5 things I set up on every Android phone to boost my productivity

Story time: The plan is to check my email, and all of a sudden, I’m on YouTube watching a Galaxy S26 review, jumping between various apps based on the plethora of notifications I received, and checking the results of the last F1 race — go Kimi. A task that should take me two minutes turns into an hour of mindless online activity, and the worst part is that I forgot to check my email in the process.

A phone is a wonderful tool, but it can also be a distracting one. And since I have a habit of picking it up mindlessly all too often, I try to reduce that as much as possible by setting up five things on every Android device I use. While these don’t prevent my trips down various rabbit holes 100% of the time, they do minimize them and save me a lot of time and mental energy in the process that I can use for other activities, boosting my overall productivity.

Niagara Launcher

I’m a Pixel user, and while Pixel UI is by far the best Android skin in my opinion, I prefer third-party launchers. I used Nova for a long time but moved to Niagara Launcher around a year ago, and I’m in love.

The whole point of the launcher is to make my phone feel more minimal — less cluttered. And less colorful, as that always grabbed my attention way too fast, nudging me to start exploring the vast digital world that’s in front of me.

Niagara helps me tremendously to be more mindful of when and how I use my phone. My home screen is nothing more than a list of eight apps I use regularly. The whole thing — apps and the wallpaper — is black and white, which doesn’t trigger my monkey brain as fast as a colorful layout. I can access my phonebook via a dedicated button on the homepage, and an online search only requires me to swipe up and type away.

It’s rare that I jump into the actual app list without a real purpose since I have to tap the right side of the screen to access it, and even then, it’s a lot less appealing to the eye than a standard Android launcher, as it’s nothing more than a long list. Also, I hid the status bar completely so I don’t see all those icons on top every time I unlock my phone. And Niagara lets me bundle my notifications, so the non-urgent ones come every six hours instead of every five minutes.

For me, this translates to a more mindful experience with my phone. It doesn’t pull me in like standard Android launchers, so I feel less addicted to my device than I previously have.

I don’t see myself switching away from Niagara Launcher anytime soon, despite it being a paid app. I mean, there’s a free version available, but I rely on specific features that are behind a paywall. The good news is that it’s not very expensive, with a yearly subscription coming in at $14. There’s also a lifetime pass available for $43.

Notification management

I’m trying to reduce the number of apps I use. I really am. But for now, the list is substantial, and a lot of apps also means a lot of notifications. This translates to my phone beeping every five minutes, and since I tend to reach for it whenever that happens due to my lack of self-control, I lose focus on the task at hand — which hinders my overall productivity.

I have a two-step system that helps me with this, and it’s been working brilliantly for a while now. I already briefly talked about the first one, which is the bundled notification feature in Niagara. The launcher bundles non-urgent notifications from apps I choose and shows them to me every six hours. These include notifications from apps like Amazon, online publications I like to read, like Financial Times, and my favorite weather app. It’s quite an extensive list.

The second step in my wonderful system is to head to Settings > Notifications > App notifications and start optimizing. For example, I love YouTube, but I hate its notifications. I really don’t need the app to send me a daily recommendation for a video it thinks I should watch. Then there’s Google Photos, an app I used for a long time but have recently ditched. I have always disabled the “Memories” notification because the app tends to surface my most unflattering images multiple times a week.

And don’t even get me started on all those Chinese e-commerce apps like Temu. While it’s great to receive a notification about my order being shipped, I can definitely live without all those promotional notifications nudging me to “crack a golden egg” to see which products I won as a gift, only to then realize I’ll get them if I buy something of the same value first.

My goal here is to only allow for notifications that I actually want to receive. Like when someone sends me a message on Signal or an important email, when there’s an event on my calendar that’s due, and when a pre-configured trade happens in my stock trading app.

So everything that’s important gets through, but those less important notifications get bundled together and I can check on them every six hours or so. The rest I just turn off to retain my sanity, and it’s working. I think.

Modes

As mentioned in the previous section, all the important notifications get through, but I do have control over when exactly that is. I use Android’s Modes feature for that, and it’s brilliant.

