I’m going to get practical and hands-on with this post. Over the years I’ve developed a set of customizations to my phone that I’ve employed to some degree of success when I’m wanting to reduce my screen time. I wrote this as a form of documentation for myself (so that I won’t forget) and for others should they find it helpful.

Step 1. Uninstall Distracting Apps

This one may seem obvious, but you have to start somewhere. Here are some of the things I tell myself:

  • You won’t miss it, and if even if you do, you can always reinstall it later. (And then I usually don’t miss it.)
  • Is this app necessary?
  • Is this app something you can do on your laptop as needed?
  • Does this app have notifications that are designed to “pull you in” to the app?
  • Does this app have:
    • Infinite feeds?
    • “Endless” content?
    • Randomized, variable rewards? (i.e. the slot machine effect)

Step 2. Redo the Notification Settings

Every app thinks it’s important enough to have full-fledged notifications turned on. Most apps aren’t actually that important. To make these changes, go to the Settings app and then go to Notifications. Scroll through the settings app-by-app and make your assessment.

There are two main things to do to your Notification settings:

A.) Disable Notifications for Certain Apps

When I say “disable notifications”, I mean turning off all notifications for that app. This means I’ll never receive a notification for that app.

Here are some things I ask myself:

  • Do I even use this app? (particularly for those apps that can’t be uninstalled)
  • Does this app have any business sending me notifications? Why would it?
  • If I never received a notification for this app from now on, would there actually be any negative consequences? (There will certainly be a positive consequence: reduced distraction.)
  • It’s not going to break the app, and even if it does break the app you can always reenable notifications later. (I have never actually had this happen.)

B.) Silence Notifications for Certain Apps

Perhaps counterintuitively, I leave the sound on my phone switched on (more on this later). In order for this to work for me, certain apps need to deliver notifications silently. To do this (on iOS), when you’re in the Notifications settings for a given app, just flip the Sound switch off.

Here are some things I ask myself:

  • Are this app’s notifications coming from a human?
  • Do I need to know the contents of this app’s notifications as soon as the notification is delivered? Or, is it fine if I see the notification the next time I look at my phone?

Aside: Notifications That Should Make Noises

Once I’ve disabled or silenced the notifications for the appropriate apps, what’s left over is a set of notifications with the sound turned on. The result I am going for is to have confidence that these kinds of notifications are 1) ones I care about and 2) coming from an actual person. This result is important to me, because it allows me to get the best of both worlds: I’m not on my phone when I don’t need to be, and I still promptly reply to people (actual friends and family) when they’re trying to get in touch with me. Isn’t that the original purpose of a phone anyway?

Leaving your sound setting turned on also lets you have a loud ringtone, which means you won’t miss calls, even if your phone is in another room (more on that later).

Step 3. Organize the Home Screen

In this step, the goal is to take the apps you wish you used most of the time and make them front and center. By doing this, you are helping your future self make better decisions.

When I organize the home screen, I am trying to achieve these things: 1) Have as few apps on there as possible, 2) Make it fast and easy to get on the phone, do want I need to do, and get off the phone, 3) Make the on-the-bubble, potentially-distracting apps more out of sight and out of mind.

Here are some things I ask myself:

  • Do I use this app often? (And should I be?)
  • Which apps am I proud to be using?
  • Which apps help me get things done?
  • Is this app enriching?
  • Is this app mainly for entertainment?

Step 4. Set the Phone to Greyscale

This means setting your whole phone screen to display everything black and white. This might seem odd, but it is effective. To do this (on iOS) search for “Color Filters” in the Settings app. Switch Color Filters on and choose the Greyscale option.

The reason why this is effective is it reverses what I call the Bright, Shiny Candy Effect. Our eyes and brain are designed to look for pieces of fruit in the forest (literally) and are therefore attracted to colorful objects. The bright red notification dots (like the bright red fruit on the tree) sticks out to us and makes us passively click on things. Setting your phone to black and white actively counteracts this effect.

