how to stop being glued to your phone

Summary

the average American spends about four and a half hours a day on their phone. I’m around 29 minutes. willpower isn’t the difference. environment is.

the tool: Opal. the app blocks apps and websites on a schedule you set, and pro mode plus a no-skip lock means you can’t talk yourself out of it in the moment. that’s the whole point. defaults over discipline.

the setup:

1. download Opal, turn on pro and no-skip. make the choice once, in a calm moment, so the moment of weakness has no option.
2. build an allow list. GPS, camera, audio apps, the stuff you actually need. everything else gets a hard block.
3. weekday schedule. open during work hours, hard blocked after 4pm.
4. weekend schedule. essentials only. no scrolling.
5. Instagram rule. allow it, but cap it at 15 to 30 minutes a day. it’s the most addictive app on your phone, treat it like one.
6. measure. screen time, not vibes. if the number is going down week over week you’re winning.

the trap to watch for: the “but it’s for business” excuse. it’s not. it’s the same scroll dressed up.

protect your mind first. then your minutes.

Transcript

why this matters (and my 29 minute target)

All right, let’s talk about how to get off your damn phone so you can actually take control of your mind, get your life back. All right, so I’m actually going to be walking you through what to do on your phone to spend less time on the phone. I think it’s crappy that we even have to be talking about things like this, but this is the world we live in. The average American is spending over 4 and 1/2 hours a day on their phone, and it is detrimental.

Like if you’re just truly productive, maybe it’s fine. But most people are just doom scrolling, doing things that are hurting their brain, destroying their life. And we have to fight back somehow because these little devices have become very uh you know integral to our daily life. Like we have to use them in some capacity, but we don’t want them to take control of our lives. As the all of the social media platforms out there spend their bill billions of dollars to make sure that we’re addicted to these things, we have to fight back.

So, I’m going to be going over how to fight back. Like I said, the average person’s using their phone 4 and 1/2 hours a day. I’ve gotten my screen time down to roughly 29 minutes on average per day. And I can tell you for a fact, when I am only on my phone for 29 minutes per day, my mind feels sharper. I’m more present at home.

download opal + enable pro no skip

And to be honest, I just enjoy life a little bit more. So, let’s talk about how to do it. This is not any kind of partnership uh with any company. I’m just going to go over the app I use. No affiliation whatsoever, but I use an app called Opel. So, step one, you’re going to download Opel. And the reason, another reason I’m doing this is not just because it’s like, hey, I think people need this. I’ve been coaching a lot of people.

And a big thing that we go over is using their phone less so they can be more present at home with their family or at work if it’s a problem at work. and so we’ll talk about that, but I’ve been going over this with so many people so many different times, I figured I would just go over what I typically recommend and what I do. So anyway, download Opal and then what you’re going to do, you’ll see here I am at the blocks, which is the second thing on the app.

And so what you do is you set up a different schedule.

build your allow list (gps, camera, audio, etc)

I’m going to go over what my schedules look like and what I’m doing. And then you can customize this to however you want. But I think the coolest thing that Opal did that actually made it useful because it wasn’t useful for a long time was they added an allow list. Okay, so these are the apps that are allowed you are allowed to use during a blocked session cuz that’s all Opal is going to do. It’s going to block apps to where you can’t use them.

And you you’re going to sign up for the pro method. I don’t know how much it costs, but it’s absolutely worth it. But what you’re going to do is block it to where you can’t skip it. And then you know which is pro mode. And then you’re going to have the allow list which is the most important thing. So I’m going to show you how that works. So first off you would hit the plus sign in the top right hand corner and then you’d hit create schedule and then it will have like an obvious like a recommendation but then you are going to do an allow list.

Okay. So you can uh create a new allow list but right now I have 21 apps that are allowed meaning I can use them during a blocked period. So, what I have found when I’ve tried to do stuff like this in the past is it’s near impossible. Like, something comes up to where I just can’t use the app anymore. Uh because, for instance, on a weekend, I want to block everything on my phone. I just want to be with my family, but I need I might need GPS to get to a son’s soccer game.

weekday schedule… open for work, blocked after 4pm

And so, I can’t have GPS blocked. And then my both all of my kids will have some sort of app that’s controlling or messaging us about game times, locations, all these kind of things. I have to be able to access those apps. Some apps I just don’t want blocked. Like I don’t want my camera blocked so I can take videos at these games. Uh I don’t want Audible blocked cuz I want to be able to, you know, listen to audiobooks when I’m in the car.

Those kind of things. So the first thing that you need to sit down and be like, “Okay, what do I realistically need?” And I came up with 21 different apps. And it’s going to be different for you, right? So, I have all these kids messaging apps for sports. I have my camera. I want to be able to check the weather. I want to be able to do GPS. Uh, you know, I want Audible. I want Spotify so I can listen to music or podcasts, you know, when I’m in my truck.

