Want To Reduce Your Screen Time Even More?

A new way to augment Before Launcher’s screen time reduction features

If you are a user of the Before Launcher we hope you have tried both the minimal Homescreen and the notification filter — many users have made a point of letting us know how those two features have changed their life for the better: more time, more focus, and engagement in what is truly important. We continue to work on similarly helpful-but-passive features for the Before Launcher but…

A few weeks ago a user sent in an email asking if there was anything else they could do to engage even more with their own life by further reducing the time spent looking their phone. I pointed out some other ways to customize Before Launcher’s appearance and operation* but I took it as an additional challenge to go off and see if there was a different way to think about this. It seemed to me I shouldn’t always limit myself to what a launcher can do.

In my process of looking for new methods of reducing screen time I recalled some of the typical device wellness solutions such as turning your phone face down, using a pomodoro timers and carrying around a piece of wood shaped like a phone; I also recalled how I thought nearly all of those ways would have zero chance of working for me (and, I guessed, zero chance for most other people).

Around this same time I started to get personally concerned about a new habit I picked up: watching Facebook Reels. Don’t hate me; I mean, who doesn’t want to see the Red Hot Copper Ball in their latest starring role? As you can imagine, it wasn’t just the RHCB because I was just going from one Reel to the next, each one just interesting enough to trick me into giving away my attention to Facebook. Just the way Facebook wanted it and it started to feel dumb.

Here’s what I did…I quit watching Facebook Reels; yes, I just quit. I still check on what is happening with my friends and family on my Facebook feed but I don’t tap those Reel play buttons anymore and it worked! Here’s why I chose this, why I think it worked and why it has a big payoff:

• First, as it was a pretty new habit it was easier to give up. I could easily recall the time when I lived without Reels because it was just not that long ago
• Second, I realized this was a relatively new digital trap and it was likely to be even more addictive and capture even more data about me. That realization became a motivator each time I saw an interesting Reel pop up.

The specific idea here: identify your own most-recently acquired bad habit and stop…just quit. You can do it! We believe in you!

Wait! What if you know you don’t have that type of self-control? Here is an additional thing to try: hide the app (a Before Launcher Pro feature); when an app is hidden you can still get to it by using search (or unhiding) but this hiding may be enough of a speed bump to slow you down and give you a chance to engage the rational part of your mind. For sure, apps are getting more app-dictive and the best of those actually have some worthwhile utility; hiding creates a way to have the functionality without entirely surrendering your attention. If you do use Before Launcher’s hide feature give some thought to how you want to handle notifications from hidden apps (configure in Settings->Notification Filter).

Here’s hoping you will find it easy-ish to leave behind something you lived without. Let us know how it goes… we’d love to hear what works for you (see below).

*An example of a passive operational change in Before Launcher Pro is to hide apps that are tempting to launch but configure them to allow notifications to go through the filter.

To learn more about who we are, check us out at Before Labs. To download the Before Launcher, click this link.

If you have other ideas or comments of any type feel free to email us at: feedback@beforelabs.com