A phone in the bedroom does not let you sleep. It does not mean to. It just lights up, and you are a person, so you look, and then you are awake and reading, and then you are replying. A phone that charges in the kitchen is one nobody can reach you through at midnight. That includes everyone in the last badge.
Think of it as a door you get to close. Nothing from the day, and nobody from the day, gets in once the phone has gone downstairs. Your bedroom goes back to being yours, which it was not while the phone was on the pillow.
3The idea
How to pick the spot, and what to say
Three rules for the spot.
1. Not the bedroom. Not the bedside table, not under the pillow, not the desk in the corner. It is the room that matters, not the surface.
2. Somewhere you walk past in the morning. Kitchen, hall, a parent’s room. If you do not pass it, you forget it and you are late.
3. Plugged in before you go up. Not brought up to finish one thing.
The alarm still works. You just have to get up to turn it off, which is what an alarm is for. And the deal gives you a sentence for the morning: sorry, my phone was downstairs. It is true, it is nobody’s fault, and nobody argues with it.
4The idea
One night, worked through
Phone goes on the kitchen counter at 8.30, face-down, plugged in. At 11.20 the group chat starts. Twelve messages by midnight. The phone lights up twelve times in an empty kitchen and nobody sees any of them. Upstairs, you are asleep, because there was nothing to look at.
In the morning you walk past it on the way to breakfast, read the twelve messages in a minute, and type: sorry, my phone was downstairs. Nobody says anything, because there is nothing to say. You missed nothing that could not wait eight hours, and you slept. That is the whole deal, one night at a time.
5Decide
Where does it charge tonight?
Pick one to carry on.
6Build it
Pick the charging spot
The charging spot
A floor plan of a home with rooms to tap. Pick where the phone charges. The bedroom is greyed out and the game tells you why. Three spots work: the kitchen, the hall, a parent's room. Then it asks which one you actually walk past in the morning.
Rule two is the one people forget. It has to be on the way to breakfast.
7Find them
What does a phone downstairs actually give you?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 3.
8Say it
The most useful sentence in the deal
Say it like a fact, because it is one
“Sorry, my phone was downstairs.”
Nobody argues with it. It ends every midnight conversation before it starts, and it is true.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Tonight, plug the phone in at the agreed spot before you go up. Then do it six more nights. Seven in a row is the drill. Tick each one off on the deal.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
The phone charges where the family is. Your bedroom is for you.
Next lesson: Telling without losing itBadge 3 · Your Phone Deal
3.1What the phone is for3.2Where it sleeps3.3Telling without losing it★Badge Challenge