How I Use Pinterest to Get Off My Phone

There is no shortage of helpful articles out there telling us how horrible screens are for us and how to limit our cell phone usage, especially at the beginning of the year when everyone is in Resolution Mode. But what about those of us who might need/want a middle ground?

Truly, we carry these incredibly useful little computers in our pockets that many of us actually need to work or to communicate with loved ones.

We check the weather, check the news, pop over to social media, dive into email, and before we know it, many minutes (if not hours) have passed.

I hit a wall with it all earlier this year when I decided to purge myself of a few apps that not only no longer served me, but started to make me feel icky because I was spending way too much time on them.

It was about this time I started reading the above mentioned articles and thinking about how to make my phone less appealing to use. Tips included everything from going minimalist with only the hardline necessary apps to shifting my color scheme to black, white, and greys to keeping my phone in another room.

I pretty quickly realized that those options just weren’t going to work for me. See, I actually like my phone and all it has to offer me, I just wanted to intentionally reclaim some of my time.

So I figured that, if I was going to embrace my phone, maybe I could just hack my usage of it a bit. What if I could redirect my brain by reminding myself about all that is important to me offline each time I picked up my phone?

Pinterest Boards as Inspiration

Using Pinterest, I began to set up boards with themes that inspired me and with hobbies I enjoy offline. I began with board titles like:

• Reading Inspiration (books and illustration of women reading)
• Writing Inspiration (typewriters and journals)
• Black & White Quotes (the colors, not the theories)

Then, I started searching for those themes and saving pins I liked to their relevant boards.

As Pinterest & I worked together to figure out my current algorithm, I added a few additional boards:

• Colorful Quotes (actually colorful and sometimes sassy)
• Music (vinyl and cassettes and amps!)
• Let there be Light (candles and lanterns against the darkness)

I also set up various seasonal boards as well as a board just for Wallpaper.

Priorities and App Organization

Next, I sat down with my phone and thought really hard about which apps brought me joy, which apps were helpful in my day to day usage, and which apps were absolutely necessary.

These apps were then added to my phone’s home pages (I created four separate homepages) in loose categories like:

• Astrology and Seasons (featuring Co-Star, I am, and MoonX apps)
• Communication and Information (featuring email, Signal, GroupMe, Calendar, and Weather apps + the camera app because photography *is also a form of communication in my world)
• Reading and Music (featuring Libro.fm, theStoryGraph, Substack, Audible, Jetpack for the WordPress Reader, and Pandora)
• Habit Building (featuring Word of the Day, Duolingo, Storyteller, two Fabulous Apps, Notes, and the Screen Time tracker)

Widgets for the Win

Then, it was time to pull it all together using the Pinterest widget, which I added a couple of times to each page. Once added to the pages, each widget was individually edited for size and content (which board I wanted each widget to show and how often I wanted the widget to update).

It took a little patience and some tweaking, but the end result has been worth the time it took to set it all up.

Why This Works (for me + hopefully for you, too)

We live in a world of technological interconnectedness, for better or for worse, and I know that picking up my phone is inevitable. Whether it’s to check messages, send an email, or check the news, that little computer in my pocket calls to me all day long. However, now I have to work a bit harder to get to the extraneous things that could pull me in by scrolling past the pages filled with the things I love and could be doing instead of falling into the matrix once that one task is complete.

These visual clues make me pause to read an inspirational quote or remember that I’d rather listen to my current audio book, turn on some music or get out in the garden.

It doesn’t mean I don’t get lost along the way sometimes, but it does make it much harder for me to just pick up my phone and doom scroll into oblivion.

General Tips and Tricks

• I have all of my widgets set to refresh every hour because I know that if I see the same widget all the time, I’ll start looking past it and my hack will stop working.
• The Pinterest widgets will show up as squares on your page(s) so pick photos or quotes that are either already squares or that are centered in a way that they will translate well into the widget.
• I like my screen in Dark Mode so I typically set the wallpaper on my home screen to black. This allows for continuity and helps my apps and widgets pop against the dark background, which I prefer. The same could be said for any other solid color depending on your preferences/aesthetic.
• When you edit your home screen you can customize it further by changing the background of each app and widget (light, dark, automatic, or tinted) and by setting them all to small or large. Setting your apps to large removes the text you see at the bottom of each app which makes for a cleaner screen that focuses on the logos/photos instead of all the text.

In addition to the above hack to spend less time on my phone I have:

• Excluded all social media and news from my home pages.
• Turned off all push notifications except for direct communication (text, calls, messaging apps).
• Set time limits on all social media apps (yes, I can extend them, but I’m less likely to, now).

The widgets I’ve added to the pages on my phone are not only reminders, but portals to remind me about more of what inspires me in the real world. Whether that’s practicing a language, listening to more music, picking up the next book in your bookstack, or staying in touch with family and friends, what I’ve added to my speedbump (scroll-bump?) pages brings me actual joy and fulfillment in real life.

You can see all of my Pinterest boards and Pins here.

Now it’s your turn! I’d love to hear any tips or tricks you’ve implemented in your own life to encourage you to spend less time on your phone! And please, if my hack above appeals to you and you try it, I’d love to hear all about it! Of course, if you have any questions about the process, please feel free to reach out as well 😊

Cheers to using tech to use less tech!

Onward,

Melissa