A Calmer Phone in One Evening
Six settings changes that quietly reduce how much your phone pulls at you.
By Ravi Menon · 6 min read
Notifications first
Turn off every notification except calls, messages from real people, and calendar alerts. Everything else is a company deciding when you should think about it.
Anything you would check anyway does not need to interrupt you.
Make the phone duller
Move social and news apps off the home screen and into a folder you have to search for. Turn on greyscale for evenings. Remove badges. Friction of two seconds is enough to break an automatic tap.
Keep the home screen to tools: maps, camera, notes, messages.
Set boundaries by time and place
Charge the phone outside the bedroom, schedule a wind-down mode, and set one screen-free hour that everyone in the house respects.
None of this requires discipline once it is configured. That is the point — you are editing defaults, not fighting yourself.