There are things that make a home feel calming, and the same is true of our phones. Here are four apps I’ve personally installed that have done a lot to reduce the anxieties I feel when using my phone.

4

Niagara Launcher

Your homescreen is the first thing you see when you unlock your phone. Most phones come with home screens that are already filled with large icons, folders, and possibly even a few widgets. Everything wants your attention.

Fortunately, Android phones have the option to completely swap out the default launcher. Niagara Launcher is a minimalist way to launch apps that genuinely makes my phone feel less addictive.

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The app icons are smaller, and I can swap them out for built-in monochrome alternatives. I can hide the status bar and have very little information visible on-screen at any given time. Important information like my agenda with upcoming events and the week’s weather forecast are all built directly into the launcher, so I don’t need to go searching through other parts of my phone.

In addition to all of this—the interface is designed to be easily used one-handed even on the biggest of phones. It’s so quick and easy to launch an app that I spend much less time potentially getting distracted by all the icons I scroll by when swiping through a traditional app drawer.

I genuinely appreciate the changes Samsung introduced to my Galaxy Z Fold 6 in One UI 7 and for a while its homescreen widgets ran my life, but now I’m back on Niagara Launcher because it’s not only faster, but it just provides a greater sense of calm.

3

PenCake

I’m writing these words in PenCake. While this app is a recent addition to my life, all of my professional work currently goes through PenCake first. That’s because this app offers the fastest, least distracting way I know to start writing on a screen.

The deliberate, opinionated design is what makes PenCake so worthwhile, and this feels like an app tailor-made for writers like me. When you open the app, you’re presented with a nearly blank white screen. There is a title of your current project at the top and a list of entries underneath. Simply swipe down to start writing a new entry or swipe left and right to switch between projects.

A website can be a project, with each post being its own entry. A novel can be a project, with each entry being a different chapter. A project can be a place for poetry, with each entry being a different poem. Personally, no matter what I’m writing, I find this layout works, and it saves me the mental bandwidth of organizing work into folders even though, in a technical sense, the organization isn’t that different. Presentation matters, and PenCake is intensely helpful in removing distractions that get in the way of me and my thoughts.

2

Noise Machine

I’m not someone who needs constant background noise, as I’m happy to spend days on silent retreats. But I’m a dad who works from home in a family of four, and my house typically isn’t silent. I’m easily distracted when I’m trying to write—so I put on headphones each day to block out the sound of family life.

For years, I’ve curated a collection of music to play while I work. Lyrics are a no-go. I like neoclassical, but you might think I have a near-obsession with Lo-Fi Girl if you were to put my headphones on. Yet picking an album in my music player or browsing through music to keep my listening fresh pulls me away from work more often than I care to admit.

I’ve tried ambient background noise in the past, but I typically get carried away tinkering with the sounds of birds and rain, ultimately returning back to music.

Then, more recently, I discovered Noise Machine. This app provides four types of white noise (white, pink, green, and brown) in five variations (classic, ambient, deep, super deep, and clean). All four sounds are available in classic for free, and a single purchase unlocks all that remains. I find these sounds help me start focusing and stay focused without the distractions of tracks changing or getting swept away by certain songs.

Plus, the interface is the most minimal, no-fuss layout I’ve seen for this sort of app. Within a few seconds, you’ve seen all there is to see, and it’s time to get back to what you were doing. This app isn’t just good for work, but it can also help with meditation and falling asleep.

1

Chill Vector Live Wallpaper

I find most images don’t make for great wallpapers, whether they’re photos I’ve taken myself or pictures explicitly offered as downloadable wallpapers. They’re too bright and cluttered. They don’t contrast enough with all icons and text. They ultimately feel like someone handed me a photo and a marker before asking me to take notes. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate a good wallpaper or even a good animated one—just that I feel they’re hard to find.

Chill Vector Live Wallpaper is my most recent lucky find. It provides a wide range of abstract landscapes to pick from that shift with a degree of depth as you move your phone. The weather can match what’s going on in your area, including the position of the sun or moon. The app informs me of the weather and the time of day without me having to check the clock or actively look for the forecast.

It does all of this with such a clean design. Plus, there’s a vital built-in setting to dim the background, so that app icons and text are clearly legible. I have this cranked all the way up.

This is another app where the full set of features are unlocked by a one-time fee, which I immediately paid.

I remain on the lookout for more apps like these that make my phone a more pleasant place to be. Unlike most people, my phone isn’t merely my smartphone. It’s also my PC.

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In calming down this one device, I remove a lot of anxiety from my entire digital life. And let’s face it, our digital lives are large chunks of our overall lives these days.