Guest post written by All The Perfect Days author Michael Thompson
Michael Thompson spent fifteen years working in the Australian media, where he won multiple awards for radio and journalism. His time is now divided between writing books and podcasting from his home in Sydney, where he lives with his wife and two children. All the Perfect Days is his second novel. Michael’s first book, How to Be Remembered, was published internationally in 2023, translated into seven languages, and is currently being adapted into a film.
About All The Perfect Days (out now): For readers of Rebecca Serle’s In Five Years and Nikki Erlick’s The Measure, Michael Thompson’s romantic magical realism will have you smiling, laughing, crying, and questioning: If you knew how long your loved ones would live, would you tell them?
Monday is a good day for me. It’s the day when my kids have my undivided attention, the day when I can read half a dozen chapters in the latest novel by my bed, the day when I’m ultra-efficient with my 9-5 job, creating podcasts. It’s the day when I’ll write a couple of thousand words that might just be good enough to survive the editing process of my next novel. It’s the day I won’t even use Google Maps to navigate somewhere, and take my chances instead with my own defective sense of direction.
Monday is the day I have the strongest resolve, an iron will not to look at my phone. It’s the day when I’ll only open Instagram once. Yep, just once, and even then it’s only long enough to like a couple of posts, respond to a comment or two, and that’s it. I won’t go anywhere near TikTok, for fear of the algorithm sucking me in. Emails are answered on my MacBook. To the very best of my ability, the phone is kept for emergencies only.
Why?
Because every Monday is the start of the new me. The me that isn’t ruled by social media or obsessively checking my emails on my phone. I’m driven, determined that when the following Monday rolls around, and Apple sends me my screen time notification at precisely 9.03am, that I’ll see those words: Last week, you averaged 57 minutes of screen time per day on this device. How I’d love to get below that one hour mark, and stay there. Fifty minutes maybe. Perhaps even less.
If it was based on Monday alone, I’d do it. The feeling that I have on Monday night is addictive. This is what it’s like to have a perfect day. A day when I’ve actually made eye contact with people (and yes, I’m aware of how creepy that sounds. I’m trying to be friendly, but I don’t think it’s working). A day when I’ve really paid attention to what’s happening around me. I’ve noticed the cars that are parking on my street. I’ve recognised familiar faces on the train. I’ve played with my kids and read them a story, and not once been distracted, sneaking a look at my phone in between pages.
It feels great.
Tuesday is often a good day too. I’m still feeling pretty happy with myself, confident that this week I’ve beaten it. Sub-60 minutes, here I come. And I can admit I’m feeling a little pious too—particularly when others around me are on their phones. Believe me, there’s nothing better than being the only person on the train reading a real book while everyone else is scrolling.
But by Tuesday night, something happens. Maybe I’ve posted some photos on Instagram, or a video to TikTok. I need to do it: I’m supposed to be promoting my new book. And then I’m just quickly checking to see how it’s going. Then again. And again. And one more time before bed. Again once I’m actually in bed.
Wednesday, I’m back in control. Feeling okay. Last night was just a minor blip. Until it isn’t, and now I’m reading my emails on my phone. I’m just giving myself a quick five minute break on TikTok, saving some videos to show my wife. I’m just checking out what’s happening on Instagram, what other authors are doing, and now I’m reading a review that someone has posted of my novel.
Thursday’s even worse. Monday’s self-satisfaction is gone entirely. Just a distant memory. I’m still trying to be distraction free, particularly when I’m with my kids, but it’s hard. Very hard.
And Friday? Holy smokes, I’m off the rails. Even just now – in the middle of writing this story – I stopped, and picked up my phone. I checked my Instagram first. Then my email address that I use for contact with my publishers. Then my email address that I use for my day job in podcasting. Then back to Instagram. Then I scrolled for a bit on a news site. Then another. Then finally—finally—back to this article.
And honestly, I hate it. I hate the hold my phone has over me. Because it’s become such a part of my life that I find my hand moving towards it in every quiet moment. Drawn by a need to know what’s going on, to see what’s happening in the world, as though there isn’t enough going on right in front of me. I’m not alone, either. A recent study showed 50% of Americans believe they have an addiction to their phones. Alarmingly, it’s even higher for teens.
So many hours spent glued to our screens, to the apps that are designed to lure us in and keep us there. So many days wasted.
My new novel All the Perfect Days is about a small-town family doctor who knows exactly how many days his patients have left to live. He uses this knowledge to try to help them live full lives – but it doesn’t quite work the way he hopes. As I wrote the book, I found myself considering two questions: would I want to know how many days I had left? And if I did know – how would it change the way I lived?
Well, one thing’s for sure: I wouldn’t want to spend any of my remaining minutes staring at an app.
And it’s tapped into a real fear for me. That I’m going to miss something important, something that I’ll really regret missing. A moment, a glance, an instant, that will pass me by because I’m reading a news story, or scrolling through videos, or looking at photos. And I worry that one day in the future I’ll look back on this part of my life and wonder what on earth I was doing. Why I was willing to give so much of my attention to a device and its apps that have no real meaning to me, and wouldn’t miss me if I wasn’t here? Why wasn’t I able to put it down, to lock it away, and just be fully present?
A couple of little caveats here. I can’t just throw my phone away and live off-grid, as tempting as that might sound. I have the survival skills of a turnip and would perish in a day without modern technology. And more importantly, one of our kids has a medical condition that means our phones need to be nearby at all times to monitor him. So that device is going to stay close at hand. And while ever it’s there, I fear I’m going to be drawn to it, to the other apps that lurk on it: my emails, social media, the news. And whenever I am, I’m not going to be fully present in the moment.
Because those moments: those books with the kids, the meals with my wife, the conversations, and even the awkward eye contact with strangers on the train.
That’s what I want. It’s that Monday feeling. To me, those are perfect days, and I want more of them.
That’s why, when Monday rolls around, I’m going to try again. And maybe this time, I’ll make it the whole week through.
