How to stop checking your phone at work, without willpower

The most reliable way to stop checking your phone at work is to put it out of reach, ideally in another room or a bag, and let a Focus hold its notifications until a time you choose. Then make the checks you still do less rewarding, with grayscale and a scheduled summary, and give your hand something else to do when it reaches.

Notice that willpower isn't on that list. Most phone checks aren't decisions at all. They are a reach that happens before you notice it, and you can't out-decide something you don't notice.

Why do you keep checking your phone?

A phone check is a habit with a very short loop. Something sets it off: a buzz, a pause in the work, a sentence that won't come, a moment of boredom. You pick the phone up. Sometimes there is something new, often there isn't, and that unpredictability is often said to be a large part of what keeps you coming back.

Many checks start with no signal from the phone at all. People tend to reach for it at moments of friction in their own work, the same moments that send them to a feed on the Mac. The phone offers a few seconds of relief from a task that is hard or dull. The task is still there when you put it down, and now you have to find your place in it again.

That restart is the real damage. A glance takes seconds, but settling back into hard work takes longer, and a few dozen glances a day cut the day into short pieces. Switching between tasks explains why those restarts add up.

How many times a day do you check your phone?

Before you change anything, count. On iPhone, Screen Time keeps the numbers once it is on.

1. Open Settings > Screen Time. Switch on App & Website Activity if it isn't already, then leave it for a few normal workdays.
2. Tap See All App & Website Activity.
3. Scroll to Pickups. It shows how many times you picked the phone up, and the first app you opened after each pickup.
4. Look at Notifications just below it, to see which apps call you most.

The exact labels can shift a little between iOS versions. The two things worth reading are the pickup count during working hours and the first app after a pickup. If most pickups lead straight to one app, that app is your target. If most follow a notification, start with notifications.

Where should your phone be while you work?

Out of reach, and ideally out of sight. A phone face down on the desk is still on the desk: you see its edge, you feel it buzz, and picking it up takes one hand and no thought. A widely cited 2017 study found that people scored slightly lower on tests of working memory and reasoning when their silenced phone sat face down on the desk than when it was in another room. Later attempts to repeat it have had mixed results, so treat it as a hint, and test it on yourself for a week.

• Another room is best. Leave it charging in the kitchen or the hall while you work.
• A bag or a drawer is good. Anything that adds a zipper, a lid or a few steps.
• Behind you beats in front of you. If it must stay at the desk, put it out of your line of sight.
• Move its jobs to the Mac. Messages on the Mac can show your texts (for green-bubble texts, turn on Text Message Forwarding in the iPhone's Messages settings). With Calls From iPhone turned on in FaceTime's settings on the Mac, calls can ring there too. The fewer reasons you have to keep the phone close, the easier it is to leave it.

If you worry about missing an emergency, set that up on purpose with the next step, instead of keeping the phone in your hand all day.

How to quiet your phone at work with Focus

A Focus on iPhone decides who and what can reach you, and when.

1. Open Settings > Focus and choose Work. If you don't see it, tap the add button and pick Work.
2. Under People, allow only the few who might need you urgently, such as family or your child's school. Everyone else waits.
3. Leave Allow Repeated Calls on, if your phone shows it, so anyone who calls twice within a few minutes gets through.
4. Under Apps, allow only what your job truly needs on the phone, or nothing.
5. Add a schedule so it turns on by itself on weekday mornings, or switch it on from Control Center.
6. Turn on Share Across Devices on the main Focus page. Then turning on Work at your Mac quiets the phone as well.

In recent versions of iOS, a Focus can also show a chosen Home Screen page. A page with only work tools on it, and no feeds, makes an idle unlock much less interesting.

Make each check less rewarding

Some checks will still happen. You can make them duller.

Batch notifications into a summary

In Settings > Notifications > Scheduled Summary, pick the apps that rarely need you right away, such as shopping, news and social apps, and one or two times a day to hear from them. They arrive together, at a time you chose, instead of one buzz at a time. Back on the main Notifications screen, setting Display As to Count shows only a number on the Lock Screen, with no previews to pull you in.

Does grayscale help?

Color is part of what makes app icons and feeds so easy to look at. A gray screen is noticeably less interesting.

1. Open Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters.
2. Switch Color Filters on and pick Grayscale.
3. For a quick switch, go to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut and choose Color Filters. A triple-click of the side button (or the Home button, on older iPhones) then turns it on and off.

It doesn't suit everyone, and photos look grim. Try it for a working week and keep it only if you check less.

Move the pull apps out of sight

Put feed apps in a folder on the last Home Screen page, or remove them from the Home Screen so they live only in the App Library. A few extra swipes are often enough to turn an automatic check into a choice.

Phone-free blocks, and what to do with the reach

Trying not to touch your phone for a whole day is hard. Not touching it for 25 or 50 minutes is much easier, especially when you know exactly when you can.

1. Pick a block length. 25 minutes is a common start; 50 suits deeper work.
2. Put the phone away at the start of the block, out of reach.
3. At the end, check it on purpose for a few minutes. Then put it back for the next block.

Knowing a check is coming takes the edge off not checking. If you already work in Pomodoro rounds, the phone check fits in the short break between them. Most people find nothing urgent was waiting, which makes the next block easier.

The reach will still come, mostly at the same moments of friction. Give those moments a different small habit that takes as little effort as picking up the phone:

• Write the thought down. Often the reach is a stray thought, such as "I should reply to Sam". Keep a pad or an open note and put it there instead. It is safe, and you can deal with it at the end of the block.
• Look far away. Find something across the room or outside and let your eyes stay there for a few breaths.
• Take a sip of water, or stand up and refill the glass.
• Explain the problem out loud. If you are stuck, say what you are trying to do in one or two sentences. Programmers call this rubber duck debugging, after the habit of explaining code, line by line, to a rubber duck on the desk. The next step often shows itself halfway through the sentence.

Expect the urge to fade slowly rather than all at once. Habits weaken when they stop paying off, not when you scold yourself for them.

Where your Mac fits in

Notchpals lives on the Mac, so it can't see your phone or count your pickups. What it can do is mark where a phone-free block begins and ends. If your crew has a Focus character, click the Notchpals eyes in the menu bar and start a focus session, 25 or 50 minutes long. Debug, the rubber duck, is the one who sees you off:

DebugBegin. If you get stuck, explain it to me slowly. Usually that's enough.

Until the timer runs out, the rest of the crew waits its turn. Focus moments still come, and so would a warning that the battery is about to die or that a meeting starts in a few minutes. When the session ends the duck is back, and that is a natural moment for your one planned look at the phone.

One more overlap. If the habit migrates to the Mac, through the desktop apps for WhatsApp, Telegram or Messenger, the Focus character also runs a scrolling check: twenty minutes straight in one of those apps brings Debug down to call you back. The app list is fixed and doesn't include browsers, so think of it as a tap on the shoulder, not a lock on the door.