Venture Step

Dalton Anderson (00:02.35)
Welcome to a a podcast. We discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends and the occasional book review. I'm sure everyone's had this question to themselves or annoyance with their phone constantly demanding attention and the buzzing and constantly having to dual factor authenticate with your company or with some bank app. And it seems like anything that you're doing, your phone is critically connected to that process.

There's no real way for you to step away. And that's a problem. And I was reading recently about this phone called the Lite Phone 3. And the Lite Phone 3 is all about reevaluating your relationship with your phone and technology in general. And basically, your phone is by default notifications are turned off. It's in black and white.

It only has a camera functionality and a couple of apps. It's got a timer, a calculator, an ability to take phone calls, and I think basic texting. That's it. And I was interested in the idea until I saw the price. And I was surprised how expensive it was because it's basically an e-reader with a camera and six apps or something. There's probably more apps, but

There's not that much. You get the gist. Very dumbed down and people call these things called dumb phones and it would be substantially cheaper just to buy a phone from a previous decade, a couple of decades ago. Just a quick flip phone, takes calls, can't really text on it or just have no phone at all. People do that. I met one person that had

did not have a phone and it was difficult to do stuff with him because he never, he never knew what to do or like where to go or you can only go to places that he knew how to get there to them. And whenever you were splitting the bill for something, it was always like, I'll pay for it. Like everyone just give me cash or, or

Dalton Anderson (02:24.664)
can you like sell me or something? Cause I don't have a phone, so I won't be able to sell you. And so it was just like always, it was always a issue and it was an inconvenience to other people. Although I respect that he was able to operate in society without a phone, but definitely an inconvenience. And so there's that aspect of the light phone of it being very beneficial to you, but also

certain points it inconveniences others as well. So it's not all good. And I'll share my screen of the website of the Light Phone 3, but this whole conversation and reading about a research about the Light Phone 3 got me intrigued into me re-evaluating my relationship with my phone because I was interested in actually potentially purchasing the Light Phone 3 just to try it out. But for $600 for the pre-order price and it being, I think,

700.

or 800 if it wasn't a pre-order. I was like, wow, that's expensive. And I'm surprised how expensive that is. Okay, yeah, so it's on sale for pre-order. Pre-order's in August, 2025. Pre-order price is 599. It's 799 without the pre-order. I have no idea.

how they're going to sell these things. So with that price, even at $600, that's steep. For an e-reader, steep. So I took it upon myself to use the underlying principles of the Lite 3 phone. And so what does that mean? Turning off a lot of notifications. Removing apps that you don't need.

Dalton Anderson (04:25.334)
reducing clutter and stimulation. So making your phone in black and white. Like so I'm sharing, if you're watching the video, I'll share my phone, my screen. You can see my Duolingo streak is at 224. I got to do it. I still have to do my Duolingo, but you can see how my screen is in black and white.

and there's nothing much going on. And on the Google phone, there's a, there's like a very faint button that you can, you can make a shortcut and you'll barely be able to see it. And then you can just toggle back and forth if you want to watch in black and white, or if you want to use it in color. So, the same, same gist for iPhone and iPhone, you have to go to accessibility, grayscale, turn that on, and then you got to go to accessibility shortcuts and then turn on

the accessibility color shortcut and then you'll be able to turn your phone black and white if you tap black, black and white or color. If you tap the home button three times for me on the Google, I guess for other androids, you'll have a little shortcut on your screen and you could just tap that. So it works either way. Same gist on your computer. You can set that up as well. I have it set up for my work computer and my personal computer. I

I'm going to talk about my experience, the pros and the cons of basically reducing all color of the virtual world for three weeks. There is some good things and there is also some bad things. So we'll get into it.

Dalton Anderson (06:06.894)
So I talked about the Light Phone 3, but I didn't share my screen. So I wanna share my screen and show you what I'm talking about. It's basically like a steel brick or aluminum. I think it's aluminum. Let's see, screen, share my screen.

Dalton Anderson (06:24.142)
Okay.

So I'm sharing my screen, but I can't see my tab for some reason. This is crazy. This is the first time this happened. I shared my screen and now my tabs are all messed up. So all right, there we go. Found you.

