I hope nowadays you don’t have time to spend on things which you like, or you can’t find spare time to do the one-time things like visiting your bank branch for a query or repairing your bike which you’re in the thought of doing for the last couple of months.
Why can’t you find time to squeeze these things into your schedule?
You think it’s because you’re spending more time on your office work or on your day-to-day household chores. But that’s not the answer.
If you wanna know why? Just get your phone and open the digital well-being app.
Boom! It’s 107 unlocks, 120+ notifications, and 4+ hrs of the screen on time. Now you wonder how you find this much time.
If you look at the most used apps – it will be WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, and all other social media or OTT apps that you’re in.
I already shared Why Tik Toks, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts are so addictive? (Check out later) and in this post, I’ll be helping you by sharing the effective ways I followed to get rid of these addictive apps (won’t tell you to uninstall or deactivate the accounts).
In the end, I hope it will work for you as well as it did to me.
Let’s get started.
01 Mute the alerts
Sometimes you take your mobile to check the time and you’ll not be in the mood to check your social media, but it’s the notification that pops up and distracts you. And you’ll end up opening the notification and that’s it you are ready to lose an hour by scrolling through the feed.
Notification is the trigger here which reminds you to taste the dopamine again and that makes you open the app. So cut them out on all the social apps.
I would say turn on notifications for phone calls and text messages other than that you don’t need any notifications.
Trust me, this helped me a lot and my notification reduced from 120+ to 20 a day – which in turn reduced my triggers and my time on these apps.
02 Digital well-being apps
You are using smartphones, so act smart and make use of the digital well-being apps in it. Set a timer for the apps which you use for a long time in a day, this will help you to reduce the usage of them.
Let’s say you have set a timer of 1 hr for the WhatsApp app. This means you can’t use WhatsApp for more than an hour in a day.
It can help you in two ways, first one – you will not be able to use WhatsApp after 1 hr of usage, the well-being app will not allow you to get in.
Second – when you open WhatsApp you will be conscious that you can’t use it for more than an hour today, so when you check in every time you tend to tell yourself “Try to use it for less, I may need for the rest of the day”.
03 Hide and be a browser crawler
I did the “packing party” strategy here which I shared as a takeaway from the book “Deep Work” (6th passage, see later). In simple, you must pack all the apps into hidden mode and use them when it is required.
I changed this concept a little bit on social apps, move all your unwanted frequently used apps into hidden mode and when needed open them with your browser and not with their dedicated apps (forget them) .
Most of the social media apps are incompatible with browsers on purpose, which makes you download their app. Use this to your advantage here.
When you use them with an app it is fluid, and free flowing you won’t lose your interest in getting out of it. But with the awful experience in the browser, you will consider “Do I really want to check now?”.
I have been using this method for a long time on Instagram, and it works well for me. Try it and lemme know.
04 Sign off
If you are not comfortable using your browser for social media due to security reasons, then I’ve got an idea for you people as well. Just log off every time you exit from the social apps.
Next time you open it you must enter your username and password. You’ll lose interest in checking these apps often because of the friction you’ve created now – that is entering your credential every time you open the app.
Because of the “zero friction” you are opening these apps for no reason, when adding “a little bit of friction” makes it looks harder for you.
To make it more fun set a strong password like this ”$m3llyCaT”.
05 Bonus
I would like you to leave this post with a bonus, by knowing about an app called “One-sec”. This app is designed to change your habit of using your mobile apps. It prevents from your unconscious app openings like checking WhatsApp for messages even if you didn’t get any or checking your stock price multiple times in a day etc…
- It holds you back from using your apps right after waking up.
- It leaves you with a breather time prior to opening an app to change your decision.
- It asks for the intention of opening the app now and every 5 minutes it reminds you whether you’re following your intention or distracted from it.
- It’ll show how many times you’ve opened it today before getting into an app – you’ll be conscious now and you definitely goanna reduce your usage.
This app works free on both iPhone and Android. For the android users, you have to pre-register on the play store to get it installed for your phone when it comes live on the play store.
Closure
Do you like being a slave to someone?
Nah, I guess. But you never knew that you’re already a slave to these apps. Think of this every time before opening any social apps and remember there is always a world outside.
Stay away from the social media gutter and spare time for the things that you like the most.
Until next time,
Peranesh xx
My favorite of the week
How do you help a Grieving friend?
We’ve all been in a situation where: In thought of comforting our friends or family when they’re experiencing grief, but do not know how to do that.
Megan Devine has studied intense grief and loss — things like violent crimes, accidents, and suicides. She realized the key to helping people feel better is to…let them be in pain.
Sounds counterintuitive right.
But the best way to soothe someone who’s grieving is to acknowledge their pain rather than forcing them to make them happy.
Source: Megan Divine YT channel: watch video