Spending less time on my phone has been a near constant struggle since I got my first iPhone nearly 10 years ago. There is just something so tempting about the entire's world knowledge at my near fingertips, even if I am mostly tempted by social media and nearly anything that lets me stall doing what I really should be doing.
This is not a new problem for me and one I have conquered better at some points in my life than others. I've written about it many (many) times in the past before too:
Limiting the Social Media (Sept. 2015)
{7} Ways to Spend Less Time on Your Phone (Feb. 2017)
How an(other) app got me to spend less time on my phone (Feb. 2018)
Cutting my Social Media Time (Feb. 2019)
Why I Take Social Media Breaks (Feb. 2020)
(I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS WITH ME AND FEBRUARY AND THESE POSTS.)
I feel like I am doing well at staying off my phone. Then something happens (say...a global pandemic that feels like it will never end) and all bets and rules and progress I've made it out the window. (At this point, I don't think I can use COVID as an excuse, it's been around for awhile and we've adjusted to whatever the heck life is like when this posts.)
The Moment app was really good for me for a few years. I spent a few years screen shoting my time breakdown from the day before and then having the app take off time spent on certain apps (Home & Lock screen, Kindle or other reading apps, the library app because that can be a big chunk of time on library days.) Then they changed their format sometime since the pandemic started and instead started giving you points for staying off your phone for at least 30 minutes. It added up your time at the end of the day and it was really rewarding to see many many hours where I was away from my phone for at least 30 minutes. The app change was an adjustment but once I got used to it it was good for me.
Then there was an update to the app where it was SUCKING my battery, like my phone that was barely a year old would be dead by noon. It was killing it and super annoying to always be charging. So I sadly had to get rid of the app before it made my battery worthless.
That caused me to pivot to the Forest App.
The Forest App works a lot like the Moment app did after the update. You get credit for being off your phone a certain amount of time. You set a timer in the app for at least 10 minutes and then I have mine to keep counting even after the set time is up. If you exit the app before the timer is up then you kill a tree in your fake forest.
I know, killing a digital tree shouldn't be motivation. EXCEPT THAT IT IS.
In the Moment App even turning on the lock screen to skip ads in a playing podcast would trigger the app and I'd lose progress on my downtime counter. I got used to covering the front facing camera with one hand while I skipped the ads with the other since if the phone didn't unlock it didn't mess with the app. (I still find myself doing this sometimes.)
The Forest App doesn't have this problem and sometimes I can get away with using the camera, timer/alarm, or calculator without my tree dying. When I do kill a tree it's usually for using the camera.
There are many times a day I nearly always start growing a tree. While I do my morning workout. When doing to Mass (that is a bit of a cheat because other than the two times Luke did a reading/petitions at school Mass, I don't pull my phone out during Mass anyways). When I come out of the bathroom on school mornings post-shower generally until after Luke is dropped off (unless I need to check the weather (which has been MANY mornings this school year with many surprise rain storms coming right when I want to be walking to school.)). When reading. After school while trying to get through the snack and homework slog. At work (easier there since I have a Mac and get all my texts on my computer screen anyways).
There are many situations for which I have standard times and plants already set and I just pick from my favorites. Most of mine start at 20 minutes and then will keep counting after I've gone over that, up to two hours total (I frequently hit that 2 hour max on our vacations, when I'd leave my phone to go to the beach). I find 20 minutes is a good starting time because I can generally ignore any text message for 20 minutes without it being a big deal. Only occasionally (generally from Matt at work) does someone require a quicker answer. It's very helpful that I can unlock my phone and see how much time is left before I kill a tree for quitting. I know I can do something else for 90 seconds or whatever and then have my phone unlocked, no dead digital trees on my conscience.
And this isn't to say that I still don't spend time on my phone. I most certainly do and still more than I'd like. But having dead digital trees hanging over me helps me focus when I really would like to focus. That bit of time I get with the boys in the morning before school. The craziness of after school when I'd really like to escape from dealing with messes and homework and whiny kids who maybe should have taken a nap when one was offered. Sometimes I just need something to remind me to NOT PICK UP THE PHONE.
It's amazing the number of times I am sorely tempted to pick-up my phone to get that quick dopamine hit or just as a break from dealing with whatever I should be dealing with and then see my phone is locked, put it back down, and get on with what I should be doing. Focusing can be HARD and this really has helped me take bigger chunks away from my phone while also keeping it close in case of an emergency (i.e. a quarantine phone call from school).
The app cost maybe $3 and I don't use the sounds or anything else that came with it, just my digital trees and the others I have bought with the coins earned from leaving my phone alone. And I use the screen time function that came with my iPhone even though I'm 90% sure it's double counting some time (it will double up some Safari time, count it as both Safari time and as particular websites). And I use that to enact some limits on Instagram and the nighttime settings that disable certain apps between certain hours.
This all sounds rather silly but I've found that I do well with external motivation and accountability. This works and I will take a rather silly but helpful win.
Have YOU tried the Forest App? Do you have other ingenious solutions to help you stay off your phone? Because I clearly don't have it figured out and am always looking for solutions!
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