Pete Holmes has a modern productivity stack that most app makers would hate: make the phone uglier, make the usage meter unavoidable, and decline the group-chat chore wheel where possible.
In a WIRED interview, the comedian and actor, known for HBO’s Crashing and the special Silly Silly Fun Boy, said his average iPhone use for the week was 1 hour and 15 minutes per day. By 2 p.m. on the day he spoke with WIRED, he said he had used it for 27 minutes. He still considered that more than he wanted.
Holmes said he uses an iPhone Air from 2025, a model he likes partly because he believes it was unpopular. He contrasted it with larger iPhones built around bigger batteries and more hardware. His stated preference is aesthetic and behavioral: a thinner device with weaker endurance signals that he does not plan to live inside it.
His anti-scroll setup is basic, which is the point
Holmes told WIRED he keeps the iPhone’s screen in black and white and places Apple’s screen-time widget on the home screen. The logic is blunt: if color and audio make a phone more compelling, removing some of that stimulation makes it easier to put down. The widget supplies the nagging measurement.
He also said he does not keep social media apps on the phone. If he uses a social platform, he said it is most likely Instagram, though he described all social networks negatively. He did credit Reels and TikTok with occasionally making him laugh, while saying that effect does not reliably repeat.
The message backlog is less controlled. Holmes said he had 80 unread texts and 55,426 unread emails. His preferred text maneuver is to mark a message unread after seeing it, especially when it is not from his wife. He framed constant replies as a kind of office work leaking into friendship and daily life.
Email gets even less ceremony. Holmes told WIRED that long email chains should be restarted after several replies, and argued that much of modern communication creates urgency where none is needed. He uses one main account for services such as Uber and Amazon, partly because he assumes companies will add it to mailing lists.
AI optimism, with a raised eyebrow
Holmes is not doing a back-to-the-woods routine. He said he uses FaceTime with his wife, Valerie, so their daughter can see her when Holmes is solo parenting. He also FaceTimes his mother, though he joked to WIRED that the framing tends to favor her forehead. He used Google image search to identify a small skull his daughter found outdoors, which he said appeared to be from a muskrat.
His most recent AI query, he said, involved soreness from daily swimming. The answer suggested a hot shower or light yoga, which he did not rate highly. Still, Holmes described himself as optimistic about AI and skeptical of apocalyptic marketing around it. He said he watches arguments that AI companies benefit when people treat the technology as existentially powerful, because that framing can help them seek looser rules.
His other tools are ordinary Apple-and-audio fare. Holmes uses a 2022 MacBook Air with an M2 chip, Spotify and Apple Music, and noise-canceling earbuds that he often wears with no audio playing. He said he is nostalgic for a Tascam four-track tape recorder, follows 1990s video game speedrunning videos, and likes Summoning Salt on YouTube.
For news and Reddit, Holmes said the answer is none. He gets information from people, which he called unreliable and biased, but at least personally accountable. That is not a media strategy so much as an admission of a lifestyle choice: less feed, more friction, and a phone designed to bore him before it wins.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
