How do you stop your phone and e-reader from interrupting your reading?

Why set this up in advance?

Every buzz is a door out of the book, and an ADHD brain tends to walk through doors. Mind wandering that you do not choose is closely tied to ADHD symptoms in research by Seli and colleagues. (Seli et al., 2015) You cannot switch that off, but you can stop handing it reasons. Decide once, while you are calm, so you do not have to decide every evening.

iPhone: build a reading Focus

• Create a Focus called Reading in Settings, Focus. Apple's Focus settings let you choose which apps and people can notify you while it is on. (Apple Support)
• Allow only the app you read or listen in, plus any person who must reach you.
• Turn it on from Control Center when you open the book. If you read at a set time, schedule it.
• Optional: give the Focus its own home screen page with only your reading apps on it.

Android: pause the apps that pull you away

• Open Settings, Digital Wellbeing, Focus mode, and pick the apps you want paused while you read. Google's help page describes Focus mode for avoiding distractions, with a Take a break option if you need an app briefly. (Google)
• Leave your reading app, audiobook app and library app unpaused.
• Menu names vary by phone maker; if you cannot find Focus mode, search Settings for "Focus" or "Digital Wellbeing".

Kindle and other e-readers: download, then go offline

• Download the book and the next one or two you might want while you are still connected.
• Turn on airplane mode. Amazon notes that in airplane mode you cannot buy, sync or download Kindle content, which is exactly the point during a session. (Amazon)
• Turn it off again when you want to sync your place across devices or borrow a library book.
• On a Kobo or another e-reader, the same idea applies: download first, then switch off Wi-Fi in the settings. Our Kindle vs Kobo comparison covers how much store each device puts in front of you.

The room: distance beats willpower

• If you are not reading on your phone, put it in another room, face down, on a charger. Across a room is good; through a door is better.
• Open the book to the right page before you sit down. The fewer steps between sitting and reading, the fewer chances to drift.
• Pick one spot and one cue: the same chair, the same drink, the same lamp. Cues do the starting for you.
• If silence is too loud, use the same instrumental playlist or noise every time, so it becomes part of the cue.

What if you read on your phone?

Then the phone is the book, and the Focus does the heavy lifting. Use full-screen reading, turn off any in-app social or streak features you can, and set a short session with a timer outside the reading app, so the end of the session is not a notification. How to focus while reading covers the rest of the session, and reading sprints the timer.

If you keep losing to the phone, consider a device that cannot do anything else. Our best e-readers for ADHD hub scores distraction surface as the heaviest criterion.