4 Quick Digital Well-Being Wins
Small wins are important to our psychology -- they help us build forward motion and momentum.
Today, I want to share a few QUICK DIGITAL WELL-BEING WINS. With these few simple steps, you can free up 45 minutes a day - or more.
Here’s my challenge: I want you to implement 3 or 4 of these changes with your phone TODAY.
1. Choose People over Machines
(A.k.a. Turn off all notifications except those from humans.)
Notifications appear in RED dots because red is a trigger color that instantly draws our attention.
But most notifications are generated by machines, not actual people. They keep our phones vibrating to lure us back into apps we don't really need to be in.
How to do it:
Visit Settings > Open Notifications and turn OFF all notifications, banners, and badges, except from apps where real people want your attention; e.g. apps like WhatsApp or FB Messenger.
2. Go Grayscale
Colorful icons give our brains shiny rewards every time we unlock. Set your phone to grayscale to remove those positive reinforcements. It helps MANY people check their phones less.
How to do it:
Visit Settings > General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations.
Turn on Color Filters, and set to "Grayscale."
Then scroll to the bottom of Accessibility settings and turn on "Accessibility Shortcut" to quickly triple-tap to toggle grayscale on and off, so you keep color when you need it.
3. Reserve your Home Screen for Tools Only
Do you open apps mindlessly because they are the first thing you see when you unlock your phone?
Limit your first page of apps to just tools–the apps you use for quick in-and-out tasks like Maps, Camera, Calendar, Notes, or Lyft. Move the rest of your apps, especially mindless choices, off the first page and into folders.
Try using a clever name for your folders to give you pause before tapping. For example, I have a folder called 'Consumption.'
4. Remove Social Media from Your Phone
Yup. Cold turkey—at least for seven days. This one is tough but incredibly effective! If you really want to use your phone less, I recommend removing all the major social media apps from your phone. It’s the easiest way to cut back, as these apps can easily gobble up so much of our time. Train yourself to use them from your computer only (if at all).
You know what to do.
I’d love to hear how this challenge goes. Comment below!
