Shore Up Your Digital Bunker (3 Min Read) | Vol. 147

April 18, 2025

“Today, just over a decade since smartphones entered our lives, we’re beginning to suspect that their impact on our lives might not be entirely good. We feel busy but ineffective. Connected but lonely. The same technology that gives us freedom can also act like a leash—and the more tethered we become, the more it raises the question of who’s actually in control.” ― Catherine Price

Shore Up Your Digital Bunker

When Thetis dipped her son Achilles in the River Styx to make him invulnerable, she held him by the heel. The greatest Greek warrior had a weak spot. Superman had Kryptonite.* Samson had Delilah and a set of shears. 

You have a chink in your armor. Everyone does. 

Last week, I taught a four-day boot camp on recapturing your time. We helped hundreds of people identify their “bunker” where they are most productive. We delved into the distractions that steal our time and focus. The most common Kryptonite by far was smartphones. We use them every day, for almost everything. They are amazing productivity tools. Most likely, you’re reading this newsletter on one right now. 

They are also the single biggest hole in our bunkers. The default setting for our phones leaves us exposed. Email and text notifications detonate like fireworks. Social apps sing like sirens. And news apps beckon us to doomscroll a tsunami of real-time reporting. It’s like the checkout impulse buys inhabit every aisle of our digital work store. 

Our physical bunker needs a digital defense system. The tools we use for work aren’t always working for us.

I can’t squeeze 4 days of training into your Friday five-minute read. However, I can give you one tip to shore up your digital bunker. Identify the number one app that is stealing your time and shackle it. 

Here’s how:

1. Open “Settings” on your smartphone.
2. Select “Screentime” (Apple) or “Digital Wellbeing” (Android).
3. Identify the app that steals your time; and
4. Set a daily use limit. 

The app that tempts me most is Instagram. Especially on the weekends, I click the Polaroid OneStep-inspired icon throughout the day. Cue the dopamine. I use it for work. So I looked at the average usage on the days I used it the least. On those days, I could do my work and have a little fun in about 20 minutes. That’s my new daily limit. Now, my smartphone gives me a warning: “Five minutes remaining for Instagram today.” If I burn through those, it grays out and blocks the app until midnight. 

With that singular move, I clawed back almost two hours a week. You can get a lot done in two uninterrupted hours!  

One question to ponder in your thinking time: What’s the ONE app stealing your time? 

Make an Impact!
Jay Papasan
Co-author of The ONE Thing & The Millionaire Real Estate Agent 

* Dorothy G. Woolfolk, the first female editor of D.C. Comics, thought Superman’s “invulnerability was boring.” She introduced Kryptonite to Lex Luthor’s delight.  Thank you, Dorothy! (The Daily Press)