From addictive video games and hilarious Twitter memes to all the new Netflix shows, it seems like there’s always something to hook you on your screens. As if that wasn’t enough, your remote job requires you to spend hours a day on a computer screen, and you sometimes find yourself going through an endless stream of emails over the weekend.

In this article, we will go over some tools to help you improve your digital wellbeing.

What Is a Digital Detox?

Having a digital detox is all about taking back control of your time by limiting the amount of time you spend on screens to break addictive patterns. Similar to other types of detoxes, this process usually involves minimizing or completely cutting out digital devices for a set period.

Following the New Year, we bet you have a few personal or professional goals you’d like to achieve, but that might be challenging with all the digital devices stealing your time and attention. Also, your dependency on technology has probably increased due to the remote-working climate, making it harder for you to disconnect than ever before.

However, your goals won’t become a reality if you don’t take control of your time. What’s more, digital overload can have negative consequences on your wellbeing, including screen time exhaustion, insomnia, or anxiety, just to name a few.

That’s why you need to do a digital detox to reconnect with yourself, live a healthier lifestyle, and really focus on your personal goals. However, you don’t have to go for a year-long technology fast, especially if you rely on tech for work or other personal and professional pursuits. You can leverage these tools to repair your relationship with technology, learn to use it in a more balanced way, and start pursuing your goals.

The 4 Best Tools You Can Use to Do a Digital Detox

1. Space

Smartphone addiction is a growing concern in our society that has many people feeling stressed, anxious, inadequate, and detached from the physical world. Not to mention that scrolling through endless feeds takes away your time and productivity.

Fortunately, there are many tools that can help you break phone addiction, including Space. This digital solution can help you manage your screen time by cutting down your iPhone or Android device usage. It offers a behavior change program that can empower you to find more space in your life for things that matter most by regaining control of your phone.

Space allows you to set goals and limits for phone usage, so you learn to detach from your screen when you need to. It tracks your progress over time and allows you to share with loved ones to keep you accountable and build a healthier attitude towards phone usage.

What’s more, Space also helps you to figure out what type of phone user you are, from a boredom battler to a busy bee. Lastly, it offers an 8-day phone life balance course to understand why you are developing an unhealthy reliance on your phone and tips to get back on track.

Download: Space for Android | iOS (Free, offers in-app purchases)

2. Unpluq

Talking about spending too much time on your smartphone, one might argue that the main culprits are the numerous distracting apps competing for your attention, including TikTok, PokémonGo, Instagram, or Snapchat. We bet your phone is constantly buzzing with notifications from one or more of these apps, causing you to be glued to your screen.

Unpluq is the ideal solution to help you reduce your screen time and your smartphone usage by setting barriers to discourage you from using your distracting apps. To start, select the distracting apps you’d like to block, and choose your distraction barrier and difficulty. This will restrict you from using these apps and automatically block notifications.

To unlock a registered distracting app, you will need to perform your distraction barrier, like shaking your phone, scanning a QR code, or tapping your phone. So, instead of becoming a mindless habit, using these apps becomes an intentional decision. The goal is to help you take back control over your smartphone, allowing you more time to focus on important tasks.

Download: Unpluq for Android (Free, offers in-purchases)

3. Insight Timer

Do you want more control over your smartphone and other devices?

Mindfulness, mediation, and yoga are great activities to reduce stress, increase focus, and gain self-control. Making sure that you have enough quality sleep is also essential to help you recharge and boost concentration levels, which are necessary to help you overcome distractions.

Luckily, Insight Timer can help with all these. This tool enables you to meditate and become more mindful in general. The app offers dozens of guided meditation sessions, live yoga streams, and other resources to improve your sleep. Whether you are looking for positive affirmations for a social media reset or guided meditation for a digital detox, this app has it all.

Download: Insight Timer for Android | iOS (Free, offers in-app purchases)

4. Spike

Spike's desktop app showing its thread-like chat feature

It won’t be fair to put all the blame on social media or entertainment apps, but who knew your relationship with your emails could be just as bad for your wellbeing. If you have developed the habit of checking your inbox every few minutes, then you are draining your precious mental resources and falling prey to context switching, sabotaging your productivity in the process. This habit can make it harder for you to unplug from your screen and focus on finishing your work and other important goals.

Spike offers a solution to this problem. This tool lets you regain control of your email by organizing your inbox, unifying all your email accounts, controlling notifications, and unsubscribing to all those annoying promotional emails.

You can customize email notifications to receive alerts only when you really need them. Spike also offers a snooze feature to manage your workflow on your terms, allowing you to unplug from your emails when you need to.

Download: Spike for Android | iOS | Windows | macOS (Free, premium version available)

Avoid Digital Overload to Regain Your Productivity

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, not the opposite. Developing an unhealthy reliance on your digital devices can hurt your productivity and wellbeing.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution to cut down its usage, these apps can help you get a better handle on your digital life and take back your time.