So, what it came out to being was 21 different apps. And none of them are like super distracting, anything like that. I just have apps that I allow. And one of them I actually allow is Instagram. I do allow Instagram because I use it a lot for work, but I also have type parameters on that. So that’s the first thing that you need to do for opal to be effective because it won’t be effective if you just block everything you go nuclear because if you go nuclear you’ll do what I’ve done over and over again is you won’t be able to use it because of some emergency right like I can’t navigate somewhere or can’t do something right so anyway how I have mine set up the weekdays I allow full access to my phone during my workday um whether that’s you know you know from when I wake up until 400 p.m. which is when I start to go hang out with my kids, my family or whatever.

So, weekdays everything’s just fully open.

weekend schedule… full block, essentials only

So, I can hop in Instagram. I can check Slack if I’m out to just catch up with the team, all those kind of things. I’m I’ll full use of the phone, but I’ve also never had any productivity problems when I’m at work. When I’m working, I’m good. I can focus on my computer. I have no intentions. I don’t want to touch my phone. I don’t need to. So, for me, during the workday has never been an issue.

So, keep that in mind for you. My weekday uh block on Opal is 400 p.m. to 10 p.m. I never really go to bed after 10 p.m. So, I just straight up can’t use my phone post work except for the apps that I feel like I just absolutely need, which are really basic. It’s going to be, like I said, navigation, camera, the very basics. That’s my weekdays.

instagram rule: allow but cap it (15 to 30 min max)

Now, like I said, I allow Instagram on weekdays and weekends for 30 minutes. And I’ve actually been taking that down be I’m been thinking about taking that down because I’ve never actually once hit 30 minutes on Instagram with that block, but I am actually using Instagram for business, trying to post more, trying to build a personal brand as I’ve talked about a lot on this podcast. So, I allow the usage of Instagram. It’s on the allowed list, but then I put a second block in place where I’m only allowed to use Instagram for 30 minutes per day.

Like I said, I think I’m going to bump that down to 15 because realistically, if you are using Instagram just as a business tool, you can ask you can access it in your desktop browser if you actually need to be messaging people for business or whatever. And then at the same time, how much time do you really need if you’re using it for business to just go post a couple things, post some stories, post your, you know, your content for the day or whatever and then get out of the app because anything you’re doing beyond 30 minutes is doom scrolling.

That’s just consuming. You’re being a consumer. You don’t want to do that. So then that’s a second block. Now on the weekends, I just block everything from 4:00 a.m. until 10 p.m. And you see my weekend block right here just fully blocked. I can’t use anything except for those basic very like I need these apps.

track screen time and tighten the list

And that’s where you have to go back and forth and learn. And I’ve had to build up my list over time. And I do not delete Opal off my phone. I don’t allow anything like that. What I do is I’m just like, “Ah, crap. I really needed that app.” And I write that down. And then I adjust my allow last allow list to allow that one. But what you have to watch when you do this is your actual screen time.

Like I said, mine’s at around 29 minutes average per day. I’m happy with that. If I had a big allow list and my screen time was up to 2 hours, I’m like, you’re allowing too much crap. You’re you’re allowing too many different things. And so ultimately, you have to decide what your allow list is and make sure it makes sense. But this is something I’ve been coaching with people for the last several months and it’s really over the last year and it’s becoming more and more of an issue because like I said all of these social media platforms out there they are spending billions on dollars billions of dollars to make sure that we’re addicted and we want to be glued to their apps and to the screen.

the “business use” trap and how it sneaks in

And you got to fight back. We are in that time period of life where you just have to and you sure you could say you know what I’m just going to use discipline or I’m just not going to check my phone but that’s not working out for most people and I know for me I used to be a master at not using my phone ever talking about 5 6 years ago I just like didn’t use it put it in a drawer never really checked social media apps but then kind of the Trojan horse was I started to use social media more for business started to post more started to do more things online for business.

So in my mind, I was justifying the use of these apps for business purposes. But what happened more and more I started to use it more and more. I started to do a little bit of doom scrolling or a little extra check here, a little extra check there.

lock it in… no deletions… no excuses

And it just slowly worked its way into my life to where my screen time was starting to balloon up and I didn’t like it. And like I said, I feel less mentally sharp whenever I am using my phone too much. I feel less present and I don’t enjoy life as much. And I don’t think that’s phone specific. I think that’s social media specific. So, trying to stay off of all of those platforms, I highly, highly encourage you to do, but at the end of the day, you have to protect your mind.

And this is a great way to get your life back. Set in some hard parameters. You have to pay for Opal Pro. I don’t get a dollar of that, so I’m not pitching it. But you have to do the lock that does not allow you to skip it. There is no skipping. There is nothing. You just have to ultimately do the harder thing and do not check your phone. Don’t allow any skips and do not delete the app.

They actually have a portion of the app where you can say, “Hey, no deletion allowed.” I’ve never used that because I have enough willpower to not ever have to delete the app. Hopefully you find this helpful. Get off your damn phone. Focus. Be present with your family. Try harder.