2025 Tech Resolutions with Emily from POMELO
I hope this interview helps spark some inspiration for your new year’s resolutions⚡
brave enough is a newsletter about finding balance between technology, nature and modern life. Join the club ❤️🔥
Hi everyone,
I’m delighted to bring you an interview as part of 2025 Tech Resolutions – a January mini series on brave enough where we discuss tech habits we want to build or break in 2025!
This week it’s my absolute pleasure to welcome Emily from POMELO 💚
I stumbled upon Emily’s newsletter a few months after creating my own Substack last summer, and immediately fell in love with her writing and visual brand. She quickly became one of my favourite writers on this platform. Her weekly newsletters never fail to inspire me and help me think differently about life. Deeply personal and relatable, each newsletter pulls you in from the first sentence. Needless to say, I’m stoked to have Emily here to take part in this interview!
Q: Hey Emily! Before we get started, I’m going to ask for the obligatory elevator pitch. Tell us a bit about you and what you write about here on Substack.
Hey Caoilainn! Thank you for inviting me to be a part of 2025 Tech Resolutions; it’s a real pleasure to do this interview with you.
My name’s Emily, and I write a weekly newsletter on Substack called POMELO, which means grapefruit in Spanish. There’s no special story behind the name apart from me asking the Universe to give me clues about a cool name for my publication. A few days later, I heard the word “pomelo” pop into my head before falling asleep. I wrote it down on a piece of paper on my bedside table, fell asleep, woke up, read it again and became obsessed with it and just knew that it was the one.
That’s how the name came to me and the reason I started writing is very simple: I wanted to build a habit and thought that giving myself a specific goal (publishing every Monday) would 1. Make me feel accountable, and 2. Help me form the habit of writing—the thing I love to do most. In the end, it worked. I can’t imagine my week without writing essays anymore, and that’s something I had to work hard to achieve.
I’ve been writing for around 170 weeks nonstop now, and that’s a pretty long time, if I do say so myself. I write about my experiences and how I see the world. That essentially means weekly essays where I digest my thoughts and feelings on paper and then share them with my subscribers. Most of the time, I write to find myself and process emotions. Witnessing my writing reach other people—both physically, by being read on a screen, and emotionally—is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Even though that sounds cliché, it’s true.
I’ve recently just turned on paid subscriptions because after writing for three years I feel like I’m ready for a new challenge and would like to see where this takes me. So far I’ve had four people subscribe, which feels surreal, but it’s really given me the confidence to write things I was too scared to touch on before, knowing that these people really do have my back. I’m so grateful I get to do this.
Q: What tech habit are you hoping to break or improve in 2025?
My main goal for the new year is to not use my phone when I wake up. I use an app called AppBlocker, which is great because I can block specific apps while still using the rest of my phone. I used to skip the screen time restrictions all the time, this app makes it a little bit more difficult and I take it more seriously.
I block WhatsApp and Instagram from 21:00 to 10:00 hrs, and that helps me disconnect before going to bed and gives me enough time in the morning to start my day without distractions. I feel like I start the day slower because it’s just me and my thoughts. However, there are days when I wake up a bit more anxious than usual, so I disable the “bedtime” schedule. Of course, I then feel even worse because there’s a flood of notifications that trigger my mind into go-go-go mode, making me feel even more anxious but for some reason, I still make this mistake.
When I follow this 21:00 to 10:00 hrs block schedule and don’t unblock it, I feel so much more relaxed and content. The biggest difference I notice is that I don’t actually feel the desire to keep opening the apps and checking my phone. I’m sure there are qualified people who can explain the science behind it, but I’ve noticed that if I start my day using my phone, I feel the need to use it much more throughout the day. But, when I ignore it and go about my day, I don’t even think about scrolling on Instagram. My mind is much calmer and more present in real life, so this is my 2025 tech goal: truly ignoring my phone until I’m fully into my day.
Q: Why did you choose this particular habit?
The reason I chose this goal is because I’m tired of feeling the constant need to check my phone for notifications. I’m sick of watching a film and thinking, “Has anyone messaged me?” or working and constantly feeling distracted by it.
When I wake up, prioritise myself, and tell myself that everything is okay, I feel so much better. I think the reason I get myself into this nervous phone checking comes from an anxious thought pattern. Sometimes I feel like I need to carry my phone everywhere and pay attention to it in case someone delivers important news and I miss it. However, when I remind myself that if it’s truly important, they’ll call me—or my boyfriend, if I’m unreachable—I come back to reality and realise that I’m in a bit of a bad mental place and really do need to disconnect and recenter myself.
For me, ignoring my phone and my notifications in the morning and at night is a way of putting myself first and telling myself that I’m not available for anyone but myself, and it feels really good to do this. It’s hard sometimes, don’t get me wrong. I don’t find it easy to “shut off” the world and be unavailable because I feel bad. I know that’s just me overthinking because nobody would ever get angry at me for doing it, but I still find it difficult. However, when I do it, I feel so much better and more relaxed. I just need to focus on that and allow myself to take care of myself first before worrying about anybody else.
Q: How do you carve out focussed time for your writing in our “always on” culture? Any tips you’d like to share?
I didn’t used to have a structure, which is why I used to find it so hard to write anything, but ever since I started publishing every Monday at 7:34 a.m., no matter what, I know that I have to write every week now. It’s ingrained in me and happens naturally.
My current routine looks a bit like this: On Monday, the essay is published and I can let the text go and then my mind automatically starts thinking of new ideas. Actually, more than “thinking”, what I do is open my mind for ideas to come to me—and they always do. Then I write in my head, and when I feel like I’ve got it, I take it to my laptop. But I don’t really have a structure or a “way.” I’m very inspiration-based when writing or working on my creative projects, which is both a blessing and a curse. Finally, when I feel like I’ve got it, I sit down and write it all. It’s kind of a gut feeling that I’m really familiar with, and I trust that gut feeling.
That said, I have a very different life schedule and routine to most people, so I have a lot of free time to work this way. If I had to work eight hours a day, plus be a functional human being and write on top of that, I really don’t know how I’d do it.
More posts from the 2025 tech resolutions series ⚡
 | A guest post by
|
Thank you for this opportunity!! Let’s hope 2025 is healthier tech-wise 🫂🌟
<3 <3 <3