I Made My Phone Better By Making It Boring

I owe someone an apology.

I’m obviously not the first person to write a post like this. But my apology is specifically to the author of a post I can no longer locate on the internet. I found it five or six years ago. I thought I saved it. Bookmarked it. Planned to go back.

It’s gone.

That post inspired my first real changes - ways to make my phone more boring and more useful. Small structural tweaks. Nothing extreme. But they loosened my tether to my phone and made it easier to engage with the world - my hobbies, my friends, nature, whatever was actually in front of me. Those changes have quietly improved my life and inspired more improvements over time.

So - great author of this lost work - my apologies. And thank you.

What follows is deeply inspired by that post: a practical guide to making your phone less addictive by changing a handful of settings. I’ve been using some version of this setup for about three years now.

This is not a manifesto for grey screens, call-only devices, or digital minimalism as a lifestyle. I admire that movement. But I still want to use my phone for everything it’s good at.

The thesis is simple: your phone’s default settings are designed to hold your attention. If you don’t change them, you’re playing defense.

Most people never touch the structure. The changes below remove many of the built-in techniques apps use to split your focus and weaken your control over how you interact with the attention economy.

If that sounds good, you can do all of this in under 30 minutes.

Make It Visually Boring

Turn Off Raise to Wake

By default, your screen turns on when you pick it up. That's crazy. You shouldn't be bombarded with your screen until you decided to engage with it. Turning this off puts in place a lovely small barrier that means you to check your phone by choice.

It's a delight to have it disabled.

iPhone
Settings → Display & Brightness → Raise to Wake → Off

Android
Settings → Display → Lock Screen → Lift to Wake → Off

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Make Your Backgrounds Boring

Set a solid black or white wallpaper on both your lock screen and home screen. No family photos. No beach vacation memories. No cool textures slowly shifting in trippy patterns.

This sounds harsh - and trust me, I love that photo of your dog too - but we’re already addicted to picking up and checking our phones. Removing visual stimulation helps reduce the pull.

Boring is calming. Tools are plain. Your hammer doesn’t have a vacation photo on it.

iPhone
Settings → Wallpaper → Add New Wallpaper → Color → Choose Black (or White) → Set for Lock Screen and Home Screen

Android
Long-press on Home Screen → Wallpaper & Style → Change Wallpaper → Colors (or Solid Color) → Choose Black (or White) → Apply to Home and Lock Screen

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Turn Off Almost All Notifications

If you change one thing on this list, make it this.

Keep calls (but only from people in your contacts), calendar alerts, reminders, 2FA, and critical family members. Allow favorites to break through if you choose.

Remove the ability of social, news, retail, games, and anything that says “someone liked your thing” to alert you via banner or home screen.

You should decide when you open apps not a bunch of nudges from apps.

iPhone
Settings → Notifications → Select App → Toggle Allow Notifications Off

Android
Settings → Notifications → App notifications → Select App → Toggle Off

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Remove Notification Badges

Those red bubbles are little attention-seekers. Subtle cues that you have more tasks waiting.

Removed them from every app (except maybe your Calendar) so you're interacting with apps on my your time.

What you'll find is that most notifications are not urgent. If it truly matters, someone will call twice.

iPhone
Settings → Notifications → App → Badges → Off

Android
Settings → Notifications → App Icon Badges → Off

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Filter Calls and Texts

This is one of my favorite newer features.

I’ve been waiting for this stuff for years, and it’s finally here.

You can filter texts to a view that only shows people in your contacts. No more spam. No more phishing.

iPhone
• Settings → Messages → Filter Unknown Senders → On
• In Messages, use the “Known Senders” view

You can also silence unknown callers:
• Settings → Phone → Silence Unknown Callers → On

Your phone becomes a tool for communication again - not an inbox for strangers.

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Rearrange Your Home Screen to Make It Boring

The rule: only useful and boring apps live on Page One. Make it look academic.

Notes, Calendar, Reminders, Camera, Maps, Banking, Kindle, Podcasts, Weather, Calculator, Music. That’s it.

Not Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter, or YouTube.

If you have to search for it, that’s friction. And friction is good.

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Remove Phone and Messages From Home Page

Yes, really.

I know it’s a phone. But removing them from the first page means you contact someone when you want to, not because you saw missed calls or wondered who you should text later.

You can still access them instantly by pulling down and typing. But if you see it, you think about it. If you think about it, you open it.

Let access be intentional.

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Move Everything Else to Page Two

Create folders - Social, Travel, Utilities, Finance, Health, Media - and push them back a page.

Out of sight. Not gone. Just not omnipresent.

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Use Focus Modes Aggressively

Use the system against itself.

Create Work, Sleep, Deep Work, and Weekend modes. Hide certain home screens. Silence almost everything. Allow only favorites to break through.

Most urgency is fake. Configure accordingly.

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Make It Grey After 7pm

Color is stimulation. Removing it at night makes it less engaging helping stop you from scrolling at night.

iPhone – Automatic Grayscale
1. Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters → On
2. Select Grayscale
3. Settings → Shortcuts → Automation → Create Personal Automation
4. Time of Day → 7:00 PM
5. Add Action → Set Color Filters → On
6. Create a second automation in the morning to turn it Off

After 7pm, your phone becomes dull.

Social apps look like spreadsheets. Photos lose their glow. Scrolling feels less rewarding.

You still can.

You just won’t want to as much.

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Upgrade the Camera

If your phone is an incredibly camera, but it can get better than it currently is out of the box with a few small changes. Here's a really great overview from a pro about how to take better iPhone photos. Below are my condensed suggestions.

iPhone

Turn on Grid
Settings → Camera → Grid → On

Set Video to 4K
Settings → Camera → Record Video → 4K at 24fps or 30fps

Turn on Preserve Settings
Settings → Camera → Preserve Settings → Enable Camera Mode, Exposure, Night Mode

Turn on HDR (Smart HDR is usually automatic)
Keeps highlights from blowing out and shadows from turning into mush.

Turn on Mirror Front Camera
Settings → Camera → Mirror Front Camera → On

Optional if you care more:
• Enable ProRAW (if you edit photos).
• Turn off Live Photos unless you use them.
• Enable Macro Control so it doesn’t auto-switch without you knowing.

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Android

Menus vary slightly, but look in Camera → Settings.

Enable Gridlines
Instantly improves composition.

Set Highest Video Resolution
Use 4K if available.

Turn on HDR
Better dynamic range. More usable photos.

Enable Pro Mode (if available)
Even if you rarely use it, it’s worth knowing it’s there.

Turn Off Excess Beauty Filters
You want real photos, not airbrushed faces.

Optional:
• Disable Motion Photo unless you actually use it.
• Set default lens if your phone auto-switches aggressively.

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Physical Friction Beats Digital Discipline

The most effective trick to making your phone boring is physical.

When doing hard work, put the phone in a drawer, another room, or at least face down and out of sight. Seeing it triggers thought. Keeping your vice close by makes it more likely you'll indulge, and nothing takes you out of deep work like half thinking you should check your DMs.

Design your environment accordingly.

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Final Boring Stuff

If it’s a tool, it should work when it matters.

Set Emergency Contacts. Enable Medical ID. Turn on Find My. Verify backups. Configure a Legacy Contact.

Not exciting. But these are critical to making the phone a really effective tool for your life.