Time management is a skill that we all need. It’s essential for your success, not only in the things you do, but in your mental health journey as well. As students, time management is especially important. How else would be able to juggle all the coursework and extracurriculars, along with setting aside time for yourself? However, this isn’t something you have to figure out by yourself. Just looking here at Diary of the Mind, we have productivity tips and study tips, as well as articles on combatting productivity-inhibiting experiences like sophomore slump and burnout, which many of us face as students. However, while learning to use these tips can be incredibly useful in helping develop time management skills, they aren’t the only way. Your phone, the very object that ruins all your hopes of productivity, can be used to make you more productive. How? Through time management apps and tools. The one I am reviewing today is ScreenZen.
What Is ScreenZen?
So, first things first, what is ScreenZen? What is this app used for? Well, ScreenZen has a simple yet effective premise. This app is meant to help manage your screen time. It shuts down certain apps at certain times or after a certain number of hours. It’s incredibly helpful to manage your time on apps and improve productivity, especially in a time when most of us fall victim to doom-scrolling.
Of course, this seems like something you can simply do with the Screen time tool in Settings. However, there is so much to this app that can help you more than the inbuilt settings in your Apple device. Additionally, ScreenZen is available for both Apple and Android devices, making it very accessible for those who have Android devices as well.
Advantages
- Effective in limiting screen-time
- Visually appealing
- Simple to use + easy-to-follow instructions
- Apple App Store and Google Play Store
Disadvantages
- No scheduling options
- Not many facilities other than managing screen-time
- Not fully a time-management app
How to Start
When you first open ScreenZen, you’ll find a page asking you to allow Screen time access to the app. Do all the required steps as directed in order to give the app permission to access your Screen time data. Next, it will ask about notifications. The option you would most probably want to choose is the Allow option, so that the app can work to its full potential. Now, we get into the parts that are actually the tool provided by ScreenZen.
Select Distracting Apps
The next page you come to will ask you to start setting up the app groups that you want to limit your screen time on. When you click the Select Apps button, you will find a list of app categories you can choose from in order to limit the usage of those specific app types. The first few on the list—Social, Games, and Entertainment—are probably the ones you’re going to choose. If you press the arrow next to the categories, you can adjust your selections to specific apps. For example, under Social, I would like to limit usage of TikTok and Instagram but not Messages or LinkedIn.
Once you’ve finalized your list, click Done and continue. If you have selected an entire category, you will get a warning pop-up asking you if you would like to keep the entire one. Click Keep category and move on if you would like to do so. If you want to readjust your app list, click Reselect apps and finalize your list once more.
You don’t need to only choose apps. If you go into the Other section, you will find numerous other apps that you might not use often. However, you can also find website links, ones you may use often. You can select these website links to restrict them as well, just as you would the apps.
Halo
The next page you will find is introducing a product by ScreenZen. It is meant to block apps within a physical space. This can be incredibly helpful when it comes to studying and focusing during work. In your workspace, you can make sure you are not distracted by apps on your phone using this device. If you would like it, you can preorder it with the Preorder button on the page. If not, just click Continue.
Set Up Screen Time
The next thing you will be asked is when you want to reduce your screen time mainly. There are five options to choose from. All the time, Work days, Week nights, Mornings, and Specific time range. Think about when you are usually wasting time. Is it during the weekdays, when you should be going to bed to wake up in time for school? Or is it during the weekends, when you should be completing the majority of your homework and studying? Or do you find yourself wasting time on a device daily, regardless of what time of day or week?
Choose your options based on that, and if none of the presets match your necessities, you can always choose the Specific time range option which allows you to customize a time range. If you click here, it will open up to a page for your customizability. You can select and deselect the days of the week you want to focus on. You can also change the start and end times for the screen time settings to exist. Whichever option you choose, you simply need to press the button and click Continue.
App Screen time Restrictions
You can then select the screen time limit for the app category. My personal suggestion would be to keep it at 2 or 3 hours. Anything above that would defeat the purpose of limiting screen time and anything below would simply not be sustainable. Once you click the option you want, there will be time intervals set for you to choose from. These time intervals are when you would use these apps each day. Choose the interval you believe would work best for you.
