Turn your Phone into a Tool

The smartphone was a useful invention. It's helped thousands connect with their loved ones, research things, travel... but that's only about 10% of what we use them for. Studies have shown that on average we're distracted by our phones between 200 and 4,000 times a day. So it got me thinking, what was the middle way? How could I take all of the benefits the smartphone brings while not being sucked into the distracting elements of it?

So let's get all the easy stuff out of the way first. The key here is to kind of remove all the appealing aspects of the smartphone:

1. Turn on grayscale

2. Remove all but your most essential notifications

3. Delete your most distracting apps

4. Change your wallpaper to a nice clean black

Great, so now we're going to dive into modes. Sometimes they're called routines, but basically, it's your smartphone's way of automating certain functions. We're going to set up two modes here:

The first is an early morning mode. You want to set this to start around an hour before you wake up, just to give you that kind of leeway. This is to ensure that you wake up to a clean slate. It's so important that in the early morning, you don't have any distractions, you don't wake up to a phone screen full of notifications. So set your phone to turn on Do Not Disturb, maybe airplane mode. I know some phones can also restrict access to certain apps, so maybe restrict access to your most distracting apps. This is a great time to ensure that you have that clean slate.

Then the second mode that we want to create is like a late evening mode. Maybe start this at about 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. when you're trying to wind down before you go to bed. Again, make sure all notifications are turned off, and maybe even turn your phone to airplane mode. You want to make sure that there's nothing that's going to pull your attention and stimulate you right before bed. So if you still have any apps that are stimulating, maybe even just like your emails or your internet browser, at this point restrict access to those apps.

A little bonus tip is to turn on your phone's red light filter. It's not the night shift, it's in your accessibility menu. It literally turns your phone screen red and it looks stupid, but it's a huge benefit. It stops all the blue light from getting into your eyes and disrupting your circadian rhythms. You don't know how much using a phone or a screen late at night messes up your sleep pattern, so set the mode to do all those things.

Now this next step's going to take a bit longer, but you need to start making a conscious effort to move things off of your phone so you can reduce the amount of times you even have to look at it. A few very quick and easy things that I've implemented into my life:

1. Buying a notepad: I carry around a notepad with me. I can write down my to-do list, shopping list, class notes, and things like that in there so I don't have to use my phone.

2. Wearing a wristwatch: Very simple, because you know how many times you get distracted by just pulling out your phone to check the time and then you see three notifications and you're sucked in there for 10 minutes? To reduce the likelihood of that happening.

3. Look into MP3 players, digital cameras, and smartwatches: These things are even more so going to mean that you're not on your phone. You basically want to remove every excuse to use your phone that you can.

And then the biggest step in this analog everything is just buy an alarm clock, bro. Like, I don't want to stress this enough - if you take anything from this post, it's that. Buy an alarm clock. They are so cheap, $5. Just put one on your bedside table or your nightstand, set your alarm there, and then charge your phone outside your room. It is so important that you just keep technology out of your bedroom. Do you know how many times you've sat there scrolling late at night? How many times do you roll out of bed and the first thing that you do is check your phone? Charge your phone in a different room so there is no impetus to check it.

So this is a bit more technical and it's more so for Android users, but there's stuff here for iPhones too. Basically, now we want to be optimizing our home screens and all that kind of stuff. On Android phones in particular, there are a lot of minimalist launchers that you can download. Flow launcher is the one I use, it costs like $2, I think, but it's great. You just want a launcher that has text on the screens instead of icons. It really limits the amount that you use your phone because there are no icons that have been crafted to drag you in.

But if you're on an iPhone, even just moving your apps off the screen, move them into your app drawer on the side so that they're not there. You see, a lot of the time we use these apps actually as a force of habit, and what you'll realize when you move these apps is you'll start kind of tapping where they used to be because you still think they're there. Because most of this usage is habitual, half the time we don't actually want to check Instagram or Snapchat, we just do it because the app icon is there and we formed a habit.

And then finally, stay portable. Look, I'm not telling you that you have to stop using social media. I'm not telling you you need to stop using your phone but keep the two things separate. Use your phone for what it's meant to be - it's a tool, it's a portable device that you bring out with you and it acts in that kind of way. You can take phone calls on the go, you can do maps, navigation, travel, and the important things that you need while you're being mobile, while you're being portable.

But realistically, you don't need 1,000 notifications. You don't need to be checking your Instagram while you're walking around campus. You don't need to be on your email checking your calendar on business calls or whatever. All of these things can wait until you get to either your dorm, the library, or wherever you study. So that's a very important step - don't stop using these things, but at least start using them on your laptop, start using them on your iPad, whatever device that you have that stays in your living space.

A little bonus tip for people who don't have a separate device: again, you can use these modes and routines to turn on when you leave a certain location and restrict certain apps. But that's what you want to be doing - you want to be using your PC. So I use my laptop now to check Instagram, and Snapchat, and it's a bit more clunky, but that's kind of the point. No one wants to be sitting there scrolling for hours on Instagram on their laptop because it's just not cool, bro. So sort that out, create that kind of distinction.

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