Gah, I've discovered I've been charging my phone all wrong for years! Are you making the same mistake?

Hey, guess what I just learned? I'm apparently a battery-killing monster. For years – years – I've been thinking myself the responsible one, the sensible phone owner who always keeps their device topped up and ready for action. But it turns out I've been systematically torturing my lithium-ion batteries like some sort of techno-sadist.

This revelation came during one of those rabbit holes you fall down at 2am when you should be sleeping. There I was, Googling "Why does my phone battery die so fast?" (again), when I stumbled across the brutal truth: almost everything I thought I knew about charging was wrong.

Ironically, I was so proud of my charging routine. Every night, without fail, I'd plug in my phone before bed and leave it there until morning, basking in that perfect 100% glow. I felt organized. Prepared. Like the kind of person who has their life together and never gets caught with a dead phone at crucial moments.

What I was actually doing, according to tech experts, was slowly strangling my battery with kindness. Keeping a lithium-ion battery at 100% for hours on end is apparently like force-feeding someone who's already full; technically possible, but deeply unpleasant for everyone involved.

Finding the sweet spot

The sweet spot, I've learned, is keeping your battery between 20% and 80%. Twenty to eighty! Do you know how psychologically disturbing it is to voluntarily unplug your phone at 80%? It goes against every instinct I have. It's like leaving the house without checking you've locked the door, or not finishing the last bite of cake. Deeply, viscerally wrong.

And that's not all. I used to congratulate myself for having backup chargers everywhere. One by the bed, one in the kitchen, one in my bag, plus a collection of those portable power banks that I'd grab from petrol stations whenever I forgot the proper ones. Turns out my bargain-basement charging empire was probably doing more harm than good.

Those £3 cables from the corner shop? Electrical fire risks, apparently. The habit of charging my phone under my pillow while binge-watching Netflix in bed? Also a fire risk, plus it makes the battery overheat, which kills it faster than you can say "thermal runaway". Even my beloved fast-chargers – the ones that promise to juice up your phone in 20 minutes flat – are apparently giving my battery the electronic equivalent of cardiac stress.

The worst part is the guilt. How many phones have I unknowingly murdered with my misguided care? My last phone limped through its final months with a battery life that could be measured in minutes rather than hours. I blamed planned obsolescence, greedy manufacturers, the general terrible state of everything. I never once considered that I might be the problem.

It's like discovering you've been watering your houseplants with cola for years while wondering why they keep dying. The shame is profound.

Forging new habits

Now I'm having to retrain decades of muscle memory. Do you know how hard it is to unplug a phone at 80%? My brain screams at me. "It's not full!" it shrieks. "What if there's an emergency and you need that extra 20%?" But I'm learning to live with the anxiety.

The overnight charging thing has been the hardest habit to break. The phone companies have tried to help with "optimized charging" features that supposedly learn your routine and delay the final top-up until you need it. But trusting algorithms with my battery anxiety feels like outsourcing my neuroses to AI.

And don't get me started on the heat thing. Apparently, I've been slow-cooking my batteries for years without realizing it. Using my phone while it's charging? Battery murder. Leaving it in the car on a sunny day? Basically, battery waterboarding. Wrapping it in bedding while it charges overnight? I might as well have been operating a tiny electronic torture chamber.

That said, I'm still not entirely convinced I can stick to this new regime. The psychological pull of 100% is strong, and the anxiety of deliberately keeping my phone less than fully charged goes against everything my paranoid brain believes about being prepared. But I'm trying to think of it as battery meditation; learning to live with uncertainty, accepting that 80% is enough.

So if you'll excuse me, I need to go unplug my phone. It's at 79% and climbing, and apparently that's close enough to the danger zone. Who knew being responsible could be so stressful?

Check out our guide to the best iPhone chargers, or see our choice for the best iPhone power banks