Just from general discussions, I get the idea that most people have a love-hate relationship with their smartphones. They love the abundance of things they can get to do nowadays because of these pocket rockets. Unfortunately -on the flip side of things- most of us seem to hate the fact that simply putting our phones down is harder than ever. Smartphones have almost become a guilty pleasure that gives us so much access but equally takes so much away from us.
I know they are already some of you already saying “how hard can it be to just put down your phone and focus?” Well, my friend if you’re one of those people then great for you but addictive traits are not simply just left and you have to unlearn some of these habits. Anyway, mini-rant aside, let’s talk about how a very simple application could help you unplug and get less distracted by your phones.
Flipd has one main goal. Ensuring that you stay focused and they go about that in a couple of interesting ways…
What can you do?
You can fully lock yourself out of your phone for a number of minutes to hours depending on what works for you. In full lock mode, the only things you are left to access are the essential apps. You have messaging, calling, music, calendar, the camera. Google maps, and whatever note-taking app you have. The thinking behind leaving these open is that with these apps you’re most probably doing something productive or necessary as compared to WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter or whatever other social apps you use. If you try to open an app outside these applications it will just close the app and come back to the Flipd application.
Using Flipd you can also track time you spend studying, reading, sleeping which gives you a greater view of your general wellbeing. That’s one of the great things about these computers we walk around with. They allow us to do so much more than just scrolling through timelines the entire day and the amount of data you can get from this application can really be life-changing. We’ve all heard countless times that time is money and having this headmaster of sorts looking over you and controlling how you dedicate your time could really be the thing that gets you on the right path.
You can also set reminders to “Flip Off” which essentially means if you have a specific time you want to time out from using your phone you can set the app to remind you just before. That way you don’t have to pretend that because you missed the specific time you were going to dedicate by two minutes you’ll now do it tomorrow.
Or you’re on a date or eating out with family and friends you can just lock yourself out of the non-essential apps and be in that moment. For those of you who love taking pictures you still have access to your camera so it ain’t no problem!
Strength in numbers
There are also a number of groups you can join. There’s nothing like knowing that there are other people having the same problems as you. Knowing that you’re not the only human being having trouble putting your phone down can be pretty comforting and what’s even more comforting is the fact that you’re now part of this community working on fixing that.
You can either create your own group or you can join a number of existing groups.
Picture this…
Every day before you go to bed you tell yourself that you won’t start the next day by reflexively reaching out for your phone and going on WhatsApp or Twitter. But every morning you do exactly that. With Flipd you really could just reach out and put your phone in full lock and do whatever it is you set out to do. Be it exercise, read, write. Whatever you want.
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