I got addicted to my smartphone and I had an urge to take my phone now and then look for messages, status updates, likes, comments and what not.. It wasted a lot of my energy and time.
I believe the biggest challenge of our times is to control the use smartphones , limit the time we spend on Facebook, YouTube and other social media apps.
My quest to get rid of this habit made me experiment with myself and challlenge my control over my senses.
I did various experiments and hacked it to some extent and these are the things which help me to do so.
- Mobile Phone as far away from you as possible - When I do not want to be distracted, I keep the mobile exactly opposite and far from where I sit in the room. It should be as far as possible from your reach. I've also tried placing it in cupboards to avoid excessive use.
- Disable all the Notifications - The notifications from social media such distracted me a lot and I would reach out for my mobile phone every time there was an 'alert tone'. With no notifications, now this urge is gone.
- Sign out - After using the social media apps, sign out of them. I had to login again with the password to access them which brought down my usage drastically! Unfortunately WhatsApp does not give this feature.
- Single Channel (for reaching out to friends & family) - I uninstalled all the redundant apps like FB messenger, Telegram and retain only WhatsApp as a way of communication.
- Remove all the shortcuts for the social media apps.
Above helped me to limit the smartphone usage to some extent only..it didn't not completely take away my constant urge of taking it in hand and playing with it.. Then I found the this what I call as the ULTIMATE Mantra.
That is 'Monochrome Mode!’This is like the good old Black and White TV..
Reasons which are not known to me yet -the repetitive urge to take fiddle with the phone.. droped down to almost zero and trust me it is Magic!!!
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