The objective of creating a minimalist phone setup is to reduce unnecessary screen time and avoid getting sucked into different social media rabbit holes. The goal is to create intentional interaction between you and your device.
Remove Unnecessary Apps#
If you have apps that you do not use regularly, remove them. Many of us have unused apps that we have forgotten even exist on our devices. These apps take up space and sometimes keep pinging different services or servers at regular intervals. This is not only a privacy issue but also slowly drains battery life.
The battery life difference between a phone with many apps and one with only essential apps is bigger than you might think.
Remove everything you have not used in over a month. If you need them again, you can always download them later. The fewer distractions you have on your device, the better.
You can also use a minimal launcher, such as Dumbify for Apple or Niagara for Android. When you see fewer apps on your home screen, you are less likely to subconsciously open addictive apps.
Turn Off Notifications#
Notifications were originally designed to grab your attention for time-sensitive things like phone calls or important messages. Today, notifications have lost that meaning. We are now shown notifications for the most trivial things simply to get us to open an app and spend half an hour scrolling through irrelevant content.
People who receive a lot of notifications are usually more prone to stress and anxiety. They also train themselves to live with constant FOMO, which makes it difficult to turn notifications off.
You can save yourself from attention-sapping doom scrolling by simply disabling notifications.
Keep notifications enabled only for phone calls and messages from friends and family.
Remove Social Media#
Remove social media apps from your phone. There is no need to have Instagram, Facebook, and similar apps installed. If you really need to check your accounts, you can do so from a computer. The same applies to other social media platforms.
Most of us spend far too much time on social media apps, and everyone knows it. The easiest fix is to remove them from your device entirely.
If for some reason you cannot delete apps like Facebook or Instagram, some smartphones come with them preinstalled and provide no official way to remove them. This is often done deliberately to encourage usage. However, you can still remove them using a universal debloater or the ADB Android debloater. This may require some technical know-how, but there are plenty of videos available on the topic. Remember, this is a one-time effort that can save you a lot of time in the long run.
Find Hobbies#
After the smartphone boom, many of our hobbies disappeared. People once had hobbies that they spent their free time on or deliberately made time for. Now, for most of us, that time is spent passively watching reels, videos, TV series, or movies.
Hobbies no longer seem as appealing. Painting or drawing does not feel as enjoyable. Gardening or yoga feels less relaxing than it used to. The list goes on.
This is largely due to dopamine overload. The small, random dopamine hits provided by social media slowly damage our reward system. Over time, we struggle to enjoy hobbies as we once did because they require effort, thought, and time. Social media, on the other hand, delivers dopamine with a simple flick of a finger.
To fall in love with your hobbies again, you need to remove social media and the constant dopamine stimulation you have grown accustomed to.
Get a Dumbphone#
If all of the above fails and you keep reinstalling social media apps and falling back into old habits, the easiest solution is to get rid of your smartphone entirely. Instead, use a dumbphone. A simple flip phone or feature phone is often enough. If you need UPI payments, there are dumbphones available that support this functionality.
If you do not have the device itself, the chances of falling back into old habits become negligible.
Over time, you will adapt to this new lifestyle and may find that you no longer need a smartphone at all.
For more resources, check out Digital Minimalism.
My personal phone screen looks like this:
Citation#
- People with higher FoMO tend to have more disrupted activities due to notifications and feel compelled to respond immediately, linking notification disruption with anxiety-related behaviors
- A meta-analysis on FoMO and mobile phone addiction found a strong positive correlation between fear of missing out and problematic phone use
- Students with higher FoMO are associated with excessive smartphone use and poorer sleep quality
- Silencing smartphones leads to increased stress for many people