The next page will ask you what note you want when opening the app you are restricting and set the amount of time for the reflection before the app opens You can choose some of the pre-written ones, like “Is this important?”, or “Is this a good time?”. You could also customize a message for yourself which will keep you away from those distracting apps in a way you know will work on you.
These little notes will help you reconsider your usage of the app, not only with the questions it asks, but also just the fact that it is separating you from your distraction. Naturally, you would want to interact with the app less if there is a rift in between. Also, with the amount of time you put between opening app, the message, and getting to use the app, the gap will be enough to steer you away from your distraction.
Goals
The final slide will ask you about the goal you want to keep this habit going for. This may seem a bit insignificant or useless at first, but it can actually be crucial to your journey into better time management. You see, goal setting pushes you to actually do something with your ideas, and make something out of it. Instead of remaining a dream, it will push you to make it a reality. Of course, many of your goals may not have had such incredible results, which is completely understandable. That’s why I have also written an entire article on the goalsetting method for guaranteed success. Once you select the length of your goal, confirm it, and you can start using the app!
How to Use the App
The thing with ScreenZen is that most of your work with it is done already. Once you’ve set-up the app on your device, it’s pretty unlikely you’re going to look back at it regularly. ScreenZen is focused on reducing your time on the screen, and so, it is also not going to have you spend a lot of time on the app. However, there are still options and features you might want to know so that you can adjust your usage for the future.
Apps Tab
This tab is pretty simple, and you probably already have things set up here. Essentially, this is where you arrange all your App Groups and how you want to manage your screen time about them.
When you press the groups you already created, you will first be able to adjust everything that you already set in the beginning, like the procedure before opening the blocked apps, schedule of ScreenZen’s activity, and your goals. However, there are still other options there that you were not yet exposed to.
Strict block feature
For example, there is the Strict block feature. You can choose when those specific apps in the app group gets blocked. You can click the Always block option, which blocks the app completely with no expectations. The After Daily Open Goal option allows you to open the app for the amount of time you allowed per day, blocking it strictly afterward. The final option, After Daily Screen time, allows you to select a set amount of screen time to allow yourself per day before completely blocking off each app.
Interventions feature
Then, there is the Interventions feature. This feature allows for a further rift between you and opening the distracting app. It is essentially some sort of activity to redirect your attention away from the app. There are numerous options, like solving math problems or checking something off your to-do list, all of which force you to avoid the screen. For this feature to work, you must turn on notifications.
More websites feature
The More websites feature allows you to also block websites. Since ScreenZen usually block apps, this isn’t a very typical thing to offer. However, this feature allows you to block websites that might be distracting. There is a simple switch to press to block adult websites, but you can also type in a URL to any website that you find personally distracting.
Advanced settings
In this section, there are numerous little tweaks that you might want to look into to maximize the sustainability fo your ScreenZen habits. Quick Unlock gives you a little edge when you are checking messages, not checking any quick openings of the messages app as one full round and rather half. The Cooldown time is the amount of time you keep between you being able to open the distracting app again when you’ve recently opened it. You can also mess with the odds of your app opening when you press the Unlock button with the Odds that app unlocks, making it even harder for you to access the app. This feature is quite funny but effective, because it might just make it impossible for you to open the app at all. Finally, you can give yourself a bit of a break with the Grace period before Pause enabled option. This gives you the opportunity to give yourself some time before the time management kicks in, just so you get some break and free time before you have to lock in.
General settings
This section is a pretty simple one. There is nothing very substantial about the settings here, but still things you would like to change. You can change the name of the group into something that you would like better to recognize that app group, especially since you might create multiple groups. You can also adjust your streak goal here, which you set up earlier, enable/disable the group, or duplicate/delete it.
Adding another group
In this Apps tab, you can add another App gorup, other than the one you set up in the very start. Here, you will go through pretty much the same steps you did with the first one. This can be very helpful because you can set different settings and restrictions for different apps. For example, both games and social media apps are distracting. However, social media might keep you on the app longer than your mobile games, so they would require stricter restrictions.
