A Person Got to Have a Code (and a phone)

“A man gotta have a code” - Omar

The average person checks their phone 150 times/day. Setting aside whether that’s a ridiculous number or not, that got me thinking about the fact that we look at one image - our lock screen image - 150 times/day. 

There are probably quite a few interesting product opportunities that fall out from an image we look at 150 times/day or 55k/year. Other than a tattoo I can’t think of an image we looked at in the past as frequently or in as many contexts.

The specific thing I’ve been noodling on is how to use that image to reinforce behaviour. I have a few principles** I try to keep in mind as I go through life, but it can be easy to lose sight of them in the swirl of daily emotion. I’ve been experimenting with putting that list on my lock screen so I end up looking at it in passing 100+ times/day.

I’ve been doing it for a month or so now and have noticed that for the most part I’ll just tune out the image of the list en route to completing a task on my phone. But from time to time it does pull me in (often when I’m just getting out my phone to kill time). I’ll re-read them and perhaps something is reinforced or questioned.

I wonder what else could be done with an image we look at 150 times/day? 

** 1. YOLO, 2. FOMO, 3. BRB, 4. what would ‘ye do, 5. what would bill murray do