GoKawiilAndy Walker / Android Authority
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.
What's the first thing you set up on a new phone? 50 votes Notification settings 38 % A third-party launcher 36 % Modes 4 % App limits 4 % Quick Settings tiles 14 % Something else (let me know in the comments) 4 %
Niagara Launcher
Mitja Rutnik / Android Authority
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.
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