If you have tried to cut back and it slipped, the method let you down. Every approach that relies on you deciding well at 11pm is betting against the way the apps are built.
Five that do not.
1. Build friction, not willpower
Willpower runs out over a day. Changing what is easy does not.
Make the unwanted thing harder to reach and the default takes care of itself. A block at the system level is the strong version of this: you open the app, you get a shield instead, and there is no tap that turns it off.
2. Decide once, in advance
A decision you make now that limits your choices later does the work your future self will not.
Set a Schedule for the hours you already know are a problem, and the block turns up on its own. Your 11pm self does not get a vote, because your 6pm self already used it.
3. Replace the habit, do not just remove it
Blocking an app leaves a gap, and a gap gets filled by whatever is nearest. Decide what fills it before you need to.
Cook something. Go for the walk. Put the phones in a pact and play a game with the people in the room. What counts is what you did with the hour.
4. Start small and climb
Do not go from six hours to zero on a Monday.
- Week 1: block your worst app for one hour a day, on Flexible.
- Week 2: two hours.
- Week 3: add the second app.
- Week 4: try Strict.
Flexible and Strict exist as two rungs for exactly this. Climb when the rung you are on stops being difficult.
5. Look at the number
The Score reports your day back to you: Sleep, Focus and Rest, one number that moves as the day goes. Pickups and distracting apps pull Focus down, and only the pact minutes you actually completed earn it back, so it stays honest.
Seeing the day written down lands differently from a vague sense that you were on your phone too much. It is a mirror.
Start with the first one. Block the app you reach for most, for one hour, today.
