I recently discovered an alternative to these minimalist phones. On the iPhone I am able to setup “Focus” modes. You can tune which applications give notifications while in the focus mode. So when I’m in my work focus mode I block out notifications for all apps except Outlook and Teams. Then you can also adjust the focus mode to change your Lock Screen widgets and Home Screen layout. So you can prioritize the items you want to see.

Then additionally I setup screen time limits on social media sites like Instagram. I set a 30 min limit per day. Then if I want to bypass that limit I need to make a decision to do it.

I feel like these tools have let me wrestle back control of my device usage. Now I can’t get sucked into hours long Instagram scrolling sessions.