I’ll begin by showing you how to redesign the way your iPhone interacts with you. Going step-by-step through your iPhone’s settings, we’ll turn the iPhone from a device that is constantly trying to get your attention, to a device that protects your attention.

I’ll then show you how to redesign the way you interact with your iPhone. I’ll point out the mindless habits many of us fall into with smartphones, and how we can become more aware of them. You’ll see how, in the course of interacting with your iPhone, your body comes to treat it as an extension of yourself. The task you face is to turn it from an extension with a mind of its own, a stubborn and willful prosthetic, into one designed to suit your needs.

Along the way, I’ll point out some of the subtle and unexpected ways smartphones insinuate themselves in our body schema and minds. We don’t just USE smartphones, it turns out: we use them to augment our own abilities, outsource cognitive functions to them, and even become finely attuned to their chirps and needs. It’s easy to see these things as odd or signs of addiction, but in fact they reflect Homo sapiens’ amazing ability to meld with our technologies, to use them so fluidly and fluently they come to feel like extensions of ourselves.

When we’re done, you’ll have a better understanding of how our devices make themselves indispensable and impossible to ignore. You’ll know how to turn your smartphone into a device that doesn’t put the world’s distractions and interruptions in the palm of your hand, but keeps them at arm’s length. You’ll have a device that is mindful of you, so YOU can be more mindful– of your self, your surroundings, and others.

It’s essential to learn how to do this, because while we’ve only had smartphones for a few years– the iPhone first came out in 2007– a new wave of technologies to keep us connected, in touch, and interactive is on the way. Smart watches, natural language interfaces, fitness bracelets, anticipatory computing systems that guess what information you want before you ask for it, augmented reality glasses, and smart clothes are all on store shelves or coming soon. If you think your smartphone is a distraction, think how bad it will be when your email is pushed right into your line of vision, or your watch buzzes every time you a friend checks in on Foursquare. The habits we develop to make our smartphones more mindful can help us keep from losing our minds in a future that threatens to be even more distracting.