7 Tips to Limit Screen Time and Get Rid of Distractions

6:47 a.m.
Your alarm goes off. Before your feet touch the floor, before you fully open your eyes, your hand is already reaching for your phone.

Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
The average American now spends over 7 hours a day in front of screens – more time than most people spend sleeping. For Gen Z, it’s closer to 9 hours a day. We’re literally watching our lives slip through our fingers, one notification at a time, one swipe after another.

Why Should We Actually Limit Screen Time?

If you’re wondering how to reduce screen time in a meaningful way, it helps to understand what excessive screen use actually does to us.

Excessive screen time damages your body and mind in systematic, measurable ways. Physically, it leads to digital eye strain, chronic neck, shoulder, and back pain caused by poor posture. Studies show it increases the risk of depression and anxiety. Adolescents who spend 5+ hours a day on devices have a 70% higher risk of suicidal thoughts.

It disrupts sleep, lowers attention span, reduces creativity, and weakens problem-solving skills. Socially? It leads to isolation, loneliness, and in extreme cases, addiction patterns similar to gambling.

And yet, most attempts to decrease screen time fail within just a few days.

Why?

Because most advice treats the problem as a matter of willpower.
“Just put your phone down.”
“Be more disciplined.”
“Try harder to control yourself.”

That’s not how the human brain works.

Your brain is wired to seek instant rewards and apps and social media are designed around exactly that. You’re fighting perfectly optimized algorithms with sheer determination. That’s like trying to stop a train with your bare hands.

What you really need isn’t more willpower.
You need a system, strategies that work with your brain, not against it.

So, How Do You Limit Screen Time?

Below are practical, realistic tips for reducing screen time that don’t rely on self-control alone.

1. Replace, Don’t Restrict

Most advice on how to reduce screentime starts with prohibition: “Don’t look at your phone.”
But bans are a red flag for the brain – forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter.

Instead, offer your brain a better alternative. When something genuinely interesting (or at least mildly engaging) is within reach, the urge to grab your phone weakens naturally.

How to do it in practice:
Prepare a specific replacement for common situations.

• If you automatically reach for your phone while waiting for the subway or elevator, try a short podcast, a few pages of a book, or simply observing your surroundings.
• If you mindlessly scroll at home in the evening out of boredom, keep a “boredom jar” on the table – a jar filled with slips of paper listing offline activities: a quick walk, sudoku, drawing, tidying up, reading, or a short stretch. When boredom hits, draw one slip and do it.

The brain loves rewards and variety.
Give it better options than endless scrolling, and it won’t feel the need to fight itself.

2. “Park” Your Phone

Start treating your phone like it’s attached to a leash.

Choose a specific parking spot at home – a charging station in the hallway or a basket in the living room – and always leave your phone there when you come in. When your phone isn’t constantly within reach, you’ll check it far less often without even trying.

If you tend to use your phone in bed or while working, place its parking spot outside those zones. Mornings will no longer start with scrolling, and evenings won’t be interrupted before sleep.

A great trick is a “phone jail” during meals. Everyone puts their phones in one place so you can focus fully on the food and the people around you.

This strategy works surprisingly well. Physical distance from your phone creates mental distance too. After a few days, you may realize you don’t miss it nearly as much and that being present feels easier than you expected.

3. Use Technology to Beat Technology

Many people look for how to get around screen time limits, but the real shift happens when you stop bypassing limits and start using them strategically.

There are plenty of apps that genuinely help reduce screen time. One of them is AppBlock. It lets you decide when and which apps get blocked, so you’re no longer relying solely on motivation. The Strict Mode is especially powerful, it prevents you from bypassing limits in moments of weakness.

In other words, the app holds your boundaries for you, even when your motivation runs out.

4. Schedule Focus Blocks

If you struggle with ADHD or feel like screens constantly pull you back in, deep focus can feel almost impossible.

Instead, try short, clearly defined focus blocks – 15 or 20 minutes of working on a single task while your phone stays in its parking spot. After each block, take a short, planned break (five minutes to stretch, grab water, or take a quick walk).

It also helps to keep your hands busy – a stress ball, gum, or even a pen to fidget with. Small physical distractions can reduce the urge to grab your phone.

Don’t expect an hour of perfect focus.
Short, intense blocks are often far more effective.

5. Turn Off Unnecessary Notifications

Notifications quietly steal your attention and are often the main reason you keep reaching for your phone. Go through your apps and ask yourself:
Do I really need to know immediately about every Instagram like or online store discount?

If you want to go further, block notifications in bulk using AppBlock. You can schedule notification-free time during work, in the evening, or even for the entire weekend.

Silence is a powerful productivity tool.

6. One Screen at a Time

A movie is playing while you scroll your phone.
You’re working with ten tabs open, bouncing between them.

The brain isn’t built for multitaskin, it just switches rapidly, which exhausts you and kills focus.

Adopt a simple rule: One screen at a time.

Decide upfront what you’re about to do. Opening your laptop to find a recipe? Great, resist clicking on messages along the way. If something catches your attention, quickly save it for later (notes, bookmarks, or emailing yourself a link) and return to your original task.

Choose rest consciously. Want to spend an hour scrolling on the couch? Totally fine, as long as it’s a deliberate choice, not accidental procrastination.

Create physical barriers. Watching a movie? Leave your phone in another room. Working? Close unnecessary tabs.

It’s not about restriction, it’s about choosing where your attention goes.

7. Design Your Environment

There’s an old rule: Change your environment, change your habits.

It applies to your kitchen (fruit on the counter, cookies in the pantry) and it applies to your phone.

Your brain loves color. Red notification badges and colorful app icons are designed to pull you in. Take away their power by switching your phone to grayscale mode. Suddenly, Instagram and TikTok look about as exciting as an old newspaper.

Just like you wouldn’t leave chips on the counter while trying to lose weight, don’t keep your biggest time-wasters on your home screen. Leave only essential apps – calendar, notes, maps, banking. No social media.

Move procrastination apps (social media, games, messaging) into a folder on the second or third screen. That extra step alone creates a pause – just enough to ask yourself: “Do I really want to open this right now?”

Offline Is the New Luxury

Ironically, at a time when we carry the most advanced technology in human history in our pockets, we’re learning how to use it less.

The goal isn’t to reject technology, but to shape it so it serves you, not the other way around.

On average, we spend up to 70 days a year on our phones. Every small change, reorganizing apps, disabling notifications, gives some of those days back and returns control over your time and attention.

Decide consciously how you spend your most valuable resources.

Sources

1. Study Finds Addictive Screen Use, Not Total Screen Time, Linked to Youth Suicide Risk.
   Weill Cornell Medicine Newsroom [online]. Accessed July 25, 2025.
   Available at: https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2025/06/study-finds-addictive-screen-use-not-total-screen-time-linked-to-youth-suicide-risk
2. The Hazards of Excessive Screen Time: Impacts on Physical Health, Mental Health, and Overall Well-Being.
   PMC (PubMed Central) [online]. Accessed July 25, 2025.
   Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10852174/
3. Time Spent Using Smartphones (2025 Statistics).
   Exploding Topics [online]. Accessed July 25, 2025.
   Available at: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-usage-stats