You might like the book Digital Minimalism. I’d also recommend the book Atomic Habits. There are some useful techniques mentioned in there.
Some things that got me to stop checking my phone were:
- turn off almost all of the notifications
- uninstall all but the most essential apps (when it doubt, delete it, especially if it’s social media)
- log out of all websites on the phone (I stay logged in to this one though.
) - use Firefox for Android, because it won’t automatically log you in to sites like Google Chrome will. It’s also less invasive than Chrome, and you can install a good ad-blocker in mobile Firefox.
- make the phone as boring and difficult to use as possible — my phone is so difficult to use that it feels like a chore to pick it up, and that frees up my time to do more useful things.
The end result was that there isn’t much to do on my phone, so it doesn’t fill my attention at all.
Two other techniques I’ve been using lately:
If something comes into my mind that I’m supposed to do, I’ll rapidly count down 54321 and then just do it before my mind can come up with an excuse on why I shouldn’t do it right away. I started doing that recently, and it’s working well.
The other method is a 5-minute rule. Pick something on your to-do list and tell yourself that you’re only going to do it for 5 minutes. Once you start doing it, it will often be easier to keep going with it than to stop. Also, even 5 minutes of doing something can be beneficial. Exercise is one example — 5 minutes of push-ups per day for a non-active person should produce good results.