How many times a day do you check your phone?

The other day, I picked up my phone to check the time. Just the time.

And twenty minutes later, I was still standing in my kitchen, having bounced from app to app through a chain of perfectly legitimate tasks that I never actually chose to do in that moment.

I wasn't scrolling mindlessly. I was checking my steps, signing up for a yoga class, responding to my husband's text, following up on a bank alert. And I still lost the thread of my own day.

That's what makes our relationship with phones so hard to examine. It's not all doomscrolling. Our phones are genuinely useful tools, and that's exactly why we never put them down.

We've adapted so completely to being constantly tethered to our devices that we've forgotten what it feels like to have a mind that isn't always being filled with input. We reach for our phones in every spare moment, not because we need to, but because we have two minutes to kill and our brains have been trained to say "phone" before we've made a conscious decision.

Something interesting has shifted in recent years, too. A lot of us have pulled back from posting on social media, but we haven't pulled back from our phones.

We've just become passive consumers instead of active participants, and the tethering hasn't loosened at all.

I dug into this on my YouTube channel in a video essay about why we keep reaching for our phones even when we don't mean to, and why it seems like all the real humans (as opposed to brands and AI bots) have stopped posting on social media.

And, in a recent episode of the Truth for Teachers podcast, I walk through three simple habits that have helped me reclaim my time and attention.

Here are the core ideas, so even if you don't have time to listen today, you can start making a shift right now.

Habit 1: Reconfigure your notifications so your phone stops bossing you around.

So much of our phone checking isn't even our choice. It's a response to a ping. You're on call for every app on your phone, all day long.

Try turning off notifications for everything except the people who truly need to reach you immediately. 99% of the apps on your phone should not be sending you alerts.

When you do this, you'll notice how much calmer you feel when your phone isn't constantly interrupting you. And when you finally check social media on your own terms, you'll see a bunch of interactions all at once, which actually feels more satisfying than reading each one as it trickles in. You're choosing when to engage instead of being summoned.

Habit 2: Create morning and bedtime routines that feel better than scrolling.

Starting your day by looking at social media or email makes you vulnerable to emotions you didn't choose. You could end up angry, anxious, or sad before your feet even hit the floor, and none of that was on your agenda for the morning.

And, scrolling before bed almost guarantees your brain will be activated at the exact moment you need it to wind down.

So try this: choose one thing that makes you feel grounded and do that first in the morning before you touch your phone. At night, try not looking at your phone after you get into bed. Just once. Notice how you sleep.

On the days you slip back into old habits (and you will), don't judge yourself. Just notice how you feel compared to the nights you didn't scroll. That awareness is what builds the motivation to keep going.

Habit 3: Let yourself be bored for 30 seconds instead of reaching for your phone.

This is the one that sounds the weirdest and might matter the most. Do you check your phone at stoplights? In line at the store? In an elevator?

Nothing satisfying can happen in a 30-second scroll. You'll either still be bored (and now also feeling a little empty), or you'll find something interesting you can't pay attention to because the moment has passed.

Try sitting with that boredom, just once. Let your mind wander. The first time it'll feel uncomfortable, because we've trained ourselves out of being present with our own thoughts. But over time, you'll notice your mind feels clearer, you're less frazzled, and ideas start surfacing on their own. That's what a human brain is supposed to do when you give it a little room. We've just forgotten, because we haven't given it room in years.

In the full episode of the podcast, I go deeper on all of this.

I share the most recent data on phone usage from the 2026 Reviews.org report, walk through how our apps are engineered to keep us engaged through intermittent rewards, personalization, and instant gratification, and talk about why doing this work alongside our students is so much more powerful than just enforcing phone policies at them:

Read the article or listen to the podcast

Want to actually put these three habits into practice?

I created a free 21-day Intentional Connectivity Challenge to help you do exactly that. It's one email per week for three weeks, each focused on building one of the three habits, with a follow-up weekly check-in to keep you on track.

Join the Intentional Connectivity Challenge

Enjoy!

Angela

P.S. If you want something more personalized, Motivation Lab is my coaching app that helps you understand how your brain works and build strategies that fit your natural tendencies. There's a module called Take Control of Your Phone Habits that walks you through exactly what I'm describing here, and it covers motivation, focus, and procrastination too, since our phone habits are tangled up with all of those things.

And if you want to bring this work into your classroom, my Finding Flow Solutions curriculum has units on focusing your attention and creating phone habits at the elementary, middle, and high school level. The lessons are ready to use, with student journals, slideshows, and discussion activities.