How to follow several sports without living on your phone

Following one team is easy to manage. Following an NFL team, a Premier League club, a Formula 1 driver and a tennis player is how you end up with a dozen apps and a phone that buzzes all evening. The fix is mostly a few habits, not more apps.

The short version

• Sort what you follow into tiers, and only follow the top tier closely.
• Decide what you want from each sport: just results, or storylines and analysis too.
• Catch up at one set time each day instead of checking all day.
• Turn off most push alerts and keep only the few you would act on.
• Put schedules in your calendar so you know what's on without opening an app.

Sort what you follow into tiers

Not everything you follow deserves the same attention. Be honest about it and put each team, player or event into one of three tiers:

• Tier 1: the ones you watch. You plan your evening around these games. You want results, injuries, lineups and the occasional bit of analysis.
• Tier 2: the ones you keep up with. You want to know how they did and where they stand, but you rarely watch live.
• Tier 3: the big moments only. Finals, majors, a world championship, a record. You don't need anything in between.

Most noise comes from treating tier 2 and tier 3 like tier 1: full alerts, a dedicated app, a dozen accounts in your feed. Moving something down a tier is the quickest way to get time back.

Decide what you actually want from each sport

For each tier 1 team, ask whether you want results or storylines. Results are the score, the standings and the next game. Storylines are the injury news, the coach under pressure and the trade talk. Both are fine, but storylines take far more time to follow, and most of the churn around them goes nowhere.

It also helps to know each sport's rhythm. The NFL plays once a week in season, so one catch-up after the weekend covers most of it. The NBA and NHL have games most nights from the fall until mid-April, so a daily summary fits better. Soccer clubs play at weekends with some midweek games, and golf, tennis and motorsport mostly run in weekend or week-long blocks. If you are not sure when each season runs, the year in sport calendar sets it out.

Set one time to catch up

The habit that does the most is choosing one time of day to catch up on everything, and sticking to it. Morning coffee, the commute and lunch all work. What matters is that it is the same time each day and covers all your sports in one sitting.

That only works if your sources fit into one sitting. A few options:

• A score app with only your teams set as favorites, checked once.
• A summary email that covers everything you follow.
• A daily sports podcast, if you would rather listen.

The aim is to get the same information in five minutes once, instead of thirty seconds forty times. Between catch-ups, you can let it go. Very little in sport needs your attention within the hour.

Turn off most push alerts

Push alerts are the main reason sport takes over your phone. Go through each sports app's notification settings and turn off everything except what you would act on.

Usually worth keeping:

• A game-start alert for a game you plan to watch.
• A lineup alert, if you play fantasy and need to set lineups.
• A final-score alert for one or two tier 1 teams, if you really want it.

Usually worth turning off:

• "Breaking news" alerts, which are often rumors or minor updates.
• Highlights and video alerts.
• Promotions, betting offers and alerts for teams you don't follow.
• Score alerts for anything below tier 1.

Your phone can do some of the work. On an iPhone, Settings > Notifications lets you turn alerts off app by app, and Scheduled Summary bundles the apps you choose into a summary at set times instead of delivering each alert as it comes in. Android also lets you turn notifications off app by app, and many apps split theirs into categories you can switch off one at a time.

Put schedules in your calendar

You check apps partly to find out when the next game is. A calendar answers that without the feed attached.

Many teams and leagues offer schedules you can add to your calendar from their websites. Once they are in, you can see the week at a glance, games show in your own time zone, and you won't miss a kickoff because you forgot to look it up. For tier 3 events, add the few you care about by hand: a major, a final, a race.

Time zones matter more than people expect when you follow several sports. European soccer often kicks off in the morning or early afternoon for viewers in the Americas, and events in Asia and Australia often fall overnight. A calendar in your local time saves a lot of mental arithmetic.

If you watch games later

If you record games or watch on replay, alerts and feeds are a spoiler risk. Mute your team's name and common hashtags on the social apps you use, as most let you mute words or phrases. Keep score apps closed until you have watched, and set any summary email to arrive after you usually watch rather than before.

Where Get Your Sports Here fits

Get Your Sports Here is one way to handle the catch-up habit. It emails a short daily briefing about the sports, leagues, teams and players you pick, once or twice a day at times you choose, with every fact linked to its source. Each sport gets its own section, with the one you care about most first, and the site shows the schedule for everything you follow.

For tier 3, you can add the general rundown to the bottom of your briefing: the big things across all of sport, with the major leagues kept to a line each. There is more on that in the general rundown explained. It is not the only way to do this. A tidy score app and a good podcast can work just as well, as long as you check them once rather than all day.

Frequently asked questions

How many teams can I realistically follow?

There is no set number. A useful test: if you wouldn't change your plans to watch a team, it belongs in tier 2 or 3, and a result and a line of context is enough.

Should I turn off all sports notifications?

Not necessarily. Keep the ones you would act on, such as a game-start alert for a game you plan to watch, and turn off breaking news, highlights and promotional alerts.

What's the best time of day to catch up on sports?

The one you will stick to. Morning picks up overnight results, and late afternoon catches news that affects that evening's games.

How do I avoid spoilers when I watch games later?

Mute team names and hashtags on social apps, keep score apps closed until you have watched, and schedule any summary email for after you usually watch.

If you would like one email to do the catching up for you, you can set up a briefing with the teams that matter and adjust it after a week. For a closer look at what a good one should include, see what a daily sports briefing is.