Dalton Anderson (06:54.318)
Okay. So weird. It was closing my screen out for some reason it was bugging. whatever. Okay, so this is a LiPhone 3. It is, I would say, a brick. It's literally like a square aluminum brick. The build quality looks really nice. Really nice. But once again, for...

$800 bucks. That's tough. That's really tough.

Dalton Anderson (07:33.071)
And it has some optional apps, but the main thing is just having a really simple phone with a camera and some optional tools available. they're talking about optional tools available as the alarm, a timer, a calculator, a calendar, a directory. I think that's like a contact directory, directions, notes, voice memos and simple music or podcast player. That's all it's got.

There is currently not, or there is not currently, if I could read, a music streaming tool for platforms like Spotify or a way to call or message with other platforms like Signal or WhatsApp. There is no ride share tool available either. These features may be possible in future software updates. The phone has GPS, Bluetooth, fingerprint ID, and a noise cancellation mic. I mean, it really doesn't have very much.

What's what I'm trying to emphasize. It's it's a stripped out smartphone. And my issue with it is you could do the same thing.

yourself with your current technology. So let me stop sharing. And that's what I did. So I started with my phone first and the Lite Phone 3 has very few apps. So that's what I try to do. So I try to go, I went on my apps and I went through every app that I have on my phone, which you can also use these App Store apps that will change the structure. You can do it on Android. I don't know how well it works on Apple.

Basically there's apps that you could pay monthly to do and it will lock all these apps on your phone and it will.

Dalton Anderson (09:20.632)
change your home screen and how it functions. So it's very simple and more Light Phone 3 like.

Dalton Anderson (09:30.144)
I don't necessarily subscribe to that idea simply because if you're paying an app to solve the problem, you're not addressing it at its core. And I think if...

you are serious about changing your relationship with your technology, then you should do it yourself. And if you're good at it, then you could use an app. But I don't think starting off, you should use an app. I think you should put in the work and the time into evaluating each app on your phone and the base answer being no. So your base answer is no, I don't need this.

And then you have to convince yourself that you need it. And there's some things on here that I have that I don't necessarily need to have on my phone, but I have it on there simply because to log back in or to like get access to it or I'll forget it. I have it on my phone simply because I'll need it. So like one example would be the global entry app.

That's pretty much it though. So every app on my phone, I have went through, okay, do I use this every day?

No. OK. Could I get this on the internet if I need to? Yes. All right.

Dalton Anderson (10:58.222)
So then the answer is no, I don't need this on my phone. And they just delete it. So just ruthlessly deleting all your apps is big. And then going through and turning off all your notifications. So I didn't have very many notifications at the first place, but I turned on only notifications for important emails or emails that are deemed important by Google and banks. That's it.

So everything else is shrieking.

Dalton Anderson (11:33.494)
And then the last thing I did was I went to settings, accessibility, and this is gonna be similar if you have an iPhone or Android. Go to settings, accessibility, and then from there you should see colors.

see colors in motion and then you can turn on color correction and then you could select what kind of color correction you want and the intensity. I have the intensity all the way up there's red green green weak red green red weak blue yellow and then grayscale. I have it in grayscale and I have the intensity all the way up and then I turned on the

Make sure you turn on the shortcut so you can toggle in between black and white and color. Typically you don't want to do that, but there's certain things that people send you that you need to be able to view, like a video from your mom or from your family or a video from your friends that you need to view. And they're being sincere. I think it's insincere to review their video in black and white when they're like, wow, look how cool the sky looks.

and it's in black and white. So that's the current stance I'm taking. You could take whatever stance you want, but I would personally, if I found out that people were watching my videos in black and white and they're requesting or saying that it's so pretty or so nice, like I just don't think it's genuine or authentic. So that's why I'm saying, hey, if people are taking the time of their day to take a video for you and share it with you, then I would put it in.

