Not a detox. Not a cleanse. One hour, once a week, with the phone in another room. It sounds too small to matter, which is exactly why it is worth doing: it is small enough that you will actually do it, and long enough that something happens.
What the first twenty minutes are like
Uncomfortable, usually. The hand goes to the pocket several times. There is a strong sense of something forgotten. Around minute fifteen most people invent an urgent reason the phone is genuinely needed, and the reason is always persuasive and almost always false.
This is worth expecting, because otherwise it reads as failure. It is not. It is what an hour looks like when the usual thing that fills every gap has been removed, and the gaps are still there.
The restlessness is not a sign it is not working. The restlessness is the thing you came to meet.
What the second forty are like
Something loosens. Thoughts get longer. People report the same short list with surprising consistency: they notice they are tired, they think of someone they have not contacted, they get an idea about a problem they were not working on, and they feel a small unfamiliar boredom that turns out to be quite pleasant.
None of that is available in a five-minute gap, because five minutes is not long enough for the mind to stop expecting an interruption.
Where to put it
Choose an hour that is already low-stakes, not one you are protecting from work. Sunday morning. The hour after dinner. Anything with a natural edge, so you are not deciding when it ends while you are inside it.
Put the phone in a different room rather than face down on the table. Face down still takes attention: part of the mind stays on duty. Another room is a different arrangement entirely, and the difference is larger than it sounds.
What to do with your hands
Have one thing ready. A page, a walk, a task with your hands in it. The hour goes badly when it is defined only by what has been removed, and well when there is a small positive thing to move toward.
Writing suits it particularly well, because it takes the restlessness and gives it somewhere to go, and because what turns up in a phone-free hour is usually worth keeping.