When you are just with your phone at a boring gathering, waiting for someone, or in a queue for a doctor’s appointment instead of scrolling your phone or spending time on social media there are some Productive things you can do on the phone instead. In this post, I am sharing 20 Interesting things to do in your free time on your phone and make better use of your phone.
So let’s see, how to turn your waste of time on the phone into something productive.
List of things to do on your phone in your free time
Here are 20 Useful things to do in your free time on your phone when bored.
1: Listen to audiobooks
You can make the best use of your time by listening to audiobooks on your phone. This enhances your knowledge and can be easily done during a commute, or when you are bored and left only with your phone. It is best to use your free time to improve yourself by learning new things through listening to books. I love to listen to audiobooks on Audible, they have a huge collection. Audiobooks are great to improve your listening skills too.
2: Organize Your time
Calendars on your phone or even the Google Calendar are great tools to organize your time and make you more productive you can turn your phone into a productivity hub by making good use of a calendar to set reminders, make appointments, time block work, schedule tasks and plan your work more efficiently. When done right this can turn your phone into your personal assistant which will take care of all your work plans and help you have a productive day.
I prefer to use my free time on my phone for time blocking my calendar, you can read more about time blocking in my post, Manage Your Time Like a Pro with Time Blocking.
3: Listen to Podcasts
If you are not much interested in books but love to know about new things, or have interesting conversations you can do that on your phone by listening to podcasts. There are a variety of options to listen to podcasts. I like to listen to Google podcasts, You have options to listen to podcasts in the field of education, culture, business, technology, comedy, health and fitness, self-growth, science, etc. So there are literally options for all types of interests that you can listen to as a podcast for free. The good thing about podcasts is that most of the time the episodes are not very long and in a very short time they cover brief aspects of the topic effectively. Listening to podcasts is enjoyable and entertaining along with being informative.
4: Make To-do-lists
Do you have many things running through your mind? Use your phone to make a to-do list. Having a to-do list is essential to get things done and this can be done effectively on a phone. You can use the default notes app on your phone to do this or can use specific to-do list apps like Todoist, Microsoft To-Do there are many options. I like to use the native Notes app or Google Tasks.You can use your free time on the phone to either make a daily to-do list or better make a master to-do list that will completely organize your life. Here are ideas for you to make master lists in your free time on the phone, 20 Lists to make to organize your life and 12 Master Lists you must make to be organized at work.
5: Delete unwanted apps
As our smartphones are getting more advanced, we often download apps more than we need. Having too many apps on your phone can lead to slow performance, drained battery, and even security issues. Use your free time to look around your phone to see the apps that you have not used for a long time and evaluate if you really need them.
Also, if you find yourself spending a lot of time shopping online get rid of those shopping apps and have just one that is most essential. The notifications on these apps and all-time running sales are the ones that may be making you spend more. So better delete unwanted apps.
6: Turn off notifications
When you are working or studying the most common distraction is the notification from the app. It feels equivalent to a human disturbing your work by peeping in between. So use your free time on the phone to turn off notifications from shopping apps, and social media apps. If you are a WhatsApp user definitely mute the notification from the group as they keep coming every second and can be so annoying. This will help you focus on things you are doing and limit distractions.
7: Read Books on your Phone
If your phone screen is of sufficient size which is mostly these days, you can definitely read books on your phone. I am a book lover and I like reading them, undoubtedly due to the time crunch I do listen to them but I enjoy reading more. You can either download books on your phone and read through any pdf reading app or read on Kindle.
I like to read them on Kindle. For a long time I use to love reading actual physical books but at times when I forget to carry them I would end up wasting my free time and eventually shifted to reading on Kindle. Also, you need not have the extra weight of a book or wonder which one to take along as you get a lot of books with Kindle. Also reading on Kindle is cost-effective too.
8: Learn new languages
When bored with your phone use your free time to learn new languages on your phone. There are many language learning apps, you can now download onto your phone and start learning a new language anytime and anywhere. The good thing about these apps is that they make learning easier with interactive lessons, fun quizzes, and games. Some of them even have a conversation practice feature to help you practice well.
9: Meditate using the phone
Well, phones often get a bad reputation for being distractive and wasting time but using it the right way can help you be intentional. You can use your phone to relax and meditate. Most of us think of meditation as doing some breathing, I was also one of them until I found out about guided meditation. If you are someone who finds it difficult to meditate you must try guided meditation, it’s a kind of meditation where an expert guides you through meditation.