So my experience on my phone, I've used my phone a lot less, right? Like I use my phone as an e-reader basically, because I have everything turned off. So there's no notifications that are distractions. I don't have Instagram on my phone. I don't have any social media. Well, actually that's a lie. I have X. I like to read a lot on X. And I like to read tech news or AI news or things about podcasts, those kind of things, things that add value. And so pretty much if I'm reading,

Dalton Anderson (13:50.987)
It's to add value or learn about sports. So I have the New York Times, X, and the Athletic on my phone to read. But if I look at my week, my week to week, I wonder how far back this goes. So.

I have reduced my average screen time. And I've never had a big issue with my screen time. I'll just point that out. Like, I just think that if you're going to be using your phone, you should be using it for things that are beneficial. And the screen time doesn't necessarily depict what you're using the phone for. But if you're using the phone to do things that benefit your life or benefit others, then maybe that's different story. But if you're just using your phone to do doom scroll, then

Obviously that's bad screen time. And I'm assuming that you can defer those two things. So let's see. I was having a lot of days at four hours and 15 minutes. But you also have to include that I'm working out every day and my workouts are an hour or so. And I use my phone, I use a workout app on my phone. So I would call it three hours of real screen time.

Now I'm down to about two hours. So it's probably like 30 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of like communicating with people on the phone or texting them, and then an hour workout.

So it works because there's not much to look at on your phone when it's in black and white. Go on Instagram and turn your phone in black and white and everything that you thought was cool is no longer cool or interesting. What is interesting in black and white is reading and hopefully you're reading the right things. And it is a, it's a better experience, honestly, because you aren't getting bogged down by, by

Dalton Anderson (15:57.507)
the stimulation that isn't important. So these like pictures of the sky or for men at least, like there'd be random, there'll be like some random just smoke show on Instagram that comes up to the algorithm because I'm a man, like this algorithm just constantly sends just women towards you. None of that stuff matters when it's in black and white. Like you can't even tell.

what's going on really. And so I would highly suggest it. I like it on my phone and you don't need a lot of things once it's in black and white, like a lot of apps don't have interests. And so that also reduces your. Gravitivity towards those things. And then once you are out, it's like, wow, it's a whole new world out here. What's going on? So much going on like, wow, didn't even know that.

I didn't even know there was an exit on this train. This is nice. So peaceful. So that I was like, wow, I like the results I'm getting from my phone. Let's take this to the next level. Let's use it for my work phone or not my work phone. I don't have work phone. Let's use it for my work computer and on my personal computers. So now I've effectively been just black and white all day, every day.

And then also I included my Garmin in this. So I've got a Garmin. They don't have black and white mode on Garmin, but they've got this thing called Redshift and you can put it in red or green or a couple other colors. I put it in red because it's the least low key, but it's basically black and white. It's just red and black. So the whites are red and then the blacks are black.

Dalton Anderson (17:51.065)
So I'm effectively all in on this black and white experiment that I have. And I wanted to give an update on how I'm feeling about it. And I'm feeling pretty good. But there are also drawbacks. But let's first talk about the work computer. So the work computer, same gist. You go on the computer. I would click Windows, the Windows icon, Settings, Accessibility, Colors.

turn on grayscale, turn on the window shortcut. So then you would access black and white mode by Windows Shift C. And then if you want to go back to color, you press Windows Shift C again. And another thing that I thought was interesting was I was worried that I had to switch to black and white into color all the time, because if you're writing up documentation, which I often do from creating processes and you have to roll it out to different teams, you have to create a documentation for that.

and you sometimes have to put in screenshots, if you're doing that, is the screenshot in color black and white? And I was fascinated to learn that when you're in black and white, it's only black and white for you and it's an overlay on your screen, but if you take a screenshot on your black and white screen, the screenshots actually in color when you take it out of black and white and you put it in color, you can see the actual screenshot with all the colors.

You don't have to switch back and forth, which is nice because that would have been annoying. I thought all the things that I don't want to do, I don't want to switch back and forth all the time. And there's, there's some apps that you don't even realize it's in black and white.

until later on because it becomes second nature where you don't need that much color, don't need that much stimulation, don't need that much going on.

Dalton Anderson (19:42.178)
The one thing that I will do is when I'm in meetings, if it's the first time I've ever met that person, I put it in color because I want to.

have the most genuine reaction or genuine conversation with them. Not saying that you can't have genuine conversations of black and white, but I just want to have my first conversation with them ever be in color so I could see how they dress, their personality, everything that's going on, and what they look like, and then match the face to the name, and then I could turn on black and white mode, and black and white mode.

