Just about everyone has a smartphone these days, but it takes a little know-how and self-awareness to use it in a productive way. Instead of your smartphone turning into a time-wasting device, you can use it to get more work done and reduce your stress levels in the workplace. Here are three helpful tips you can implement to use your smartphone in a better, more productive way.
Focus on Productivity Over Distractions
This might seem relatively obvious, but choosing productivity over distraction can go a long way toward making you more efficient with your smartphone. Your home screen likely contains several social media applications like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Facebook. These five apps make up about 70 percent of the 3.8 trillion hours spent on applications in 2021. While you could be using these apps productively, more often than not, you’re probably wasting time on them.
You can boost your productivity by taking these applications off your home screen and replacing them with applications that might allow you to get more work done throughout the day, or apps that are simply more functional, like current events apps, wellness applications, and so on. You’ll still get used to the new locations of your social media apps, but if you make them more challenging to access, you’ll use them less.
Limit Your Notifications (Or Turn Them Off Entirely)
Getting bothered by notifications all day is sure to kill your productivity. On average, it takes about 23 minutes to get back to the original task if you are distracted by a notification. Despite this, people still dislike silencing their notifications, mostly because they tend to rely on them. Still, it’s amazing to think that something like notifications can reduce your productivity by over 30 percent.
If you struggle to focus on work when your notifications are active, you can put your phone in Do Not Disturb mode. It’s easy to find on both iOS and Android devices, and it can make a major difference in the way you approach your work.
Limit Your Scrolling to Outside of Work
There are moments when you might check your phone in-between meetings or on your lunch break, responding to messages, or browsing social media. While these brief moments of respite are necessary, they shouldn’t be happening on the clock or during a meeting–especially if productivity is one of your main concerns.
It’s very easy to get lost on the Internet after falling down the rabbit hole, so we urge smartphone users to be mindful of how much empty time they spend on their mobile devices. Doing so can only improve your business and productivity practices.
We all know that smartphones are immensely valuable to the success of any business, but in order to make them so, we need to keep distractions in check so productivity can flourish. What are your thoughts on smartphone productivity? Do you plan to implement any of these practices in your own device use? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.