I find phones are very suitable for doing guided meditation as you can use them anywhere. There are many apps that can be used on phones for meditation, I like Headspace. So next time you are with your phone and extra time try to destress yourself and try meditation.
10: Keep a diary
Use your phone to speak your heart and write everything. Write down daily activities, track habits, note ideas and organize your mind. You can do it simply by just writing daily entries on Google Docs or using specific apps. You don’t need to carry your diary everywhere or let people know you keep a diary, just write on your phone from anywhere, and others may think you are texting on your phone. More than convenience, it is secured and no one will know your private thoughts.
11: Delete extra photos and images
Do you click 20 photos just to get the perfect ones? I am guilty too in my defense my daughter just can’t stand still for a photo. So, when I have nothing to do and just wait with my phone (with a bad network too) I use the time to delete the multiple photos and other photos that are not required and put the real good ones to the cloud. And mercilessly delete the forwarded videos. To have more space to capture new memories.
12: Learn a hobby
When bored, use your phone to explore new hobbies and learn about them.
YouTube has tutorials on almost everything on earth, so who needs to join hobby classes? Just go around looking for things that interest you and I am sure you will find some great variations and few variety of things to do in that area, that eventually you will get hooked to it. Learning new hobbies in your free time helps you stay creative, feel fulfilled and help you beat stress.
13: Unfollow accounts
Another thing that you can do on your phone that is productive and will make your life better is to unfollow accounts from social media that you do not relate to anymore or find not useful. We often like something and subscribe but over the period we don’t need it anymore. Also, be more intentional about unfollowing those that do not align with your vision for life, make you feel dissatisfied and that talks about sensitive topic like religion, politics and they can influence your opinion and may even manipulate you. It is good to be inspired by other’s views but you have to be careful about preserving your personality too.
14: Plan a meal
I prefer to plan meals for the week so that every day I do not have to spend my mind thinking about the meal of the day and can also do some preparation in advance. But planning the meal itself takes some time. So when I find some time throughout the week I plan meals on my phone as it is convenient and handy for grocery shopping in case I get time to get it from the shop. I use the Notes app on my phone but there are specific apps for meal planning too. Planning meals on the phone is a good use of your time and also helps you stay healthy.
15: Order grocery
With online grocery deliveries getting so popular and convenient, there are many options for purchasing groceries online. When bored and have a phone at hand order your groceries to make productive use of your time and also to save your time for going out for groceries. The best part is you can choose your preferred delivery time to keep things running smoothly.
16: Enroll in a course
If you are planning to upskill or learn advanced technology to beat the competition you can enroll yourself for the course and take the course over your phone at your convenience and get better in life. These additional courses will help you get a promotion or build something new for yourself. When I wanted to start this blog I took some courses to learn about setting up a website and technical stuff I used my phone to access these courses as I had a time crunch due to my job and life at home and it has let me build this blog.
17: Go to Pinterest
Unlike social media, I don’t find my time wasted on Pinterest. It is a great place to get inspired, get some new ideas, and learn something new. It is a good way to stay connected to your interests and hobbies while on the go. The best thing is you can save and categorize content that you like. Pinterest on the phone is particularly useful for those who have busy lifestyles and can use a few minutes of free time to stay inspired.
18: Pay bills
You can use your free time on the phone to make payments for bills. You can integrate all your frequent payments in one app like AmazonPay and make all the payments in 1 click instead of logging into several accounts and keep an easy tab on all your payment status and expenses. These apps mostly remind you of the due dates too in case you miss the payment.
19: Organize your emails
When bored you can organize your email on your phone. These days you receive so many promotional emails that you can miss out on important personal emails. If you access your work emails on the phone then you can organize your work emails too efficiently over the phone.Unsubscribe from the email that you do not want to receive. Make categories to keep important emails easily accessible so that you do not have to search for them. Read my post on How to declutter email quickly and the Best tips to improve email productivity to organize your emails.
20: Organize your phone
And lastly, you can use your free time to organize your phone. A cluttered and unorganized phone can be annoying as it will be difficult to find things. Arrange your most frequent apps on the home screen. Create a folder to access similar kinds of apps in one place. Create biometrically protected folders to keep your critical apps related to banking secure, etc. You can also take backup for your important data or set up contact backup on the drive. This will make your day-to-day use of the phone much easier.
Conclusion
So these are the 20 things that you can do on your phone. So next time when you are bored, waiting, or just find yourself scrolling on social media save the pin above to refer to these Productive things to do on your phone in your free time.
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12 tips to boost your productivity at work
10 things to do in 5 minutes to improve your life
