If you haven't already, I'd recommend setting up focus schedules and automations on your phone.

I've just done it recently, and it's been a game changer to avoid wasting time scrolling first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Here's how I did it.

(A bit of context: I’m on an iPhone, but I’d imagine these steps can all be done on Android as well. If anyone knows how, it'd be great if you could explain in the comments.)

1. Firstly, I’ve set up sleep mode in the Health app.

I’ve set my sleep schedule from 10pm - 7:30am. During this time, no notification alerts come through my phone.

To do this go to: Health → Sleep → Edit ‘Your Schedule’

Extra tip: you can adjust the volume of your alarm when done through sleep mode. Obviously ymmv, but I’ve found I can keep it pretty quiet. It still wakes me up, but I’m not jolted awake, so that alone leads to a better start to the day.

2. I’ve scheduled Do Not Disturb in the morning

At 7:30am, once sleep mode turns off, Do Not Disturb automatically comes on until 8:15am.

Usually, once you turn off the alarm at the end of sleep mode, all your notifications come through.

But this way, you have a 45 minute buffer (or however long you’d like). This has been great for me as it stops me from immediately getting distracted.

To do this go to: Settings → Focus → Do Not Disturb → Set a Schedule

Important: start the schedule whenever you’ve set sleep mode to end, and also, on that same ‘Do Not Disturb’ page, where it says ‘Allow Notifications’, click Apps and enable ‘Time Sensitive Notifications’. This way the alarm from sleep mode will still go off 😂

3. I’ve scheduled Black and White mode

I often heard people recommending black and white mode as a way to spend less time on their phone. Personally, I tried it, but I just didn’t like it - I don’t know, it just seemed more restrictive than I liked.

However, it definitely makes the phone less interesting, which is good if you want to spend less time on it.

Recently, I found out you can create an automation to turn it on and off, which has been the perfect compromise for me.

I’ve set it up so that at 8pm it comes on and it turns off at 8:15am, alongside Do Not Disturb.

Here’s the video I followed to set it up.

Definitely try these features out if you haven’t already!