“7 hours a day”.

This is what most people tell me their daily smartphone screen time is in my productivity workshops.

That’s 14 weeks a year staring at a cold little rectangle (and almost HALF of their awake time)!

“But I need it for work”.

And this is the convenient excuse I almost always hear.

No different to the alcoholic sales rep who “needs to” drink almost every night to entertain guests and close deals.

No different from the overweight and unhealthy person who is “so busy” that they “don’t have time” to exercise or eat a healthy meal.

These are just convenient excuses.

If you are happy spending almost half of your awake time staring at a cold little device, having your attention span and mental clarity seriously compromised, suffering a massive opportunity cost (imagine what else you could be doing with that time?!), and almost never being present in places and with the people around you, then stop reading right now.

Otherwise, re-consider how you use your phone.

1. Do work that can be done on your computer, on your computer.

2. Batch any activities that you need to do on your phone (e.g. social media) to a one hour window, instead of sporadically checking in and out every 5 minutes throughout the day.

3. Turn off your notifications (most people don’t do this one simple thing that can have a dramatic impact on your focus and presence)

4. Practice abstinence — don’t involuntarily reach for your phone throughout the day. To help with this, don’t have it within arms reach at all times. The more you abstain, the less you feel the need to reach for your phone.

5. Delete apps that don’t serve you, and only serve their advertisers and investors instead.

6. Practice asynchronous communication with your team.

By applying the above, I’ve brought my average smartphone screen time down to 1.5 hours (<1 hour is my goal).

What else do you do to keep on top of your screen time?

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