Most advice about phones sounds like a diet. Delete everything, throw it in a drawer, go cold turkey. It works for about three days. Then life gets busy and the old habits slide back in.
Here is a gentler idea: the phone isn't really the problem. The problem is that it is the default. It is the first thing you touch in the morning, the thing in your hand when you're waiting, the last light you see at night. Change the defaults and the habit changes with them.
You don't have to beat your phone with willpower. You just have to stop making it the easiest thing to reach for.
Make the easy thing the good thing
- Move it out of reach. Charge your phone outside the bedroom. Buy a cheap alarm clock if you need one.
- Clear the first screen. Keep only tools on your home screen: maps, calendar, camera. Put the endless apps in a folder on the last page.
- Turn off most notifications. Keep calls and messages from real people. Let everything else wait until you choose to look.
- Give your hands something else. A book in your bag, a notebook on your desk. When boredom comes, there's another option waiting.
Decide before you scroll
Before you open an app, ask one quiet question: what am I here for? Checking a message is a reason. Escaping a hard feeling is a reason too, and that's okay to notice. You don't have to stop. Just knowing why you picked it up often makes it easier to put it down.
Start with one window
Pick one part of the day to protect. The first thirty minutes after waking, or the last hour before sleep. Keep your phone out of that window for a week and see how it feels. Most people find that the world didn't end, and their head felt a little clearer.
You don't have to beat your phone with willpower. You just have to stop making it the easiest thing to reach for.
