Do You Need to Make Some Sacrifices?
You can track how much time you spend with your cellphone and how longer you spend in each app using a variety of apps. Even if you don't think you spend too much time on your phone, seeing the cold, hard numbers may persuade you to do so.
Turn Off The Notifications
If your phone doesn't ring every few seconds with a text, email, or social media update, it's easy to ignore it. They'll all be there no matter how long you wait to check your phone, and if you let them linger a little longer, you might feel better and be more productive. You can customize your phone so that just certain texts come through if you can't afford to miss particular things, such as a message from your spouse or child.
Using a Rubber Band, Secure Your Phone
It's a gentle reminder to turn off the part of your brain that automatically does tasks. If a rubber band is too much for you, install a screensaver that asks, "Do you really need to get inside your phone?" It could spare you 45 minutes of useless browsing through photographs of farmhouses before you realize you don't care for them.
Buy an Alarm Clock
You're more likely to get hooked into checking your email, texts, and social media when you use your phone's alarm to wake up in the morning. An alarm clock allows you to keep your phone out of your hands for at least a few minutes longer. Other suggestions include charging it overnight in a different room and scheduling a morning check.
Leave Phone
According to some experts, you should go three days without using your phone. This may assist you in breaking harmful phone habits and replacing them with new, healthier activities. You can ease back into using it by limiting your usage to calls and messages at specific hours, then gradually expanding your use if you desire to do so.
Tech-Free Time
If you can't envision life without your phone for three days, schedule some phone-free time in your home. (You could also wish to incorporate other digital gadgets.) This could be an hour or two every evening before dinner or every Sunday afternoon. Take a walk, play cards, or play a board game — anything that allows you to interact with one another.
Plan Some Offline Entertainment
Try something easy like reading a book or taking your dog to the park. There's no need to share any of that on social media. Instead, invite some pals over for coffee or a jog so you may meet them face to face. Tell them you're going to switch off your phone, and they could do the same.
Establish Phone-Free Zones
Taking your phone into the restroom is not a good idea. Mostly for reasons of basic cleanliness, but also because keeping your phone out of certain aspects of your life might be beneficial. Meetings, games with your kids, and driving are all possibilities. It's a healthy method to get used to going without it for brief periods of time.
Do Not Disturb
Some smartphones feature an option that allows you to restrict access to particular areas of your phone at certain times of the day. For example, between 5 and 9 p.m. and after midnight, you might turn off all calls and alerts.
Get Away from Apps
Those games are meant to keep you coming back for more, but they won't be able to do so if they aren't available. You might be able to get by with just your phone, text, and email, and you can check social media on your computer.
Useful Resources
Some apps can help you spend less time on your phone by shutting you out of particular features at certain times of day or after a certain amount of time on them. Others will support you or reward you with time if you achieve certain goals, such as walking 5,000 steps in a day.
Talk the (Right) Talk
If you say "I don't check my phone at dinner," you're more likely to leave your phone in your pocket than if you say "I can't check my phone at dinner." It could be because the word "can't" implies that you've been denied something, but experts aren't sure why that one word can make such a difference.
Managing Expectations
If you'd like to spend less time on the phone but are worried that people will think you're rude or irritated if you don't react right away, simply tell them. Say you're attempting to break your phone habit and won't be able to get back to them for a while.
Buy a ‘Dumbphone' instead of a Smartphone
If the allure of a pocket-sized computer is too strong, a phone that can just call and text may be the answer. It can't download apps or connect to the Internet, but it's significantly less expensive and could be the key to your freedom.