One way to reclaim 14+ hours a week

Most people don’t realize they’re losing days of their life every week to their phone.

The average screen time is 4h 37m per day.

In the people I speak to, that number is closer to 8 hours.

That’s 42 hours a week. More than a full-time job.

Gone. Into the infinite scroll.

If you flipped to your screen use app just now after reading that and don’t like what you see, don’t worry. We can change this.

Here’s a different way to look at it:

Time is the most important health metric that we don’t track.

It’s the metric that allows all other health metrics to improve.

Imagine trying to improve your financial health without tracking your spending.

That’s how we’ve long approached time as a society.

No awareness, no strategy, no intention.

And up until the advent of the smartphone and the ability to track our screen use time, we didn’t have a great way to measure our time that wasn’t manual.

But now we do, and we can gamify it just like we gamify other health metrics like steps, HRV and calories.

Here’s how:

1. Establish your baseline:

   • Open your phone’s screen time tracker and get your daily average over the last 1-4 weeks.

   • Treat it like stepping on a scale. This is just data, not shame.

   • Analyze the apps you’re wasting time on, and consider deleting them (setting a limit doesn’t work!)

2. Set your time goal like a health goal:

   • Decide how much time you want to be spending on your phone a day

   • Start small, like 1-2 hours less than your current average.

   • Think of this as your “daily step goal”, but for your time.

3. Track it daily:

   • Use your screen time tracker to check your time like you would your Whoop, FitBit or Oura ring stats.

   • Record your daily number in a simple tracker to keep yourself accountable.

4. Reinvest the time:

   • This is where the transformation happens. Every hour you save, allocate it with intention.

   • 1 hour of deep work = progress to your goals, a 20 minute walk = improved HRV and lowered stress.

   • Track how you spent the reclaimed time to reinforce the behaviour.

5. Redesign your phone environment:

   • Make your phone less addictive and more intentional.

   • Don’t set app time limits, they don’t work - completely remove the apps you know are wasting your time.

   • Use grayscale mode for focus during key hours

   • Add widgets on your home screen to remind you of your goals

   • BONUS - make your lock screen your daily time goal to stay focused.

You don’t need to throw away your phone. It’s incredibly useful technology.

You just need to treat time like the precious resource that it is and design your environment to respect that.

The phone is the gateway and your habit is the game.

And the prize if you can reclaim 14 hours a week?

728 hours a year back in your life.

Think of the possibilities you could create with all of that time!

Much Love,

Cory Firth
Creator of One Minute Weekend

Let’s work together!