I set up a basic SQL table where I record the time spent on my phone (and other devices) based on the screen time data from StayFree (Android), and a little private webpage with a line chart and average statistics.

It's pretty manual (2-3 mins per week), but logging the new dates each week is a nice little "check-in" to stop me from drifting back towards more screen time.

I've never been a heavy user, but I noticed sometimes I drifted towards 1-2 hours per day and have since gotten down to an average of less than 15 minutes per day. I just use the phone for utility purpose now. I got scared straight seeing the UK average daily phone use statistics, including my own, and how much that adds up to over a year.

Digital Wellbeing was quite good but I noticed it counts things which aren't necessarily screen time. I kept having loads of time on the 'Clock' app for some reason, and spam calls I ignore seemed to also be counted even if I saw them on my watch.

As for the phone setup itself:

- no media apps (social, games, video, news)

- a web browser, but I try to just remember anything I'm interested in and look it up later on a PC

- absolute minimum notifications. phone, sms, email and messages (Signal/WhatsApp). I try to use only for emergencies or quick messages and meetups instead of having conversations over messages

- minimal launcher (Nova) with black and white icons

- no blocks, just screen time monitoring using StayFree. I don't want to use blocks as a crutch