Pinging phones. WhatsApp notifications. Or email notifications #253 of the day. On the one hand, it’s great that we have the whole world in our pockets non-stop. On the other hand, the phone in your pocket can also become a major source of stress and distraction. Before you know it, your screen time shoots through the roof and you lose sight of what’s really important. In other words: everything that happens outside your phone screen. But how can you be more offline if your phone keeps pinging and beeping 24/7? These are 11 tips that help me to live a more phone-free life.
Being more offline: why?
The world keeps turning. It always has, of course. But phones also constantly remind us that there is something newsworthy and worth watching happening at any time of the day. Your phone is one big source of stimuli. And while that can be fun and positively distracting, it can also really disrupt your concentration and prevent you from really getting into the moment.
Your body produces a shot of dopamine every time you pick up your phone to look at something new. The reward hormone that gives you the feeling that you are doing something good and fun! But your brain then wants more of it. And even more. Now it also happens that social media apps are designed to hold your attention for as long as possible. It is no wonder that phone addictions are seriously lurking. On average, the Dutch look at their phone 10-20 times an hour. Imagine how often that is in a week ( 1,680-3,360 times a day according to my calculator ). Well, that is a lot of stimuli.
For me, my phone was one big source of overstimulation for a long time. My screen time was actually okay (max. 1.5 hours per day). But I did notice that I was busy with that thing all the time. I perked up at every little sound. If I got a notification, I had to look at it. Sometimes I even thought I heard my phone go off when it didn’t ( I found that quite a shocking discovery… ). And when I threw myself into annoying, procrastination-worthy tasks, my phone was the ultimate lightning rod that made sure that that one rotten job wasn’t done quickly at all. Add to that the fact that your phone also fires a lot of misery at you (intense world news or sad stories on social media).
That was reason enough for me to be offline more often and to limit my phone use! I can recommend it to everyone afterwards. Being offline more brought me this among other things:
- It feels like I have control over the stimuli that come to me again, instead of the stimuli controlling me.
- I am much more in the moment and, for example, during appointments I no longer worry about possible messages that I may miss.
- When I’m on my phone, I deal with my phone time differently and consciously use it for really fun things.
- I can work with better focus and am less distracted by my phone while working.
- I can stay in my bubble for a while after something relaxing like a yoga class because I don’t immediately grab my phone afterwards.
- When I respond to messages, I do so with more attention and calm . Not rushed in between.
- I feel much less stressed and have fewer nervous feelings during the day .
But how do you do that, be more offline?
Nowadays, you can camp off the grid or book a holiday home in the bushbush without reception. You can also go to retreats where you have to hand in your phone upon arrival. But all that is a bit radical and expensive. Fortunately, there are all kinds of things you can do to be more offline, even without camping holidays and monasteries. These are 11 tips that have helped me to leave my phone alone more often. Or even to leave it in the corner of the room.
1. Remove your biggest seducers from the apps on your home screen
Swiping once is already more effort than not swiping at all . For that reason, I have deliberately removed some tempting apps from my home screen. They are now one or two screens swipe away on my phone. As a result, I do not immediately see the icons of those apps when I pick up my phone to read an email. The result? I also open the app less quickly.
I think this is a great tip, especially for social media apps. These apps know all too well how to keep you in the app longer than you intended. It would be great if you had more control over this, by not letting yourself get sucked into the trap of these apps in the first place.
2. Make some activities phone-free from now on
Being more offline also means doing some things without a phone. I have to admit: my phone was also glued to my hand for a long time. When I was waiting at the bus stop, my phone was always quickly grabbed as a time killer. And when I was visiting someone, I would quickly jump into the “Oh, what can that be?” reaction when my phone pinged. Only to often discover that it was just an over-enthusiastic series of congratulations in a group app with 50 members.
To get less carried away by phone stimuli, I started doing phone-free activities. I increasingly do things where I put my phone on silent or sometimes even leave it at home. It gives you a lot of peace when you don’t even have to wonder if your phone might ring.
For example, I consciously put my phone on silent when I’m walking or even leave it at home. When I go to yoga, I promise myself that I won’t touch it until my bike ride home is over. Then I won’t quickly check my apps before the yoga class, with the risk that something will come in that I’ll then unnecessarily rack my brains about on my yoga mat. I also often put my bag with my phone in the hallway at birthdays, so that I wouldn’t even hear it if it went off. All of that helps me to be more in the moment.
Here are some ideas for phone-free activities:
- From now on, put your phone on silent when you go for walks or even leave it on the dining table at home.
