3 Ways to Prevent yourself from being Glued to your Phone

You see it every day. walking into work, buying food at Taco Bell, or while doing your laundry at the laundromat. People glued to their phones with no consideration for what’s going on around them.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we weren’t distracted by our phones as much?

It’s possible and here are a few ways you can prevent your phone from taking your attention away from tasks you need to finish.

Delete Attention grabbing apps

This is a stupid statement to me because apps are designed to grab your attention. The more time you spend on your phone the more money the company who made the app makes.

The user, however, wastes time that they could be using to do something productive. Not a fair trade off in my opinion.

I am always hearing about the next addicting game or app and trying my best to stay away from it because I know how valuable our time is.

Make your phone look dull by making it grayscale. This will make it less interesting and reduce your phone usage by around 50%.

While I still use social media, I deleted the apps because they were stealing my attention.

Its not hard to see we spend way too much time on our phones. Getting rid of certain apps will help you keep your focus and in turn make you more productive throughout your day.

Who knows what you’ll do with the extra time?

20-20-20 Rule

This rule can help you physically and mentally but not many people know what it is or how to implement it.

Set a timer for 20 minutes. Then look away from your screen for 20 seconds at something about 20 feet away. This will help you refocus and prevent eye strain.

Some of us, myself included, spend too much time sitting in front of a screen during the day. This technique helps to break up the time, even if it’s for a moment.

Burnout come on quicker than you think. Having something to combat it during the day can help you continue working on projects and prevent mental strain.

We were designed to be in motion and in todays world it’s probably best to get off the internet from time to time.

Mute your Notifications

One of the most infuriating aspects of technology is all the notifications. Not everything happens in the world is important enough to stop what you’re doing to check your phone.

Every time I sit down to write, I must put my phone on silent and throw it across the room or I’ll be distracted.

True, there are times where something pops up on your phone that is worth sitting back and thinking about but that doesn’t happen as often as you may think.

You don’t have to throw your phone in another room if you don’t want to. There are other ways to prevent being distracted by it.

Try deleting apps causing this rage or go to your phone's settings and turn off the notifications for the apps causing the biggest headaches.

It doesn’t have to be all of them but when you’re trying to work you don’t need to know that Kim and Kanye finalized their divorce.

Final Thoughts

I personally think it would be nice to go back to a time where we didn’t have cell phones. it’s definitely an asset but today it’s not being used as one.

Delete the apps that are stealing your attention from what you need to be focused on. You won’t believe it but you will still have time to play those games after you’re done running your errands.

The 20-20-20 rule is a life saver if used right. Too many times have I worked for too long and burnt myself out. Now I can finish my work in a timely fashion and keep my sanity.

Speaking of keeping my sanity, muting my notification also helped with that. I always felt I needed to check my phone whenever it buzzed. Now I don’t even think about it.

There’re so many ways you can prevent your phone from stealing your focus but these are the ways that helped me the most. I hope they help you to.