Productivity tips: 4 ways to use your phone to be productive

Intro

Mobile phones are now a part of everyday life. We’re either using them for work, video calling our family on the other side of the world, or scrolling through the latest Instagram reels. I personally think mobile phones are brilliant. They offer us so many different benefits and most of us really couldn’t live without them. But we can’t ignore the fact that they can be a huge distraction and hinder us from making progress. Or being productive. How often have you told yourself you’ll only scroll socials for 10 minutes, and that 10 minutes turns into an hour?! Or you’ve been sitting down catching up on work then suddenly your phone starts buzzing with notifications. Then the work you were supposed to be doing is forgotten about. With hundreds of different productivity tips out there, were you aware you could use your phone productively too?

In this blog post, we discuss 4 productivity tips you can use with your phone to be more productive. From simple setting changes to tricking your social media algorithms, we’ve got you covered…

4 productivity tips for your phone

1. Set reminders

How often do we say to ourselves that we’ll make a mental note to do something important later in the day or after work only to completely forget about it? You remember that time your bins were overflowing because you forgot to take out the rubbish, don’t you? The human brain is amazing. But we simply can’t remember everything we need to do or said we’d do. Especially when our day-to-day lives are filled up with pointless requests from bosses. Or phone calls from friends off loading their latest news onto us. Our heads get clogged up with other information and we forget things.

A trick I use to remember all the tasks I need to do is to set reminders on my phone and put a time stamp on them. For example, so you don’t forget to take the bins out you can set a weekly reminder to remind yourself to do just that. ‘Every Wednesday at 19:00 put the bins out’. Or you’ve said you’ll call your mate Thursday evening for a catch-up: ‘On Thursday call Joe Bloggs at 18:00’. And when the time comes your phone will buzz and your reminder will pop up. This then jogs your memory and reminds you of what you need to do, and you get it done. Using reminders stops you from clogging up your brain trying to remember the million and one things you need to do. It also allows you to focus on the more important tasks in your life.

Ways to use this tip:

You can use reminders for pretty much anything. Want to update your CV after work? Set a reminder to do just that! Want to remind yourself to get your ass to the gym every Monday? Set a reminder with a motivational message every Monday! Give setting reminders a go and see how much more you can get done in the week. Unclog your brain with all the tasks you’ve made a mental note of now!

2. Set your social media up to inspire you to take action

If your news feed is anything like mine, it’ll be filled with funny videos, memes, and cute animal pictures. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing all these things. But they can also be a huge distraction and stop us from working on our important tasks. A 10-minute scroll can easily turn into an hour and so on.

As most of us now know, social media algorithms are set up in such a way that they fill our news feeds with what we enjoy watching. However, it isn’t hard to trick the algorithm into showing you more useful content, like motivational videos, productivity tips or mental health content. All you need to do is follow a few motivational pages, like a few inspirational videos, and comment on some mental health content you like. Then boom, the algorithm will do the rest and start showing you endless motivational videos. When you’re constantly seeing this type of content, it makes it hard to sit around endlessly scrolling.

How to use this tip:

Look, I get it. A lot of us use social media for pleasure. Or as a tool to unwind after a long day and love seeing the dumb things dogs do. And you might not want to change that. So, here’s my suggestion for you:

1.  Create a new social media account
2. Like and follow the types of pages I mentioned above to fill your feed with inspirational content
3. When you’ve got a busy day and lots to get done, set yourself a reminder to scroll your new feed for 10 minutes to help motivate you to get shit done!

3. Use app limitations

Apps are great. There is pretty much an app for everything nowadays. But the apps we seem to spend the most time on are things like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. And while I think these apps are brilliant for keeping in touch with friends, keeping us up to date with what is happening around the world, and showing us hilarious videos. They are set up in such a way that we find it increasingly difficult to put our phones down and work on something other than scrolling. But, if you’re spending more time than you would like scrolling and not enough time on our side hustle or project you’re completing for work. We can set app limitations to limit the amount of time we spend on those apps.

How to use this tip:

If you’re an iPhone user, head into your settings, go to screen time, and click app limits. There you can set limits on the amount of time you can use an app in a 24-hour period. When your time is up, a notification pops up and blocks you from using the app. I find when the message pops up and blocks the app, it motivates me to get up and do something different as I know I’ve spent enough time scrolling. If you’re someone who uses apps, especially social media, excessively and want to reduce your screen time, you can use app limits to do this too!

For tips on app limits on Android phones, check out this blog post.

4. Switch it off

Phones are great, but they can be a HUGE distraction. Especially when we’re trying to be productive! The notifications and message pings can make it extremely difficult to focus on the task at hand. It’s almost as if we simply can’t resist checking our phones when we hear or feel a notification go off. If you’re trying to sit down and focus on a piece of work or catch up with emails, I suggest you switch your phone off, and put it in a drawer. Or even better, put it out of the room you’re trying to work in. You’ve heard of the phrase, out of sight, out of mind? Well, it’s so true! When you remove something from your sight, it won’t take your brain long before it’s focused on something else (hopefully the work you’re trying to get done!). And by switching it off you won’t hear or feel the notifications go off, so you won’t be tempted to pick it up to check what’s going on.

How to use this tip:

You can use your phone as a reward system. When you switch it off, say to yourself ‘I’m going to do 30 minutes of undisturbed work, when the 30 minutes is up I can check my phone for 5 minutes’. Doing this gives you the incentive to complete your work as you know you’ve got a pleasurable reward at the end!

Summary of productivity tips:

1. Set reminders – Use reminders on your phone to remind yourself to do tasks like taking out the bins.
2. Set your social media up in a way that inspires you to take action – Go and follow shit loads of motivational and inspirational pages. This will fill your feed with that type of content, and it will make it hard to just sit around scrolling.
3. Use app limitations – Set yourself an amount of time you can use an app in a day. When your time is up your phone will block the app.
4. Switch it off – If you’re trying to work or catch up on emails, switch your phone off and put it out of sight.

Conclusion

With modern mobile phones, the possibilities are endless. With new apps and updates coming out weekly, there are so many ways to use your phone productively. Rather than just being a tool for entertainment. I suggest you give the productivity tips & tricks in this blog a go and see what works for you. Also, don’t be shy about exploring your phone’s settings and the app store to see what other cool productivity tips you can discover to benefit your life. When you’re aware you’re able to use your phone in such a way, it makes it a lot easier to do so! If you’re already using productivity tips on your phone that haven’t been written about here, let us know in the comments below.