Undoubtedly, the phones we use nowadays are so good that they sometimes control us more than we should be controlling them! Today, we will be talking about five healthy tips you should try that would soon hopefully turn into habits. These tips would not only be healthy for your phone but more importantly, for you and your mental health! Speaking of mental health, if you want to go on a social media detox, you might like to check out this guide on how to block a website on Android. It would also be helpful if you have sites that you want to avoid on your phone.
Now back to the article! Regardless of whether you are a hardcore Android or iPhone user, there are tons of settings and features nowadays that phones have in common. So rest assured, this post will come in handy, no matter what OS you’re using.
1. Manage Your App Notifications
Does your phone keep buzzing with notifications that aren’t so important? If so, managing this will be a helpful step to avoid a lot of unnecessary notifications. If all your app notifications are turned on, you can expect your battery life to drain much faster because it will need the energy for the buzzing and dings every time your phone alerts you. It could be utterly stressful, or it may take away your focus when doing an important task. Thankfully, the modern smartphone lets you take charge by giving you full control of your notifications.
Whenever you download an app, chances are your phone will ask for your permission to allow notifications. It’s okay if you’ve done this before with your existing apps because you can always go back to settings and turn them off if you need to.
On iOS, you just need to go Settings, Notifications, and then look for the app which notification settings you’d like to change. If it’s an app that you occasionally use or don’t want to get regular updates or notifications from, you may toggle OFF Sounds, Badges, or toggle OFF “Allow Notifications” altogether. This way, you will no longer be receiving notifications from that app. On Android, tap on Settings, Apps, select the app you want, and tap Notifications. Then finally, change the notification settings based on what works best for you. You just know that when your notifications are well-managed, you enjoy a much longer battery life, and you get alerted by updates that truly matter!
2. Do Not Use Your Phone While Charging (Especially While Doing Heavy Tasks)
The enjoyment of using any phone is thanks to the battery! That’s why it’s crucial to maintain good battery life by following good practices, such as not using your phone while it’s charging. It might feel a bit tempting to use your phone while it’s plugged into a charger–that you promise yourself you’d only use it for a minute until you realize you’ve been using it for hours and hours.
Nowadays, phone settings have a feature where you can optimize battery charging. It lets your phone wait until it gets past 80% before you’re ready to use it to reduce battery aging. It tries to predict your daily charging routine and phone activity to know how to charge your phone optimally.
However, do not use this feature as an excuse to use your phone while charging! It is because using your phone, especially when performing heavy tasks, makes your phone prone to overheating. Any temperature about 50 degrees Celsius will be harmful and cause permanent damage to your phone. So unless it’s a real emergency, don’t risk the health of your battery by using it while charging!
3. Always Clear Cache on Apps
Did you know that your phone collects data called Cache that, over time, can take up a lot of space? Clear the cache on apps, especially those that you frequently use, such as Facebook, Messenger, Telegram, or Spotify, to name a few.
There are apps like Spotify and Telegram where you can clear the cache files right on the app. Just go to settings and look for Storage. You should find an option to Clear Cache. These are the data that your phone used but may no longer be needed. That’s why you can delete them to free up more storage.
On the other hand, there are apps in which cache files cannot be deleted. The easy solution for this is to delete the app and install them again. This will free up storage on your phone. Always remember to read and double-check what you’re deleting–that they should be cache files and not the actual files of your phone!
4. Declutter Your Photos Regularly
This might not be an issue for you if your phone’s storage capacity is 1TB or 512GB. But say if you are on a 16GB or 32GB device, decluttering your photos and files regularly would make a huge difference. Before decluttering or deleting items from your camera roll, you may want to save them on your computer or to an external hard drive first to ensure that you have a copy of your photos.
Depending on how many photos you take or save on your device, it would be ideal to save and declutter your photos weekly, if not monthly, so you get to enjoy more storage space on your phone! The best part is, if you turn this into a habit, you can always be confident that you have a copy of all your photos and files.
5. Do a Complete Backup of Your Phone Every Three Months
Last but not least, do a complete backup of your phone as regularly as you can. There is one downside to this, and it’s that it may take up a hefty space on your computer, but you can always delete the older backups that you made previously.
When you do a complete backup of your phone, not only will you get to save photos and videos but also messages and contacts which are sometimes left out on cloud backups. These things are just as precious, so it would be ideal that you secure a complete backup of your phone, perhaps every three months! Because you’ll never know when your phone could get lost or stolen.
Conclusion
There are some habits that we need to break, the same way that there are habits that we need to form with our smartphones. Hopefully, you would find these tips useful to maximize and enjoy your smartphone even more. Also, be sure to check out CellularNews.com for more guides and reviews on tech and smartphones!
