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by dan-robertson 1901 days ago
One silly trick: put your phone into greyscale mode. Without the colours, a lot of the addictive time sinks are just less exciting.
5 comments

Indeed! And the "BRIGHT RED WARNING NOTIFICATION SOMETHING TO CHECK!" bubbles aren't nearly so grating either. They're still present, easy to read, but not as visually abrasive.

What's really funny, on iOS, at least, is that the accessibility settings persist across device upgrades. You can configure a triple tap of the home button (or power button on newer devices) to toggle the accessibility option, so you can toggle quickly between greyscale and full color. This is nice if you're showing people photos, though I do tend to forget to switch it back.

I set up the option for someone on their phone years ago, and they'd apparently not used it much, because they entirely forgot I'd done it. On a phone or two later in their upgrade cycle, he had it laying on the table (locked), so I reached over and triple tapped the power button. And the setting had persisted all these years such that it still jumped to greyscale!

There are very, very few things that you can't do with a modern smartphone when it's in greyscale - any sort of colorblind aware application should be distinguishable without color details, and if you're not showing photos to people, it's entirely possible to go months in greyscale. I suggest trying it out!

(however, if you take a screenshot to show off your fancy new greyscale scheme, be aware that they're still taken in color)

Yes!! I love greyscale mode so much! Here are some other tips I found helped me (incl using Screen Time as a pattern interrupt!) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-simple-immediate-hacks-impr...
I wrote an Automator script to do this with my computer and it really helps bolt yourself down to crank out a work sesh. In the context of programming, not having color-coded syntax slows me down enough to think through the work instead of typing away immediately. It's almost a meditative exercise that reminds me of switching from digital cameras to shooting, processing, and scanning black and white film.
The problem I face is that I am quick to turn off the greyscale or any other measure I would have taken.

I do read a lot on mobile so it is a productive entertainment for me but the problem is that constant exposure is not a good thing especially if the time it occupies is your family time.

Hacker News without orange? Oh my.
You might not be aware, but it is possible to change the color of your top-bar in your profile once you have more than 250 karma.
Not the parent poster, but thanks, I had missed that.