I can still see everybody, like everybody looks like how they looked before, but there's just less color. So I just think it's more genuine to to meet with people first time ever on color mode. Just my thoughts on the situation and then the Garmin's awesome black and white. So I like this because. Everything is just no colors and it has a lot of Garmin, has a lot of animations depending on what model you have and.

Everything's all like colorful and poppy and whatever it may be. And this is the drawback is when there is color that you are exposed to, it's like, wow, this is crazy. Like the the sky is so colorful, the traffic lights, the cars are vivid because you're not exposed to any color all day. And then you go outside and you're like, whoa.

This is exhilarating. What is going on? And you just get caught up on the weirdest things like the bright reds of a stop sign or the deep browns of dirt. You just go out there and touch grass and.

Dalton Anderson (21:36.352)
something else. This world is beautiful. It really is. working and living in black and white deprives you of stimulation. So when you step outside and you go into the real world, that's all the stimulation you need.

And the conversations that you have with people in person, from my experience of the last three weeks, have seemed more engaging and more stimulating because the whole week or the whole day you're deprived of colors and animations and stimulation. But you think about it when you have your phone and everything's in color, you're on these photos, these vivid photos of people doing amazing things like laughter and expression and

all these human elements, plus you're tied to your phone with different apps that you like or videos that are engaging. And then you're on your work computer and you always have to your phone nearby because you've got this dual factor authentication thing chained to your leg. And you're, you're always on one system or the other. If you

are working and you get a login, you've got to have your phone nearby, you log in, you do the two factor, you put your phone down, you go back to your work computer. All of that.

Everything about it is color and everything about that and the other apps you're using are meant to be addictive and stimulating. And if you just put it in black and white, it loses all of its.

Dalton Anderson (23:20.801)
All of its...

Dalton Anderson (23:24.494)
all of it's grand desk, it's, the veneer has been stripped out and you see the real thing. And you see that a lot of the things that you have on your phone or apps that you're using don't have the purpose. And it's easy to strip it out once you realize that, but opening up and first seeing things in black and white makes things clear. And I agree, like if you're in a work call,

and it's in black and white, there's less distractions. You can focus on people's facial expressions and how they're saying things and their body language. Because if they're wearing this colorful shirt and it's all vivid on the video or somebody's wearing that, it might be distracting, but you can really dial in and focus on what matters in your personal life and in your professional life.

So moving over to the drawbacks, I think that there are some drawbacks. My overall experience has been great. I think that other people should embrace this and it should become a little bit more mainstream. And I think that the benefits that you could see in the first three days, if you say, hey, I'm gonna do everything that's on my computer, on my phone,

on my watch, it's in black and white, no questions. And you you held strong for three days, you'll see a major difference. It's a night and day, literally.

Dalton Anderson (25:07.85)
Overall, overall, my experience has been great. I have a friend named Matt who I convinced to do his phone with and he was amazed by the lack of interest he has on his phone. And he said that he likes to watch some YouTube videos sometimes before bed on his phone, just looking up things like tutorials or little like how to how to videos.

because he's curious or whatever that case may be.

or he's planning his next project.

He had said that going forward, he uses black and white, but there's times where he forgets to toggle it on and off. But he said he set it up on his phone to where black and white starts at, I think he said 3 p.m. That's pretty early. That's like, OK, so the first half of the day, you are going to be potentially black and white or color. And then at the end, not the end, but end of the afternoon, everything's in black and white. And he had said that

He just doesn't want to watch the videos in black and white and just will fall asleep. Like your brain, your brain doesn't find it interesting because it's just black and white. There's no color. Like you could look outside and look, look at your room right now. Your room has more color than your phone does. And

Dalton Anderson (26:38.176)
It just makes it easy, I would say. And he he's been sleeping a lot better.

or a little bit more consistent, I'd say. But Matt's had a great experience, I've had a great experience, and let's discuss some downsides. So downsides. When you devoid yourself of stimulation in the virtual world, your brain is gonna search for something else to latch onto. And so have to be careful on what you are taking out and what you're putting back in.

