I realised the multi-purpose device problem one evening when wanting to turn on my living room wifi-iot-light. I picked up my phone to use the light app, saw notifications, checked the news, checked some other things, put the phone down. A few minutes later, I remembered I wanted to turn the light on. Picked up the phone, saw notifications, checked the news, checked some other things, put the phone down. A few minutes later, I remembered the light, picked up the phone, started checking things, and thought wtf am I doing, I've just checked these apps twice already!? Stood dumbfounded and concerned at my obsession, then remembered, oh, the light! Distractions.
I've dealt with this by deleting all messaging apps from my phone, deleting all my socials, and not installing anything that isn't default to my phone. My phone looks like you just turned on a brand new iPhone. I only use it for texts/calls/calendar/email. Email notifs also turned off. Unsubscribed from netflix/spotify/x crap service and deleted their apps.
It's been bliss. I've been considering getting a landline and chucking this thing out the window as it is useless for me. After about 3 months I unlearned my old behaviour and can barely remember what I used to do on this thing 3+ hours a day.
Real addicts don’t need any specialized apps. I have a Pinephone with SXMO and no social/messaging apps (except a weird dmenu-centric Reddit client I never use) but my IRC and HN addictions are still fed by an eternally open terminal and browser (though I can close them with a swipe or squeeze, they inevitably rise again unscathed when I ssh back into the server where weechat lives in an immortal tmux or reopen Firefox and tap “Restore Session”).
This is exactly my issue. My OTP app is on my phone so I have to use it half a dozen times a day. I reduced notifications to the bare minimum (only messaging apps) but just checking one of them deviates me from the thing I was trying to achieve (get the OTP and go back to work) and it’s too late.
I haven’t tried the new "do not disturb" improvements in iOS 15 so maybe there’s something interesting there.
Edit: I just tried with the "at work" setting that allows you to disable notification badges and other things during work hours; let’s see how it goes.
Many apps are designed to do exactly this, so you outsmarted them by at least realizing they got to you... so don't feel bad about it. I have the same tendencies, and, at least for the smarthome stuff it is the reason I still want physical (albeit Hue/ZigBee) buttons everywhere (combined with automations based on time/events). I think this is also what the builders of Home Assistant strive for, I really like this piece (it has come up here many times so you may know it [0, 2016].
The number of times I've picked up my phone to do something, see a notification, and completely forget what I had picked my phone up to do 5 seconds later is mind boggling.
I started pruning the notifications that I allow quite aggressively because of it, but it's still a very regular issue.
the way I’ve dealt with this issue in the past is to put all my apps into one folder on the Home Screen (iPhone). Then the only practical way to access apps is by searching for them. So you have to remember why you went on your phone in the first place. I’ve slid back a bit, by not keeping on top of notification settings but generally it works.