- Put your phone in the closet when you watch TV in the evening.
- Are you going to do something relaxing, like breathing exercises, reading a book or making something creative? Then put your phone away.
- Or think of a place (preferably with a lock and key!) where you hide your phone every evening from a certain time.
- Buy an old-fashioned alarm clock and keep your phone out of the bedroom so you’re not tempted to doomscroll in bed .
3. Use some apps only on your computer
Many apps also have a perfectly working desktop version. For example, I am a big fan of Web WhatsApp as an alternative to WhatsApp on my phone. I also use Instagram almost exclusively on my laptop, except when I create Stories. This not only saves time ( typing is a lot faster with 10 fingers than when you compose messages on a tiny phone keyboard with 2 fingers ), but is also a good way to limit your phone use. I have agreed with myself that I will use these apps almost exclusively when I am behind my PC. And well, the step to surf to Instagram in your browser is bigger than quickly clicking the app on your home screen.
If you want to be even more drastic, you can remove some apps from your phone altogether and only use them on your laptop. For example, I know people who schedule Instagram posts and Stories by default with an app like Later, and therefore don’t need the phone app at all. You can also remove your mailbox from your phone, so that you only check it on your PC when you have the time.
4. Wean yourself off multitasking
For a long time I thought I couldn’t stand silence. I had to fill the silence with sound from the speaker of my phone. Sometimes a podcast, then an audiobook and otherwise at least some music. Last year I started challenging myself to do something in silence more often. Because yes, it may be wonderful to make long car rides more fun with a cheerful audiobook. But it is also important not to use every 10-minute car ride usefully by listening to your book at the same time. Partly because of that multitasking habit, my phone and I were quite intensely connected. I have now cut that umbilical cord.
If you can do things more often without your phone (or without the sound from your phone), it becomes easier to live offline. Or at least to get lost in that beautiful walk or just enjoy what you are doing.
Do you also tend to listen to a podcast while walking? Challenge yourself to do it without sound in your ears for once. Do you often listen to all kinds of books while cooking to brush up on your knowledge? Put your phone on silent for once and enjoy the cooking itself.
Single-tasking is something I had to learn. But now that I’m getting better at it, I’m realizing how much unnecessary stress multitasking gave me all that time.
5. Every time you get the urge to “Check my phone,” challenge yourself to do something different
There are all sorts of times when your phone seems like the perfect pastime. Like when you have to finish a project that is extremely procrastination-worthy and requires your little toe to get the hang of it ( scrolling through your phone is a much more fun activity! ). Or when you have to wait 1 minute for something (the bus) or someone (your colleague at a meeting). Or just when you see your phone in front of you and suddenly realize that you can’t remember the name of the son of that one actor from that one movie from 1993.
It is precisely because of the telephone that we have become accustomed to a world in which stimuli are always available. If you then have an idle moment without any form of stimuli (except the view from the bus stop or through the office window), it almost feels as if that is not enough. But try to resist that temptation anyway.
It helps to think of something you can do instead of reaching for your phone. Sometimes that might just be continuing whatever you were doing (cough, that most procrastinating project) . Sometimes it might be another offline activity. Think old-fashioned staring out the window, striking up a conversation with someone, or maybe even doing a 1-minute breathing exercise.
6. Or postpone your “Let me see!” urges for as long as possible
But okay, sometimes it’s just really hard not to have an answer to your question right now. You keep wondering what that one son of that one actor’s name is. Or you’re immediately wondering which bus line you’ll need to take next. At those moments it helps me to consciously park my “Let’s see if…” thought. I often write it down on a piece of paper, so that I can continue with what I was doing. Then I try to postpone my “I really have to see if…” tendency for as long as possible and see how long I can hold out. I often first agree with myself that I have to wait another 5 minutes, but in practice a quarter of an hour or even 20 minutes usually works fine.
Try to stretch it out for yourself that way. The more often you do that, the more you will notice that your head fires all kinds of thoughts and questions at you all day long, but that you don’t always have to do something about them immediately. And if you are really afraid of forgetting something, a notepad is your life-saver to still let your phone rest for at least fifteen minutes.
7. Or take up the challenge and do an offline (half) day
Want to be even more fanatical and put an end to any tendency to phone addiction? Then challenge yourself to not look at your phone for a whole day or part of a day. Start on a weekend day. For example, agree with yourself that you will not use your phone between 10 am and 4 pm and turn off the sound. If necessary, you can leave the sound on for phone calls, so that you can be reached if there is a real emergency ( or if your friend calls with a trivial question about the groceries, but that’s besides the point! ). That always takes the stress away for me.
