Cat Goetze has built her career in tech, but says even she’s made an effort to reduce her phone screen time.
The LA-based zillennial tech entrepreneur says earlier in her career, she felt she was on her phone too much and decided to make a concerted effort to curb the habit. She ended up going “off of social media almost entirely for five years.”
“I was screen-time sober, so to speak,” Goetze tells CNBC Make It.
Her quest to reduce her screen time led her to create Physical Phones, a landline-style phone that connects to smartphones via Bluetooth to place and receive calls. Goetze launched the business over the summer and sold $120,000 of them within three days, according to documents reviewed by Make It.
Goetze says she’s no longer fully off social media now that she creates online content for her brand as a tech founder, but she still makes an effort to stay off as much as possible. Aside from using her own product, Goetze says these five tips have helped her keep her screen time to a minimum:
1. She changed her phone display to black and white
The first time Goetze went “screen-time sober,” she says she didn’t feel compelled to keep up with the latest tech. She had an older device, an iPhone 8, at the time, which had fewer bells and whistles — or distractions — to keep her on her phone.
She also adjusted her display settings so her screen was in black and white, which some users says makes your phone less fun to look at and therefore less distracting.
“It was super low stimulus,” Goetze says, which kept her from endlessly scrolling on social media apps.
2. She doesn’t check her phone for the first 30 minutes of each day
Goetze says she avoids looking at her phone for the first 30 minutes of each morning during the week, and up to an hour on weekends. That means using a real alarm clock to wake up.
She finds that starting her day phone-free drastically reduces the amount of times she reaches for it for the remainder of the day.
“How you start your day kind of sets the tone subconsciously for the rest of the day,” she says. Now, she focuses on small morning routines, like brushing her teeth, journaling and feeding her cat.
“I’m busy enough as it is,” Goetze says. “I don’t even realize the 30 minutes go by, and then I end up picking up my phone like a ton less.”
3. She leaves her phone at home
Goetze says the biggest milestone she hit was going the entire day without checking her phone.
She’d accomplish that by leaving it at home while she was out running errands.
“I would literally not even bring my phone if I left the house,” she says, “like leaving it to go to the gym, and then I would go to the grocery [store], and then I would go to one more place and then come home. It would end up being half the day, or almost the entire day.”
4. She asks whether checking her phone is really urgent
Goetze says that when she’s at home and feels the urge to check her phone, she’ll ask herself: “Is there anything that is truly so urgent that it cannot wait until the next time I’m at my computer, which is usually within 15 minutes?”
That thought process is usually enough to keep her from pulling out her phone until she can dedicate time to knock out a few digital to-dos at once while back at her desk.
If she’s out somewhere and checks her phone, she’ll again pause and consider whether she really needs to respond to a message or complete a task in that moment.
“I’ll ask myself, will it make a difference if I send this message now, or later when I’m not doing something else — like when I’m actually sitting down and spending intentional time to respond to messages,” she says.
For example, she was recently waiting in line at a coffee shop when she read an email on her phone from her overseas Physical Phones manufacturer.
She thought about responding in the moment, but paused and realized it was the middle of the night for them anyway, so her reply could wait. That ends up being the case in most instances, she says.
5. She understands smartphones are built to maximize engagement.
Goetze says one of the hardest parts of reducing her reliance on her phone is giving herself grace and knowing that it can be a difficult habit to break.
“There’s a natural tendency to take on a lot of responsibility and be like, ‘This is my fault. My screen time sucks. I have ADHD. I’m stupid; I’m bad; I’m I can’t pay attention to stuff,'” she says.
As someone who studied science, technology, media and communication at Stanford, Goetze says she reminds herself that her screen time habits are linked to how companies design their devices and social media apps to be engaging.
Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke has done research showing that using social media apps can cause the release of dopamine among users, leading them to want to keep using the platforms — even more so when AI-powered algorithms learn what they want to see or respond to most.
From Goetze’s perspective, “this is not about willpower,” she says, but rather about “putting external things in place that combat the forces that are already underway,” like turning your phone screen to black and white, or physically leaving it out of your bedroom at night.
Want to give your kids the ultimate advantage? You teach them to read and ride a bike, but often skip money management. Sign up for our new course, How to Raise Financially Smart Kids, and learn how to build healthy financial habits and prepare them for real-world milestones. Use coupon code EARLYBIRD for 30% off. Offer valid from Dec. 8-22, 2025. Terms apply.