For example, I use a lot of apps for work. Slack, Asana, Gmail… it’s a relatively long list. Notifications for these are enabled, so I’m always notified when a colleague sends me a message, an urgent task is created in Asana, or I get an important PR (press release) via email. However, when I clock off for the day, I don’t want to be bombarded with all those notifications since I won’t act on them until I’m back at my desk the next morning.

This is where the Modes feature comes in. My day is split into three modes. Work mode runs during work hours and blocks personal notifications that may disrupt my workflow, such as Signal messages. After Work mode kicks in when I clock off and runs until 10 pm, disabling work-related notifications so I can focus on my personal life. And Night mode runs from 10 pm to 5 am, basically killing all notifications — so my phone doesn’t beep at night — and turning the display grayscale, which is a signal for me to put it down and go to sleep.

To sum up, Android’s Modes boost my productivity by keeping me focused on the task at hand. When I work, I work. Notifications related to my personal life are minimized if not completely eliminated. After work, work-related notifications are eliminated, so I can focus on my personal projects and just living my best life. And during the night, the phone is basically nothing more than a paperweight, as I only allow calls from family members to come through in case of an emergency.

App limits

A combination of Niagara Launcher, notification management, and Android’s Modes feature prevents me from mindlessly picking up my phone and getting distracted by it, but once I do and am in an app, those safety measures don’t mean much anymore. This is where App limits come in.

Apps can be addictive, and we all have our favorite ones. For me, it’s YouTube, as I so love watching educational content on all sorts of topics while time just flies by. Or AI chatbots I can talk to about projects I’m working on. I get so locked in and only snap out of it when my partner calls, asking me if I’m already on my way to pick her up from work. Whoops.

App limits solve this issue for me as I can set a limit on how long I can use an app daily. Once time runs out, the app closes and gets grayed out on my phone so I can’t open it again. Sure, I can technically override this in the settings, but I never do — that defeats the whole purpose of the feature. When the limit is reached, it’s a sign I’ve had enough and should move on to something different. More productive.

It helps me since I tend to forget time exists when watching videos, but it’s not something that’s for everyone, as some people tend to be more mindful of these things naturally. If you want to give it a go, head to Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls > App timers and tap the hourglass icon next to an app of choice to set a timer.

Quick Settings

I use Android’s Quick Settings a lot. Just swipe down and turn on Bluetooth, switch on hotspot mode, or perform any other task fast and easy without digging through the settings menu to get it done. The problem is that the Quick Settings can be all over the place when setting up a new phone, and most people just leave it as is. Not me.

I’ll be honest — this one isn’t as impactful as everything else on this list. It won’t transform how you use your phone, but it does save me small pockets of time throughout the day, and those add up. Instead of going Settings > Network & internet > Hotspot & tethering > Wi-Fi hotspot every time I want to share my connection, I just swipe down and tap one icon. Done. The key is making sure the right toggles are actually there when you need them, which is why I always organize my Quick Settings so that the actions I rely on most are front and center. The great thing is that icons can be made bigger and smaller in Android 16, making it easy to separate them by importance.

In my case, a single swipe down reveals four large icons: Internet, Bluetooth, VPN, and Modes. These allow me to quickly turn on Bluetooth or switch devices, turn on the VPN that I frequently use, have access to all the Modes I use, and check my internet connection and its settings. An additional swipe down reveals eight additional icons, including a flashlight toggle since I keep dropping things under my bed, the location toggle, the hotspot button, and more.

Everything I need is there and nothing more. Paired with the simplicity of Niagara Launcher, most of the things I use my phone for I can just handle straight from the homepage, which speeds things up, making me just a tad more efficient throughout the day.

My phone is still a rabbit hole waiting to happen. But with these five things set up, when I pick it up to check my email, I actually check my email — and put it back down. Most of the time, at least.

This is my story, and now I want to hear yours. What do you usually set up on a new phone right away, and how does that boost your productivity? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below.