How I Fixed My Screen Time Without Going Monk Mode

My phone told me I picked it up 97 times last Tuesday and I honestly couldn't even argue. Like, what was I even checking? Nothing happened 97 times. Nobody texted me 97 times. I just kept picking it up, looking at the same three apps, putting it back down, and picking it up again. The Screen Time notification on Sunday morning has become this weird weekly ritual where I feel bad about myself and then change absolutely nothing.

Anyway. I think I finally figured it out? Or at least figured out something that's been working for a few months now, which is longer than my usual cycle of "new productivity system → feel like a genius → abandon it within two weeks."

The part where I keep failing

I should back up. The first thing I tried was deleting all my social apps, which lasted about four days until I realized the mobile websites work just as well. If you've never typed "twitter.com" into mobile Safari like you're picking a lock on your own self-control, you're a better person than me.

Then I tried airplane mode during work hours, which worked great for focus but also meant I missed a Slack from my boss. And a call from my partner. In the same afternoon. Not my finest moment.

The lowest point was probably the Pi-hole phase. If you don't know what that is, it's a network-level ad blocker you can self-host. I spent an entire weekend configuring DNS rules to block YouTube and Reddit across my whole apartment. And it worked! At home! On my laptop! Then I'd leave the house with my phone and immediately undo everything. I basically built a very impressive security system to protect a building I kept walking out of.

Every approach had the same problem. They were nuclear. Total ban, total access, nothing in between. And I need the in between, because sometimes I actually need YouTube for a tutorial or Twitter for work stuff. I just also need to not look up from my phone two hours later wondering where the afternoon went.

What I'm doing now

OK so here's what actually worked. It's not that impressive.

I don't touch social media before noon. Just don't. On purpose. This was the biggest one by far. I used to start every day by checking Twitter and Hacker News in bed, which meant my brain was in react mode before I'd even gotten up. Now I just... don't do that. The mornings are quieter and I get weirdly more done between seven and noon than I used to get done all day. I don't think I'm working harder. I think I'm just not constantly interrupting myself.

The phone stays in the kitchen at night. I used to keep it on the nightstand and every morning I'd grab it before I was even awake enough to make decisions. Now I have to physically walk to the kitchen, and by the time I get there I usually remember that I don't actually need to check anything.

The other thing is I put DigitalZen on my browser. A friend mentioned it and I figured why not, I'd already tried everything else. It's just an extension—there's a desktop app too but I only use the browser one. The deal is you can set time limits on sites instead of blocking them completely. So I give myself thirty minutes of Hacker News a day and when it's gone, it's gone. That's it. No dramatic confrontation with myself, no willpower battle. Just a timer running quietly in the background.

I think the reason it works for me when other blockers didn't is that it's not a wall. It's more like a speed bump. I still get to browse if I want to. I just can't lose track of time doing it because the clock's running whether I'm paying attention or not. And there's a countdown thing before a block kicks in—five, four, three—which sounds silly but it gives you this split second where you realize oh, I've been doing this for thirty minutes, and that awareness alone is usually enough to snap me out of it. Or not. Sometimes I burn through the whole thirty minutes. That's fine too. At least I know I did it.

Oh, and I close my laptop at seven. Hard stop. This one sucked to get used to and it's probably the rule I'm most glad about, which probably says something depressing about my relationship to work.

So does it work?

Yeah, mostly? My screen time went from like six and a half hours a day to three and a half. Phone pickups from the nineties to somewhere around forty. I know that's still a lot. But it's half of what it was, and I'll take it.

The weird thing is what happened to the reclaimed time. I thought I'd use it for more work. Instead I've just been sleeping more and reading actual books again. And I finished two side projects that had been sitting around for six months. Not because I suddenly had more discipline or motivation—they were always doable. They just kept getting pushed aside by stuff that felt urgent in the moment and wasn't.

I don't know. I'm not going to pretend I have this all figured out. Some days are still bad. Last Wednesday I burned through my whole thirty minutes of Hacker News before nine AM and then sat there annoyed at myself. But the nice thing about having a system is that tomorrow is just another day with the same limits. You don't have to re-commit or re-motivate. You just wake up and the rules are still there.

If any of this sounds familiar, the combination of the kitchen phone thing and DigitalZen.app running in the background with some sane limits has been enough for me. Your mileage will almost certainly vary. But if you're the type who opens a new tab and types "redd" on autopilot before you even know what you're doing, it might be worth a shot.

Thanks for reading. Questions or thoughts? Reach out at matt@emmons.club.