How to Stop Your Phone Addiction

Monitor Usage Patterns

Apple introduced the Screen Time feature with its iOS 12 release. This feature enables you to see how much time you spend on your phone, what apps you use most, and how often you’re using your device overall. The same is available if you use an Android device as phone companies are understanding the importance for people to be aware of what they spend their time doing and how to improve their usage patterns.

Once you have located how to monitor your screen time, you’ll be aware of the apps that are taking up too much of your time. You can then set daily limits for them and when you reach your limit, you’ll be notified. 

While the limit may be easily ignored with a swipe away, it creates an additional barrier between you and the apps you use. You’ll also be aware of the time you spend with your phone and might be surprised to find out, that it’s a lot more than you think. Start monitoring your usage and set your own limits to start reducing the time you spend on your phone. 

For example, if your screen time app lets you know that you spent a total of 5 hours this week on your device, for the following week try and reduce it by an hour and so on until you’re barely using it at all. By implementing this you’ll move one step closer to being free of your phone addiction.

Silence Notifications

Notifications have become something we’re all used to receiving and opening. All the new apps you download to your device will ask you if they can send you notifications and the old ones you already have installed, send them all the time.

You go from happily getting your work done to receive a notification and the next thing you know you’re impulse buying new furniture with a discount code you’ve just received, proving just how much phone notifications really do have a way of knocking us off track.

However, improving your productivity isn’t the only benefit of blocking notifications. blocking notifications. Blocking notifications can have long-term health benefits according to research carried out by Carnegie Mellon University and Telefonica.

The research required 30 people to turn off their phone notifications for 24 hours and report back on how they found the experience.

The immediate findings of the study showed that participants were more productive and less distracted after their first notification-free 24 hours. The experiment, however, had far more positive long-term benefits, as it encouraged participants to change their notification settings for good, even up to 2 years later.  This reduced their long-term urge of getting distracted and stressed out.

Therefore, If your app has flexible notification options, it’s a good idea to play around with them and only allow what is really important to you and not notifications that could take your focus and distract you. 

Remove your Device

It becomes much easier to beat addiction when it’s not easily accessible. Therefore if you physically remove your phone from sight and reach, it becomes much harder to be distracted by it and to reach for it.

While we understand that we all need our phones in case of urgent calls if you want to lessen your need to constantly pick them up, put them out of reach when you can. For example, when you get home from work, leave your phone in your bag and move away from it. You’ll feel less of a need to constantly check it and won’t walk backward and forwards across your house to get it all the time.

The same trick can help you at work, school, and at family dinners. When there’s no phone on the table in front of you, it’s much easier to focus on the things you need to do, be it finishing some work or chatting with your loved ones. Start by trying to do this at specific times, like when you get home from work, before bed, and in the morning. Even if it’s just for an hour or two at a time, it’s a great start and you’ll soon find you’re reaching for it less.

Set Time Limits 

Constantly checking your phone throughout the day reduces your productivity, while staring at the screen before bedtime can affect the quality of sleep. Statista reported that 80% of Americans check their phone within an hour of waking up and going to sleep. 35% do it within the first 5 minutes of waking up…crazy right? 

We all need a good night’s sleep to function properly at work, so try setting time limits on when to stop using your phone. For example, if you go to bed at 23:00, stop using your phone at 21:00. This will enable you to literally ‘switch off’ and become more in control of your phone usage. 

Use Screen Time (iOS) or Digital Wellbeing (Android) to schedule certain times away from your phone. For example, between 9 PM and 7 AM, your phone can stop app notifications for you and only allow phone calls. You can also automatically turn on the Do Not Disturb mode every night to make sure nothing interrupts your sleep.

If you want to try and increase your productivity throughout the day too and stop looking at your device, use BlockSite to block certain apps and websites while you need to focus at work, that way you’ll be less inclined to constantly check them, because you won’t be able to open them easily.

Stop the Urge

Picture this; you’re in the middle of a really busy day at work filled with meetings, emails, and pressing deadlines. Suddenly you have a short, unexpected gap in your day. Without even thinking about it, you pull out your phone and dive into an email, Facebook, news, or some other distraction. Sound familiar? We thought so.

This urge is even greater when we’re at home. It’s what causes us to respond to our child’s request to play by saying, “Just a minute,” as we stare at our phones. It’s what makes us interrupt a conversation with a friend or a meal with occasional glances down at our phones.

What we now know from the science and practice of mindfulness is that the best response to this urge is to simply become aware. 

When you feel like you must check your phone become aware of the experience, and of the craving. Notice what it feels like and the thoughts that arise when it happens. 

This will enable you to make an actual choice as to whether or not you will indulge the urge. Even if you do end up on Facebook or Instagram, this micro-moment of awareness changes everything. It breaks you out of autopilot and gives you back the ability to choose how best to spend your time.

Start becoming more mindful to beat the addiction today.

Overall, there are some easy steps you can start taking today to lessen the attachment to your phone and prevent the addiction from growing. By implementing the steps above, you’ll become more aware of how to improve your productivity and mindfulness as well as how to stay in control of your time – spending it on more important things than staring at your screen.