6 Smartphone Habits That Will Boost Your Productivity
Nowadays, discussing ways to improve productivity is hard without mentioning your favorite handheld companion. After all, your smartphone is always within arm’s reach, and it’s likely the first and last thing you look at every day.
While there are endless productivity-boosting apps in the Play/App Store, you can incorporate the smartphone habits below to turn your device from a time-sucking distraction into a productivity enabler.
1. Schedule and Use Focus Mode
Maintaining your focus is more important than ever in today’s attention economy, where we constantly battle with distractions in the form of notifications, newsfeeds, pings, and pop-ups. Each app and service aims to gain a share of our limited attention, and it can be tough to stay on task. Therefore, your ability to focus is a significant determinant of your productivity and success in life.
Thankfully, tech giants like Apple are making strides to help you manage your focus with features like Focus Mode.Setting up and using Focus mode on your iOS deviceis a great way to minimize distractions and better manage your time. Android offers a similar feature under the name Digital Wellbeing.
In a nutshell, this feature allows you to filter out notifications and temporarily disable certain apps when you need to focus on a task. This way, you can avoid the temptation of checking your phone whenever you receive a notification. There arevarious Focus Modes you can set up in iOS, including work, mealtime, and mindfulness.
To set up Focus Mode on your iPhone, open theSettingsapp and tapFocus. From there, you can add and manage the different Focus modes to fit your needs. If you are using an Android device, you can find similar features by going toSettingsand scrolling down toDigital Wellbeing and parental controls.
2. Customize Your Work Apps
Customizing your availability and notifications for work-related apps is the next smartphone habit that can help boost your productivity. With remote work becoming the new normal, you probably manage your time and tasks using different work apps like Slack, Zoom, Google Calendar, and Trello.
Therefore, setting clear boundaries between your work and personal time allows you to steer clear of thealways-on expectations of remote workand burnout. One way to do this is to turn off notifications for work apps when you are off the clock. In addition, silencing notifications from your workplace’s water cooler channels can help you avoid distractions when trying to focus on a task.
If you useSlack, you can also change your statusto let your colleagues know when you are unavailable. This allows you to have more control over when people can reach you.
3. Leverage Automation Technology
You might agree that doing the same tasks repeatedly on your smartphone is not the most productive use of your time. Fortunately, you may leverage built-in automation tools in your smartphone to take care of the monotonous and repetitive tasks for you.
For example, you canuse the Shortcut app on your iOS deviceto automate the tasks you often do, allowing you to spend less time on your phone and more time on things that matter. If you don’t want to make the shortcuts yourself, you can downloadsome handy ones from the Internet.
If you use a Samsung device, you can enjoysome time-saving features in Bixbyby going toSettings>Advanced features>Bixby routines. From there, you can set up routines for different times and locations. For instance, you can set Bixby to automatically turn on the “Do Not Disturb” mode when sleeping.
4. Track Your Screen Time
Another way to boost your smartphone productivity is knowing how much time you spend on specific apps on your device. This is particularly effective if you spend too much time on your smartphone on non-productive activities. By tracking your screen time, it’s possible to get insights into which apps you use the most and cut down oncommon time wasters.
For iPhone users, you cancheck your screen timestatistics by going toSettings>Screen Time. You can also use theDowntimefeature to schedule periods when only specific apps will be available, orApp Limitsto set time limits for using certain apps.
Android users can track their screen timeby going toSettingsand scrolling down toDigital Wellbeing & parental controls. From there, you can see the time you spend on specific apps and set up a daily limit for each app. Doing this regularly can help you become more mindful of your smartphone usage and make changes to break any bad habits.
5. Declutter and Organize Your Home Screen
Your smartphone’s home screen can quickly become messy and cluttered, especially if you frequently download new apps. Having too many apps on your home screen can be overwhelming and unproductive, as it becomes more challenging to find what you want when you need it.
This is why it is vital to declutter your home screen and organize it in a way that makes sense for you. The first thing to do is delete apps that you no longer use. After you have deleted the apps you don’t need, it’s time to organize the ones left. You can create folders for similar apps, or put your most-used apps on the home screen for easy access.
You could also add widgets to your home screen to quickly access the information you need. For example, you can add a widget for the weather forecast or your upcoming calendar events.
6. Practice Being Intentional With Your Smartphone Usage
One of the best ways to boost your smartphone productivity is to be more intentional with your device usage. This means being aware of when and why you are using your phone and sticking to your intended purpose for using it to avoid falling prey to amindless scrolling habit.
Journaling and meditation can be helpful for this, as they can help you become more mindful of your thoughts and actions. If you need help getting started, you can use apps likeDiaroandInsight Timer.
Boost Your Productivity With These Smartphone Habits
Due to your inseparable bond with your smartphone, it’s important to use the device to enhance your productivity, rather than hinder it.
Adopting the right smartphone habits can help you boost your productivity and get more out of your day. By following the tips above, you can make simple changes to your smartphone habits that will significantly impact your overall productivity.
Do you ever wonder why you constantly struggle to complete your tasks? Your daily smartphone habits might be to blame.
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