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In the spirit of anything that helps should be considered: Disable all notifications except for direct messaging from family/friends, banking and other importa
by dahwolf 3y ago
In the spirit of anything that helps should be considered:
Disable all notifications except for direct messaging from family/friends, banking and other important stuff. Everything else cannot possibly be urgent, see next point.
Do social networking/news from a desktop only. 30 mins per day, 3 times per week, once a week, doesn't matter. This beats being exposed all day every day.
When in your home, get used to putting the phone in the next room for a while. This is perhaps the simplest but most powerful tip. You're (re)learning that you do not need this device to feel whole.
Don't bring your phone into the toilet, no matter how enjoyable these "peaceful" sessions are.
Get used to "missing" things. Your morning routine of taking a full hour to catch up, reduce it to 5 mins. Just scan news headlines.
For your so-called "hobby/work" interests, stop following experts on social media. Instead, subscribe to weekly newsletters in your field, and set apart some time per week to read them. Massive time-saver plus you don't have to get annoyed with all the noise of their personal lives and political views. I can assure you that you won't miss anything noteworthy. If it's important, it's in the newsletter.
When in public or generally just waiting for something, try out this thing we used to call boredom. Just watch the world. The environment. It's people. Or just the wall. It's refreshing. And don't put on headphones.
Don't expect perfection. Have 10 time wasters? Reduce to 5.
Fill in your new non-digital time at first with low ambition activities. Do a chore. Walk the dog, or yourself. Even the act of watching a movie uninterrupted is an improvement. But be sure to fill the void with something, otherwise you'll fall back. The next step up is group activities and shared obligations.
And if you're really ready to slash it, try brutal rationality. For every digital activity, track usage, review it and write down what tangible positives it brings into your life. Do this with an accountant hat on, sans emotion.
Good luck!
- juliusgeo 3y agoOne small thing that I have done that I have found leads to at the very least more productive use of my spare digital time—and that is just setting up the Apple night-time DND feature. It doesn’t give you a very prominent notification, so I often find myself checking my phone far less because I don’t even see the notifications, and don’t even realize I’m in DND mode. You can also set up pass-through for trusted contacts or urgent calls, but I find it is a very easy measure to implement and I’ve seen it’s value in my own life. You can also do similar things for work related notifications (ie. I had github and slack apps automatically muted after 5pm). I find that the approach of letting the notifications pile up and then checking at my leisure let’s me slowly start to forget about my phone except when it serves an actual purpose.
- HeartStrings 3y agoWhat if I’m addicted not to my phone, but web in general? Be it iPad, PC or phone in front of me, I will immediately go to Reddit, ycombinator and trick myself into thinking I’m being productive and learning when in actuality I am just consuming like now.
- nicbou 3y agoAd blockers, website blockers, logging out, removing the website from history, making the web harder to use. I don’t browse on my iPad because the web is unusable without an ad blocker. You can leave your web browsing devices in another room, and add space between the impulse and the activity. I don’t bring my phone in the bedroom, for example.