Pick the hours in December with someone who’s in it too. The block keeps them in January.
What is a good New Year’s resolution for less screen time?
One with the hours decided in advance and someone else in it. Pick the evenings in December, agree them with the people you spend them with, and put every phone under a block for those hours. Deciding limits in advance reduces use (Allcott, Gentzkow and Song, American Economic Review, 2022).
Screen time resolutions are usually a number instead: two hours a day, no phone after 10 PM, an hour less than last year. A number has to be defended every evening, by you alone, at the hour you are least in the mood to defend anything.
Why do screen time resolutions fall apart?
Wanting it is common. 70% of US adults under 30 say they spend too much time on their phone, and of US adults who tried to cut back last year, a quarter say it went very well (Pew Research Center, 2026).
The pattern is familiar. The resolution is made on January 1 and then made again every evening, by one person, at the end of a long day. Screen Time asks whether you want more time, and Ignore is one tap away. Deleting the app lasts until you need it for something, and then it is back. Nobody else is in it, so nobody notices when it stops.
A randomised experiment put a number on the evening part: self-control problems drive about a third of social media use (Allcott, Gentzkow and Song, American Economic Review, 2022).
Why does deciding in advance work?
The same experiment found the other half. Deciding limits in advance reduces use.
The decision gets made once, while you are thinking clearly, and the evening has nothing left to decide. There is no negotiation at 9 PM, because the terms were set at a kitchen table weeks earlier, by a version of you who was not holding a phone.
That is how a block in CoPact works. The hours and the terms are fixed before it starts. In a crew block under Strict, backing out closes 15 minutes before the start. From then on there is no break and no edit, and it ends on its timer or when more than half of the people in it vote to end it. The block keeps going with CoPact closed, after a force quit and through a restart.
Why do it with someone else?
A resolution kept alone is one person’s word against one person’s tiredness. Put someone else in it and the evening has a second reason to hold: the people across the table made the same agreement, for the same hours, on their own phones.
It also changes what the evening is. Sunday dinner with every phone blocked is a plan, with a time and people in it. Nobody is sitting out while everyone else scrolls, because every phone at the table is under the same block.
And nobody is in charge. Each person joins on their own iPhone and keeps their own Always Allowed apps. A crew never sees anyone’s apps, and under Strict, ending early takes a vote of more than half the people in it.
How to keep a screen time New Year’s resolution
- Pick the hours in December. Start with one or two evenings a week, and name the day, the start and the end: Sunday dinner from 7 to 8:30 PM, say, or Saturday’s film from 8 to 10:30 PM.
- Ask who’s in. Your partner, the people you live with, the ones you would be at the table with anyway. In CoPact, start a crew and send the link. A crew holds up to 20 people in all, you included, and each person joins on their own iPhone with their own trial or subscription.
- Make it repeat. Plan the block once and repeat it on the weekdays you picked. Each person counts themselves in, and anyone who can’t make one evening can skip that one without leaving the rest.
- Pick Strict for the evenings you mean. Then the terms you set in December are the terms in March. Flexible suits the evenings with more give: a break of up to 20 minutes, and the block relocks itself after it. If something real comes up, the Emergency Pass opens everything for one hour, once a week.
What if I’m doing it on my own?
The same idea works with one person in it. A Schedule in CoPact locks the same apps at the same times on the days you pick, and it locks and unlocks even on a day you never open the app. The hours are still decided in December, and the evening still has nothing to negotiate.
For the hour before sleep, bedtime is set once: your sleep hours, then one hold when you turn in, and every app but your Always Allowed ones stays shut until your wake time.
What should the hours be?
Whatever you would miss if the phones were out. Usually that is a meal, a film, a walk, a study night or a slow Sunday morning. Pick the one you already have, then block it. A new hobby can wait until February.
There are ideas for the hours, from dinner to a weekend off, on the use cases page, and blocking apps together shows how a crew block runs from start to end.
New Year’s Day 2027 falls on a Friday, so the year’s first Sunday dinner is on January 3.
