Brambleminster GollyhatchI accidentally made my phone extremely boring and I really like it.
Few days ago I finally dumped Nova Launcher (used to be great for the past ~8 years or so but recently underwent a massive enshittification) and looked for alternatives. I found Kvaesitso, a FOSS launcher with a "search-first" approach similar to Nova: instead of scrolling through lists of apps there's a universal search bar where you type the first few letters of an app, action, contact, chat, ... and hit enter - a bit like I do stuff with rofi (or dmenu in olden times) on Linux.
By default when you pull up (or down) the search bar in Kvaesitso it initially shows all installed apps until you start typing something to filter the list. There is however an option to reverse that and show nothing until you start typing.
At first I activated that option simply because I prefered the cleaner look, but it had an interesting effect: Before, when I unconsciously/automatic reached for my phone (which happened in literally any second I'm not actively doing something else), I scrolled through app icons until I found some random distraction to waste my time with.
Now when I pick up my phone I'm looking at a blank search bar and actually have to consciously think about what I want to do because I have to type that thing I want in, and most of the time I realize that I don't know what I want to do and that there was no reason to grab the phone, so put it back instead of just doing some random shit.
It's only been a few days but I already noticed that I reach for my phone much less often, and when I do I often pause before even unlocking it and put it right back, because I realize I just don't know what to do with it (unless I actually want to do something with it). Apparently the hurdle of having to actively think about what to waste my time with is too much for my brain and not worth the effort just for the questionable reward of a bit of mindless distraction.