Our smartphones are our greatest tools and our most crippling distractions. They can help us connect with those across the world, but in doing so can hinder our connection with those across the room. They can help us supercharge our productivity, and they can constantly distract us from our meaningful work.

As two recent college graduates who've grown up with smartphones, we realized that more often than not, the distracting features win out. Whether at the library, the office, or dinner with family, these devices are constantly pulling us away from what matters.

While the simplest solution we found was to simply stop taking our phones with us everywhere or switch to a flip phone, we quickly realized how important smartphones have become. We use them to hail a ride, document our days with pictures and notes, get directions, and countless other things that truly enhance our daily lives. By giving up our smartphones, we would be forced to give up these luxuries we so take for granted.

Faced with this problem, we decided to build our own solution: Brick. Now you can decide which tools you'd like to keep with you, and then tap your Brick to ditch the rest for a bit. Because it's a physical device, you'll have no temptation to use the distractions until you come back to the Brick (whether that means across the room or across the city).

We use Brick to allow us to listen to a podcast on a long walk, Venmo a friend when out to dinner, and keep track of notes when working at a coffee shop - all without any distracting Twitter notifications or temptations to open up Instagram and scroll for awhile. We hope you can find some benefit, too.

Please reach out to tj@getbrick.app or zach@getbrick.app with any questions or comments - we're building this from scratch and learning from our mistakes, so all input is appreciated.