Options Tab
This tab provides you numerous other overall settings that you might want to use at certain times. Some are pretty simple sections that don’t have many features following them. The Quick Disable option allows you to disable the blocking of apps with ScreenZen for a certain amount of time, the maximum being a day. The next Help section gives you instructions for when you have any technical difficulties.
Lock ScreenZen’s Setting
There is also the Lock ScreenZen’s Settings section. Here, there are options that lock ScreenZen and prevent you from changing things. There is a timer you can enable that prevents you from reopening ScreenZen for a certain amount of time after you’ve opened it. You can also set up a passcode that you will have to use in order to change any settings. To do so, you simply need to turn the switch to enable it, type in a passcode, and then confirm it. There are also settings to prevent you from uninstalling the app, and ones that prevent you from altering the time on your phone.
Advanced settings
The Advanced section allows you some more settings to tweak to customize your screen time management experience. You can adjust how your app uses are counted with the Count opens feature. You can choose whether the count should be separate for each app or be regarded in the context of the app group. Let’s say two apps you want to limit your usage of, YouTube and Spotify, also happen to be in the same Entertainment app group. Let’s say you have a limited usage of each app 6 times per day. If you keep the app count specific to each app, then both YouTube and Spotify will have their respective 6 times per day. If you open YouTube, Spotify’s limit will remains untouched and vice versa. However, if you keep the count as regarding the entire app group, then opening either app will limit your access to the other. If you open YouTube, then you can open Spotify one less time as well.
You can also adjust when ScreenZen starts, with numerous different times to choose from midnight. There are options that give you a warning notification when your time is up by using your distracting app. You can choose a short amount of time the notification will pop up before the app is automatically closed. You can also increase the adjustment number for the amount of time to add to your Pause time should you want to do so. Finally, you choose whether or not the website associated with the app should be associated as such by ScreenZen.
Appearance
In this section, you can simply customize the appearance of your block page. You can choose to show promotional messages, streaks, skips, and activities. All of these are in an attempt to help you with managing your screen time. This is especially true when it comes to showing your skips. You see, even with all the app blocking, you still have the option to skip over and continue to the distracting app. Usually, you just tell yourself something like “it’ll be short” or “it’s just a one time thing”. However, being able to see your skips will force you into reality. It’ll help you realize whether or not you’ve been lying to yourself, and make you come to the decision of whether or not you’re gonna keep excusing yourself.
Friends Tab
This tab allows you to add friends to enjoy your time management journey with you. For certain people, it can be helpful, and one of those people might be you. Sometimes, goals are more enjoyable to reach with people you like being around. But that isn’t the only thing. It’ll be easier to realize when you are slacking off if there is someone telling you that you are doing so. Allowing friends to see your own personal screen time stats will help them keep you accountable for slacking off. It can also motivate you to try to be better than them, the healthy competition fueling your development of healthier habits.
More Tab
This final tab is just some additional setting you might want to check out. In the More Tools section, you can find Digital Declutter tips, getting new ones everyday you open it. You can add certain Offscreen Activities that you’d specifically like to do instead of looking at your phone. These are actually what is mentioned in the Interventions feature as Offscreen Activities. You can also block apps on demand for a set amount of time.
The Support section is there as well. This is for any questions you may have about the app, sharing it, reporting issues, and purchases. It is similar to all other sections on help and support in other apps, simply outlining other details you might want to know and giving you resources for contact with the app.
Shortcuts
Here, you can see a place to actually use the Shortcuts app on Apple to help block apps. You simply need to follow the instructions that will pop up when you press the How-to Setup button. What this helps you do is redirect you to ScreenZen whenever you open a distracting app. Back in ScreenZen, you will not be tempted to go back to the app, as it will not bring you there anyway.
Conclusion
So, there you have it. Everything you possibly need to know about ScreenZen, right here in one article. You can always reference this any time you have questions about ScreenZen, because it’s guaranteed to have all the answers. ScreenZen is an incredible app for time management, and it gives you so much more than what you can just see on the surface. There is so much more you can do with your life once you start using ScreenZen. Now, all you need to do is get started.