And so an example could be that you put your phone in black and white, you put your work computer in black and white and you're watching black and white, but your TV still in color. And I'll tell you what, I'm not a big TV watcher.

But two days ago, I didn't have much to do and I was tired and I saw my TV and I was like, whoa, this is pretty cool. Look at all the colors. And it sounds a bit crazy and off, but you'll know what I'm talking about if you put everything in black and white and you see something that's like, it's got colors on it. Look at that.

That's pretty cool. That's new tech right there. And what I'm getting at is that your your brain doesn't necessarily love the no color vibes. It wants some color. And the way that it will find it is either outside the virtual world, like in the real life and go outside, go touch some grass, go communicate with people, which is a beautiful way to spend your life. But also

Dalton Anderson (28:28.352)
It could find other devices like your TV.

And it was hard for me to like stop. Like I was like, OK, bye. I'm out. I just turn it off. But I watched a couple of episodes in a row and I was like, what am I doing? Like I got to go to bed and. Yeah, so just be careful and that that that was the worst time that happened was a couple of days ago, but it had happened like a couple of weeks ago before and I was like, wow, I got I was wary about it. was like, hmm.

Like I would never do that before. So how would be the like the downside, but at the same time, you just have to be aware of how you're spending your color allocation. Like if your whole life is without color, what brings you color? It could be your wife, your family, your partner, hobbies, the community. There's so much stuff that the life could offer you.

And those experiences are so much more memorable and stimulating because you haven't seen that. You don't see color anymore. And so it's just like those things are just ingrained in you. you experience the no color to color, it is just an avalanche of stimulation and memories.

which I quite like. So I will be continuing this black and white.

Dalton Anderson (30:09.646)
Nonsense I'm doing. I don't know. It may jive with you, may not. I did have a conference. I had a meeting and I forgot that my computer was in black and white. And somebody at the meeting when I was sharing my screen, they were like, wait, is your computer in black and white or am I tripping or is my computer broken? I swear it looks to be in black and white. Is that true, Dalton?

And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, it's in black and white. And I just switched it back to color. I was like, oh, I could put it in color.

It's so funny, so funny. And they're like, oh man, like I was pondering about that for a couple minutes. I couldn't figure it out. I thought it was, but then I was like, wait, hold on. Is it something in my settings? My other screens aren't black and white, so I'm like, well, what's going on?

So.

Dalton Anderson (31:09.716)
Overall, very, very pleased with the current results from my re-evaluation of my relationship with technology. I think this has made me more effective and allows me to...

Dalton Anderson (31:33.717)
reduce my time. No, I don't want to say time wasted because everyone has everyone has a finite amount of time and not you can't just work the whole time. You got to have some fun and you could talk to different people and say like, okay, I want to work 60 hours or whatever, 60 % of my time I want to be working or some people might be different allocation where I want to have 80 % of my time work and then 20 % free time, whatever it may be.

Everyone has things that they wanna do that to someone else is a waste of time. So I would say, you wanna, I would say you would, this process helps me reduce my.

disappointed, my time, my disappointed time wasted. There we go. There's my metric. Disappointed time wasted. I had a hard time putting that all together. My disappointed time wasted is reduced with this protocol. And this protocol of mimicking the light threes principles and reevaluating your technology that you have nearby and in your household.

has an impact on you and it has an impact on how you look at life and how you experience life, which I think

is something notable and something that you should potentially pursue and

Dalton Anderson (33:08.886)
something worth a shot, I would just try it out. If people are saying it's great, and when I say people, it's me, if I'm saying it's good like that, then you should at least give it a try. Give it a try. Try it for like a day and see. And if you like it for one day, then try it for another day and go day by day. And eventually those days will add up. And before you know it, you'll be a black and white.

power user or something like this.

With that being said, I appreciate your time today in going over how I reinvented my relationship with technology. And I hope that you'll share your experiences of what you've taken away from this episode and how it's improved your life. But I'll talk to you next week. And of course, wherever you are in this world, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Thank you for listening in.

and I'll see you next week. Goodbye.