I spend a lot of time on my phone. Some of it is work (well, lots of it!), some of it is productivity, but some of it is just the familiar pull toward the scroll. I download and delete many apps (it's also part of my job) but I keep only a few.
I've never been very good at using my phone less. Replacing the scroll with something better has worked much better for me. These are the five iPhone apps from the App Store that I genuinely use and keep coming back to instead of endlessly scrolling Instagram.
Grug: Daily wisdom without the fluff
Grug is the latest app I downloaded, but it quickly became one of my favorites. I hadn't heard of it until recently, when it won an Apple Design Award (something I have a soft spot for - Lake won one too). And the design is what actually stopped me while scrolling through the finalists.
It's unlike anything else: at first glance it looks childish, the language is oversimplified, almost like it doesn't know grammar. And that's exactly what makes it so different from everything else on my phone. Every day Grug gives you a piece of wisdom. There's no bullshit, no fancy words, just a lovely short story that can quietly turn this app into your best friend. Pure love ♡
Notion: My second brain
Notion is a well-known and powerful tool, but the reason I included it here is embarrassingly simple: I have a very bad habit of screenshotting everything. The book I want to read, a beautiful handmade coffee cup I want to buy, a podcast I keep meaning to listen to. My camera roll was basically a graveyard of good intentions. I started saving everything to Notion instead, and it cleared my head - and my Photos app! For me it's like building a personal library, one I can actually find things in.
Lake: Creativity instead of scrolling
Full disclosure: Lake is an app I helped build. But that's also why I know exactly why it works. We designed it with the pull-of-the-phone problem in mind - as an alternative to mindless scrolling, one where you can actually create instead of consume. It's my go-to whenever I have a few minutes to spare and don't have my book with me. The app is full of hand-drawn illustrations by human artists, and I genuinely never get bored of coloring. It's the kind of screen time that does the opposite of most - it leaves you feeling better than when you started.
One sec: The app that keeps me off Instagram
I've been subscribed to One sec for years, and it's genuinely what helps me spend less time on Instagram and other social media. It blocks your feed in the most gentle, introspective way. It tracks how many times you've opened the app, questions your intention, and gives you a few seconds to breathe and reconsider. It sounds simple, and it is. But it works! The team behind it also seems genuinely lovely, which always matters to me.
DailyArt: A masterpiece on my home screen
My teenage years were shaped partly by my sister, an art history graduate who made sure I knew the difference between Baroque and Rococo before anything else. That early exposure stayed with me, and DailyArt brought it back in the most frictionless way.
I use it almost entirely through the widget - one art piece on my home screen every day, with a short description and some trivia. You pick up your phone, and instead of a notification you get a Vermeer. That alone is worth the download.
