My default behaviours had recently started to slip, and I found myself reading reddit and scrolling youtube in moments of downtime. This would inevitably lead to more time, and I would find myself more distractable.1 I made a conscious decision to stop checking reddit (or any attention sucking website; if I wasn’t specifically looking for something, I couldn’t browse). This helped a bit, but required some discipline to stick with. Then I came across a suggestion that took me aback for its simplicity: greyscale.

I put my phone into greyscale. On Android: Settings > Accessibility > Text and display > Colour correction > Turn on and select greyscale. iOS: Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Colour filters > Turn on, and select greyscale. On Android, I added the floating toggle. For iOS, I added an accessibility shortcut such that if I press the home button three times it toggles the greyscale filter on/off.

I have been using my phone in greyscale (turned off if I need to see the colour) for over a month now. I recently realised that I could kick things up a notch and have put my home computer into greyscale too. If I want to watch something, I turn it off, but otherwise the default is greyscale.2 I use an ad-blocker, but some website still show ads. It is amazing, when I turn colour back on, how attention grabbing all of the ads are. Even most navicons and logos use colour to draw our gaze. Reddit occasionally calls like a siren to ease my water-weary mind, but after a page of greyscale photos, I’m rarely satisfied with the low-quality entertainment and turn to a book or saved article to read.

Throughout this experiment, I have noticed several people have quite strong opinions when they see it. One colleague gets visibly annoyed when they see my greyscale screen. It is interesting that going against expected societal norms, even when they do not affect the other person, can evoke such a response.

James Clear talks about ‘design for default’3 - where you improve your life by making the default, easy decision the one you want. 99% of the time when I use my phone or computer, there is no need for colour. Unless I am looking at a photo, or analysing datasets with colour, greyscale is good enough.

I recommend everyone give greyscale a go.

  1. I’ve been thinking a lot about work and deep work. Whilst the platonian ideal is a job in which one has full autonomy over their work environment, I do not have that luxury. Instead, I have been trying to train my ability to work through distractions, and improve my resilience to interruptions. A subject for another post, I think. ↩

  2. An added bonus is that colours seem much more vibrant when present - sometimes whelmingly4 so. ↩

  3. https://jamesclear.com/design-default ↩

  4. Not quite overwhelming, just a little bit whelming. ↩