MINIMALIST PHONE SETUP FOR ANDROID
What My Minimalist Phone Looks Like — The Android Version
What I do to prevent my phone from controlling me.
I recently came across an interesting article on The Startup by Megan Holstein called “What My Minimalist Phone Looks Like”, and I felt that I could add on to this by showing what an Android version could look like.
I first started looking into this about 2 months ago, when I realised that due to being stuck inside all the time, I was using my phone a lot more than usual, to the point where I would often have to charge my phone about two times a day. I identified that the issue with my phone was that I had it set up in such a way that the friction between having an impulse to check Instagram (for example) and doing the action was far too little. I then realised that I had to minimalise my phone setup in order to reduce my usage.
Homescreen
To start off with, Android is miles ahead of iOS in terms of customisation, so it is generally easier to block certain apps and icons to keep yourself focussed.
For my particular setup, I have been using the new Ratio launcher by Blloc. I’ve already talked about it here, but to give a quick rundown — it’s a cool new launcher by Blloc that has minimalism and intentional phone use in mind, just what I was looking for.
As you can see above, the way that Ratio is designed is with minimalism in mind. It’s got a clean, minimalist look, without too much clutter, and I have all my apps sorted into different categories, with the ones that I use for productivity and are essentials being in the section ‘essentials’.
- Calendar — For seeing what I have ahead.
- Camera — Self-explanatory.
- Forest — A pomodoro timer app that locks me out of certain apps and sets a tree to grow; if I use my phone in that time period, the tree dies.
- Notion — My note-taking app (I’ve talked about it here).
- Office Lens — An app I use for scanning documents (more on it at number 4 in this article I wrote earlier).
- Ratio Settings, Settings — The app for homescreen settings and the device settings.
- Todoist — My to-do list app of choice.
- Phone, Messages — Self-explanatory.
- Medium — You’re on it right now!
These are the apps that help me the most throughout the day not only to connect with other people, but also to be more productive and do more of what’s important to me.
The other apps that are on my device are hidden in the other folders, and often times I don’t go into the folders, simply because the homescreen gets cluttered up, meaning that (unintentionally) the launcher forces me to use certain apps less. When I do need an app, however, I can use the search bar at the bottom to quickly locate an app.
Something interesting that this specific launcher (Blloc Ratio) does is that it shows on each app icon how much I used that specific app for. What I find this does is that every time I go to click on an app icon, the minute count is right in my face (on the icon) and it forces me to think about whether I really need to access the app at that very moment.
Speaking on app icons, I’ve also gone into the launcher settings and hidden certain icons from all the drawers, so that its harder for me to get access to them (I am still able to search them).
Widgets
The good thing about the Blloc Ratio is that it has some clean, integrated options for widgets on the homescreen. In particularly, the widgets that I use (from top to bottom) are the weather widget, a timer widget, and a quick note widget. Unfortunately due to the Blloc Ratio still being in early development, a good 95% of third party widgets that we know and love with Android don’t work, but hopefully this is something that we will see with updates to Blloc Ratio.
I chose these three specific widgets based on the fact that they provide me the most value on a day to day basis.
Notifications
One of the main reasons we get on to our phones and waste time in the first place is due to notifications — getting a DM perhaps, and then going on to waste time on Instagram for half an hour.
So, to combat this, I’ve got notifications turned off on virtually every app except for some important exceptions, with those being the phone app, messages, system notifications, and various playback notifications.
What I’ve found is that the amount of times that I check my phone, looking for notifications has decreased dramatically because a) I don’t have any notifications tapping me on the shoulder and b) I am aware that notifications are turned off, meaning that there is no need to be constantly checking my phone.
Social Media
On the topic of notifications, one of the app categories that gives the most notification are social media apps. This is why I have deleted certain apps (the Twitter app) and turned off notifications for others that I need on a day to day basis (Instagram). Doing this, I’ve found certain benefits that I didn’t expect.
For example, I only use Twitter for the purpose of this publication (you can find it here) and after deleting it on my phone and only using it on my laptop, I quickly realised that, as weird as it sounds to say it, I was more productive on Twitter in getting posts out. Plus, Twitter on desktop is a better experience overall in my opinion.
As for the notification disabled apps, I approached them with a batching style such as the one that Tim Ferriss uses for emails in The 4-Hour Workweek (fantastic read by the way) in the sense that I allocate blocks of time throughout the day in which I take care of messages. This allows me to batch the messages in the day, instead of constantly checking my phone.
Some Extra Stuff
I’ve been using the Digital Wellbeing features that are in Android 9 and older, and they’ve been particularly useful for setting time limits on apps. Now with my minimalist setup, I don’t use the apps as often, meaning I don’t need the limit, but for someone starting to untether from their phone, I could easily see why the limits would be helpful.
One thing that I’ve done that most people might not want to do is keep all my entertainment apps on my phone. As Megan Holstein says in her article,
“[One of the steps] is to delete all your annoying phone games and replace them with educational phone games like Duolingo and Brilliant.”
For me personally, I’ve found that I have enough self control to be able to keep my entertainment apps on my phone and use them sparingly, for say, the occasional TV show on Netflix. However, I could see how this might not work as well for other people, which is why I would recommend deleting your entertainment apps at your own discretion — and if you do, you can take advantage of the extra space by getting educational apps, or other forms of entertainment that will bring you value.
The custom launcher that I’m using for this setup (Blloc Ratio) has the ability to greyscale apps at my discretion. This means that I’m able to greyscale apps such as Instagram, which are engineered to be “infinity pools”as they are called by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky in the book “Make Time”. By greyscaling these apps, it acts as a trigger to make me think about why I am using my phone at that very moment, and overall helps me avoid unnecessary use.
For an in-depth look on the Blloc Ratio launcher, take a look here.
How well has my setup worked?
Overall, I’ve found that decluttering my phone and setting it up in the way that I have mentioned has led to me being more intentional with my phone use, meaning that I not only use it less, but whenever I do use it, it brings me value or joy.
This setup is always going to be evolving, but I think that as a whole, I’m in a much better place with my phone use than I was a couple of months ago.
My minimalist phone setup has taken a while to get to, and I’m sure that there are more things that could be improved on. But for now, it’s helping me be more intentional with my life. I hope that this gives you inspiration on what to do with your own phone setup, and how to declutter your phone.
Disclaimer: All links to Amazon or other products are not affiliate links ; I was not sponsored by anyone to talk about any software or books that I may have mentioned.
Credit to Megan Holstein for the inspiration with her version of this article which you can find here.
Links:
