How to reduce screen time

Why it sticks

Screens fill whatever time is unclaimed. Nobody plans four hours of phone and TV. It accumulates in the ten minutes before leaving, the stretch after dinner, the hour you meant to go to bed. A daily total is hard to act on because it has no cue attached. The hours that matter each have their own cue, and they are where you get time back.

How to reduce screen time

1. Pick the hour you want back

   Look at your week and choose one block of screen time you would rather spend on something else, like 9 to 10pm or the commute. Write down what you would do with it. That is the target, and the daily total can follow.

2. Put the replacement where the screen was

   If the hour is after dinner, the book goes on the sofa and the remote goes in a drawer. If it is the commute, the podcast is downloaded the night before. The replacement has to be easier to reach than the screen.

3. Turn off autoplay everywhere

   Netflix, YouTube and most other apps play the next thing unless you tell them not to. Switching it off in each app's settings takes five minutes. After that, every episode ends with a decision instead of a countdown.

4. Set Downtime for the evening

   Screen Time, Downtime blocks all but the apps you allow from a set hour. Choose the start of the hour you picked. Bypassing it is easy, which is fine, since the point is to make continuing a choice you notice.

5. Make one room screen-free

   The bedroom is the usual pick, the kitchen table is the easiest. One room where screens do not go gives you a place to be when the hour starts. Tell anyone you live with, so it is a house rule.

6. Track the hour you picked

   Record whether the hour you picked went to the thing you planned. The total will fall as a side effect. Chasing the total directly turns every day into a small failure, and that is the fastest way to give up.

What to track instead

A row that only records the habit not happening gets a tick on the days you were never tempted, and tells you nothing on the day it mattered. Give the row to the replacement:

• Screen-free hour after dinner
• Read 20 minutes
• Autoplay off
• No screens in the bedroom
• Evening walk

Print a tracker with these 5 habits or open them in a spreadsheet.

Your first week

1. Day 1. Look at Screen Time and pick the one hour you want back.
2. Day 2. Write down what goes in that hour and set it up where the screen was.
3. Day 3. Turn off autoplay in every streaming app you use.
4. Day 4. Set Downtime to start at the beginning of your hour.
5. Day 5. Choose your screen-free room and tell the house.
6. Day 6. Spend the hour on the replacement and tick it.
7. Day 7. Check the week. If the hour held four times, add a second one.