Ask HN: How do you manage screen time?

Lately, not at all. My iPhone screen time has reached absurd heights.

Prior to social distancing - if your hobbies generally involve computers then of course this will be difficult, but some strategies of mine...

At work:

- Instead of taking calls in front of the computer, put on headphones and "walk and talk" - for me, a number of my calls are taken while pacing around a meeting room or my living room these days. Video calls I try to do standing up and at a distance from the screen; it doesn't feel like "screen time" in the same way.

- In a meeting, laptops closed and take notes on a notepad, write on a whiteboard, etc.

Coding side projects:

- Not much you can do here, but you can do a lot of the planning and architecture work on paper or a whiteboard

Learning/research:

- The environmentally unfriendly method here would be to print articles/topics and read about these topics on a physical piece of paper

- Something like a Kindle would be a much better solution to the above - it tries to mimick the experience of a book and feels less like a screen

- Or try to find books that discuss these topics. On Amazon or from a friend or from a library

In general:

- Most of my hobbies for the longest time were computer-based which led to long hours behind a computer screen, but I've started to shift my focus to non-digital hobbies, trying to minimise screen time as much as possible. My ultimate goal (when this is technically feasible) is to have only an Apple Watch (with AirPods) that I use day-to-day and a MacBook that I use for work as little as possible (an iPad would be nice but the outlook to support software development doesn't look short-term), and hopefully no phone (the Watch roadmap is slowly inching towards being self-sufficient for calls, music, notifications, etc.)

- Woodworking: instead of buying furniture I build it

- Fitness: great for both your physical and mental health

- Reading: non-fiction for learning (as discussed above, somewhat replaces online reading), fiction for entertainment (helps replace watching TV)

I could list a number of other non-screen hobbies but really just find what works for you. It's likely there's a way you can make that work without a screen.

Exercise outside, walk the dog, learn the piano, prepare meals. Most of the day is spent on front of the screen though, even learning the piano from YouTube so I don't have great answers for you. I don't really enjoy video calls with friends or family because it just means more screen time.

There are a few good options for androids.

Outside of all the normal methods, I've found a couple of the live wall papers via google to be a good in-your-face reminder to put the phone down (Ironically as I type this on my phone)..

I did have the 'number of unlocks' wallpaper, up until earlier this week where I changed it to the 'screen stopwatch'

https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/digitalwellbei...

I use a bunch of Chrome extensions to block out tantalizing content.

I use StyleBot to remove all YouTube recommendations and home page videos. I use Web Time Tracker to see how much time I spend on each website. I use BlockSite to block out YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, IG, etc -- I still go to the websites in Incognito but I am forced to log in every time I want to look at content.

I also have insanely long passwords which makes it even more of a pain in the ass to get to the content.

Removed all non essential apps from my phone helped. Non essential is subjective of course, but for me meant social media (I now only use 1 platform but on my laptop), YouTube was a massive time waster for me, Reddit. Another comment said take calls away from a screen by walking around and using a headset, that's a good one too.

Wake up, plunk kid in front of screen, plunk self in front of screen, shelter in place, rinse repeat