Just see how it goes when you spend part of your day without your phone. At the end of the day, pick up your phone again and see what you missed during that time. Probably not that much at all.
For example, I once accidentally left my phone at home when I went to Utrecht with a friend. The whole afternoon I had a bad feeling about the idea that I was not aware of all kinds of “important” things. What turned out? When I got home, I had only missed 2 advertising emails and a text message from a friend with the text “Hey, how are you?”. Had I really been so worried about that?
By taking on this challenge, you may discover that not much happens when you are hard to reach for a few hours. And that will surely give you an extra dose of motivation to do this more often.
8. Make Do Not Disturb mode your default for more offline time
For me, the many sounds from my phone were the main reason to be on all day. When I was taking a break, I would jump up at the first beep to see who or what wanted something from me. And when I was in the car and heard my phone beep 12 times from my bag, I was convinced that something was going on ( spoiler: those were often puppy pictures in a group app). Fortunately, I have now discovered my favorite anti-phone stress life hack: the ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. That mode is always on for me, except when I expect a call from an unknown number.
You can completely determine for yourself what your ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode should look like. For example, you can also set that certain phone numbers can always call through this mode. Or that specific apps can still delight you with sounds. For me, this mode means that my phone only makes a sound when people from my contact list call me. Apart from that, I no longer hear any sounds at all. So not even when someone calls me who is not in my contact list.
Isn’t that difficult? Well, it took some getting used to. I sometimes miss calls from potential new customers because of this. And I read messages a little less quickly than before. But I have come to accept that it is okay to be a moderately reachable person. If someone calls me, I always call back the same day. And if I only read a message after 3 o’clock, that is usually not a disaster.
Putting my phone on silent gives me a lot of peace. And yes, the consequence is that I sometimes miss something and will never win the prize for the most reachable person on earth. But hey, that is not my ultimate goal in life. A healthy stress level and being more in the moment is worth a lot.
9. The standard tip: tidy up your apps and notifications
Fewer apps also means less phone time. Fewer notifications also help you to be less often drawn to your phone screen like a magnet.
So are you still drowning in apps, some of which you barely use? Then dust off your inner Marie Kondo and delete all apps that you hardly or never use . But even better ( at least, this was the biggest change for me! ): go through your notifications with a broom. Check which notifications you have received in the past few days. Which ones were important? And which ones not so much? Turn off all notifications that are not vital, so that you automatically (even if your phone is not on silent) create more peace in your device.
This is how you can…
- …turn off social media notifications . You will then only see what is new when you open the app itself.
- …throw your mailbox off your phone or otherwise turn off notifications if you usually answer your emails on the computer anyway.
- … mute fanatical group apps , so that you at least no longer receive messages from those apps.
- … turn off notifications from advertising apps . That will also save you from a few unintentional impulse purchases.
- … delete news apps from your phone and only check the news by surfing to the site yourself. If you do that twice a day, you still won’t miss anything new.
10. Be strict and track your phone time
Sometimes your phone can help you spend less time on your phone. How contradictory would you want it! On iPhones you have the app ‘Screen Time’ and on Android this function is hidden under the heading ‘Digital Wellbeing’. Here you can find your daily and weekly screen time. If you find it difficult to really reduce your phone use, the screen time report can help you with this. For example, by giving yourself a limit for maximum phone time per day and shouting yourself half as soon as you go over that. In these apps you also have the function to set a maximum time per app. Handy if you quickly lose yourself in doomscrolling through social media!
And if that doesn’t work either? Then you can tackle it a bit more forcefully. With the app ‘Flipd’! This app has a ‘full lock’ mode that you can’t even get around with sneaky tricks. All your phone functions are then really turned off; you can only call or text. Then the fun of using your phone is gone, which is a good incentive to be offline more often.
11. Or tackle it manually and put your phone out of sight
Those withdrawal apps are all super handy, but I prefer to take a gentler approach. For me, it helps a lot to put my phone out of reach. Or sometimes just out of sight. If your phone is always 10 centimeters away, it is also very tempting to unlock your screen every now and then. But if your phone is in your bag on the other side of the room, the urge to grab your phone is much less.
See if you can put your phone somewhere that you can only reach when you get up from your spot. You can even put the phone in a closet or in another room if you want to make it even harder for yourself to do something with your phone all the time. Then you will automatically resist the many “Let me see if…”-inclinations, and you will not be so quick to grab your phone every 10 minutes. And if you do, it will at least give you a boost for your pedometer 😉
