A "phone-free weekend" sounds extreme. It is not. You do not have to throw the phone in the ocean. You just have to design two days where the phone is not the centre of gravity.

The trick is small structural moves. Where the phone lives. Whether it comes to the table. Whether you sleep next to it. The ten things below are all small structural moves. None of them require you to be a different person. They just nudge the architecture of the weekend so the phone stops being in charge.

Pick five. See how you feel by Sunday night.

1. Leave the phone in the kitchen

The single highest-impact move. Plug the charger in on the kitchen bench, near the sink. Not the bedroom, not the lounge, not your back pocket. When you are home, that is where the phone lives. You can still use it. You just have to walk to it.

2. Charger near the sink, not the bed

The bed is the worst place for it. The first thing you touch in the morning, the last thing at night. Move the charger to the kitchen permanently. Buy a $9 alarm clock from Kmart. Your sleep will improve within a week.

3. One walk without earphones

Not a hike. A normal walk to the corner shop. No earphones, no podcast, no audiobook. Just walking. Your brain will hate it for two minutes then settle. You will hear birds.

4. One meal at the table with no screens

Saturday lunch. Sunday dinner. Pick one. Nobody at the table has a phone visible. No iPad propped up. No TV in the background. Just the food and the people. It is genuinely strange how rare this has become.

5. One book finished before Monday

A short one. Foster by Claire Keegan (96 pages). A Month in the Country by JL Carr (under 100 pages). Anything you can finish in a single Sunday afternoon. The act of finishing a book, closing it, putting it on the shelf, is one of the most satisfying things you can do.

6. One letter posted

One. The person you have been meaning to write to. Four sentences. Put it in the post box on Monday. You will think about it for the rest of the week.

7. One thing planted or potted

Bulbs. Seeds. A succulent cutting. Repot the basil. Hands in dirt for ten minutes is one of the few things that scientifically calms the nervous system. You will sleep better Sunday night.

8. One conversation longer than ten minutes

With someone who is in your house, or someone on the phone (a real phone call). Ten minutes. No phones visible. No interruptions. Most of us do not have ten-minute conversations anymore. It is wild how much you can say in ten minutes.

9. One nap unapologetically

Sunday afternoon. The couch, the bed, the armchair. Half an hour. Phone in the kitchen. No alarm. No guilt. The nap is the entire point.

10. One Sunday spent on nothing

Pick one Sunday a month. No errands, no productivity, no optimisation. The day exists in front of you and you let it. You will be amazed how much your week improves when one day of it is unscheduled.

A note at the end

You do not have to do all ten. Five is enough. The point is not to be virtuous about the phone. The point is to remember that you have a body, a kitchen, a back step, books, people, and a postcard or two you have been meaning to write.