(Some phones such as the Samsung phones have a separate mode for colors which they call “Natural”, and that works well for this too. The natural color mode makes the colors on the screen closer to what you see in nature. This lessens the Bright, Shiny Candy Effect while still allowing you to perceive colors on your screen.)

Here are some things I tell myself:

  • If you need to see colors on your screen because of something you’re doing (like ordering a t-shirt), that’s fine. Just turn it back to greyscale when you’re done with that task
  • Keep it in black and white when you watch videos, unless there’s an actual reason you need to perceive the colors

Step 5. Put Do Not Disturb on an Automatic Schedule

Do Not Disturb silences all notifications and temporarily hides the red notification dots from the app icons. It’s perfect for when you need to be off the phone, like when you’re trying to go to sleep.

This is quick to set up. Just go to Settings > Focus > Do Not Disturb. You’ll want to schedule your Do Not Disturb to automatically switch on at a certain time at night and turn itself back off in the morning.

I usually base this on my goals for sleep. When is my bedtime - at what time do I want to fall asleep? When is the earliest I’d want to see a text when I wake up in the morning (if it is important)?

Step 6. Charge Your Phone Outside of the Bedroom (a.k.a. Get an Alarm Clock)

In combination with the Do Not Disturb settings you’ve scheduled to coincide with your bedtime, if you charge your phone in another room, you get the best of both worlds: your phone is out of sight and out of mind when it’s time to go to bed, but in the event of an emergency, people can still get through to you by calling twice. (You can bypass Do Not Disturb by calling twice.)

This allows you to successfully ignore texts sent at 11:35pm (when you should be sleeping), but you can also answer the phone during an emergency in the middle of the night.

Yes, this means you’ll need to buy an alarm clock. Fortunately, there are many simple and affordable options out there.

Step 7. Install a Call Filter App

Most mobile carriers have a free call filter app that is designed to filter out spam calls. (This is the software that sets the caller’s name to “Spam Likely” or “Potential Spam”.) These apps usually don’t take very long to set up. They reduce how often you’ll check your phone only to see a spam caller is calling. Which call filter app you’ll install will depend on your mobile carrier. These are the basic steps:

  1. Google the name of the call filter app for your mobile carrier
  2. Install it from the app store
  3. Launch it and complete its initial set up process
  4. If possible, set it to automatically block the calls it thinks are spam calls and then send you a silent notification that it blocked that call. This way, you won’t get interrupted by the spam call in the first place, but you also won’t miss false positives (legit calls that accidentally get flagged as spam).

Step 8. Reflect: Why Are You Doing This?

You can easily make all of the above changes to your phone and still not be successful, because you don’t have the right mindset. For me, I didn’t start being successful with this until I started seeing the benefits. The relaxation, reclaimed time, and clarity of mind came almost immediately, but I still had to intentionally think about what I would do with my newfound time. To my surprise, I started writing music on my guitar, I became a baseball fan (particularly a fan of listening to baseball games on the radio), and I started reading lots of books. But at first, it wasn’t obvious what my new hobbies would be. I had to work that out first. Give yourself some time to figure that out.

Once you internalize why you are doing this and why it is better than the alternative, then you’ll start to experience the success.

As for me, these are the reasons why I limit my screen time:

  • More time to spend with people
  • Higher quality and quantity of sleep
  • Time to read books
  • Time to be in nature and to be physically active
  • Getting all my chores done on time
  • Time to watch excellent movies should I chose to do that (which I like much better than social media)
  • Time to journal should I chose to do that
  • My day feels calmer and simpler
  • Significantly longer attention span

Conclusion

It is in your power to take back your time and attention, but you must be intentional. If you’re going to follow any of the 8 Steps I’ve outlined above, follow #8. If you understand why you want to do this, you will become naturally motivated to do the other steps, and to stick with them.