{"id":795296,"date":"2026-07-11T15:54:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T15:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795296\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T15:54:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T15:54:33","slug":"how-i-made-my-phone-bully-me-into-being-productive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795296\/","title":{"rendered":"How I made my phone bully me into being productive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reminders. Screen time limits. Grayscale mode. You\u2019ve heard about these common techniques to use your phone less often. The problem is they\u2019re easy to ignore. Sometimes, a bit more force is needed. So, I made my phone a bully.<\/p>\n

Distractions are everywhere, but sometimes, the best tool against them is the Distraction Machine itself. My phone screen is one of the things I see most on a daily basis, so it only made sense to put that prime real estate to good use.<\/p>\n

Harness the allure of the glowing rectangle<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to look at it<\/p>\n

\"Pixel
\n Credit:\u00a0Justin Duino \/ How-To Geek<\/p>\n

When it comes to increasing productivity and reducing distractions, the goal for many people is to use their phone less. However, I\u2019m actually pretty happy with how much I\u2019m using my phone these days. I recently wrote about setting up a new phone from scratch instead of a backup<\/a>, and that\u2019s really helped keep my phone minimal.<\/p>\n

Of course, if you are trying to curb your screen time, there\u2019s no denying that you will find a way to look at your phone\u2014even just for the time or weather. That\u2019s why I\u2019ve made an effort to put important stuff at the forefront, like a big to-do list widget front and center on my home screen<\/a>. Rather than trying to block the screen, I wanted to harness it.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, I thought about what pulls me into my phone the most. Time and again, it\u2019s notifications. That\u2019s where my eyes go when I turn on the screen, so that\u2019s where my productivity reminders should be.<\/p>\n


\n \"Samsung<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\tSamsung and Google are breaking Android’s greatest strength
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Trying to ruin the nearly perfect notification system.<\/p>\n

I needed my phone to grab my attention<\/p>\n

And continue to do it all day<\/p>\n

With all of this in mind, I had an idea. What if I could create a special notification that would appear at the start of the work day, have top priority in my notification tray, and immediately return if dismissed during the work day? Essentially, I wanted my phone to nag me all day to stay on task.<\/p>\n

I decided to use a very handy app called \u201cAutomate<\/a>\u201d to do this. In the past, I would have chosen Macrodroid, but it\u2019s much more limited for free use these days. I still think Macrodroid is worth it if you love automations. However, for a one-off or just occasional use, Automate is a nice alternative.<\/p>\n


\n \"Google<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t4 free alternatives to popular paid Android apps
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Free Android apps that do everything the paid ones do.<\/p>\n

Now, Automate works a bit differently than most automation apps. It uses visual \u201cflows\u201d instead of the traditional \u201cif this, then that\u201d layout. Admittedly, Macrodroid is easier to use, but I\u2019m getting the hang of Automate. Here\u2019s what my flow looks like:<\/p>\n

\"Automate<\/p>\n

The result of this flow is a notification that appears at 9:00 AM on Monday-Friday, and if this notification is dismissed within the eight hours after 9:00 AM (taking it to 5:00 PM) it immediately appears again. To achieve this, I used three types of \u201cblocks\u201d:<\/p>\n

Time await \u2013 Choose an exact time of day and days of the week.<\/p>\n

Time window \u2013 Choose an exact time of day and an ensuing duration of time.<\/p>\n

Notification show \u2013 Generates a custom notification.<\/p>\n

The last block is the most important, and it\u2019s where you can really customize the experience. You can make the notification say anything you want. It could be a gentle reminder to stay on task, a motivational quote, or a strong demand. Personally, I struggle with putting things off until the end of the day, so I made mine say \u201cDO THE WORK FIRST.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have a few suggestions if you want to make the notification as hard to ignore as possible. First, make sure \u201cVisibility\u201d is set to \u201cPublic\u201d\u2014this will ensure it appears on the lock screen. Second, in the \u201cOngoing\u201d section, select \u201cYes, promoted\u201d to make it a Live Update Notification<\/a>. These notifications always have top priority, and on some devices, they have an enhanced visual appearance.<\/p>\n

Now, the last thing to do is scroll back to the top of the \u201cNotification show\u201d block and select \u201cWhen dismissed\u201d from the \u201cProceed\u201d drop-down. This is what will make the notification reappear when swiped away. After you\u2019re done with this block, long-press it on the flow screen, copy it, and then long-press a blank space to paste it.<\/p>\n

With all the blocks on the screen, it\u2019s just a matter of connecting them. Draw a line from \u201cFlow beginning\u201d to the \u201cIN\u201d side of the \u201cNotification show\u201d block. Then, draw a line from the \u201cNO\u201d side of that block to the \u201cIN\u201d side of the \u201cTime window\u201d block. Lastly, draw a line from \u201cYES\u201d on the \u201cTime window\u201d to \u201cIN\u201d on the copied \u201cNotification show\u201d block, and loop that block\u2019s \u201cNO\u201d back to \u201cIN\u201d on the original \u201cNotification show\u201d block.<\/p>\n

The absolute last thing to do is go back to the screen before the flow and tap “Start.” Now, it’s running and will be activated when the time is right.<\/p>\n

See the bullying in action<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the notification looks on my phone. As you can see, it immediately comes back when I dismiss it before 5:00 PM, but after that, it stays away. The notification will reappear at 9:00 AM on the next weekday, and the cycle repeats itself. The only way I can truly make the notification disappear on a workday is to turn off the automation completely.<\/p>\n

I understand that this is a niche use case for an automation, but it works for me. You may also find it useful if you find yourself checking your phone throughout the day. Of course, it can be used for more than just productivity reminders. Your imagination is the only limit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reminders. Screen time limits. Grayscale mode. You\u2019ve heard about these common techniques to use your phone less often.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49,48,190,61],"class_list":["post-795296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}