391–400 of 403 posts
Shout out to TechLockdown (not my company) for making this sort of setup much easier to accomplish.
Thanks for this. I'm setting it up now, works for me as advertised. My screen time jumped a lot in the last couple weeks and my mental health has declined in proportion. I use Freedom, but it's a bit glitchy and too easy to delete the app if you really want to cheat. I'm waffling a bit on the default-deny approach to websites. I think that might cause serious headaches since e.g. scanning QR codes to interact with bu…
I myself independently arrived where the author is over years of self experimentation, but I think you'll get used to it in no more than a month.
I even use a whitelist (i.e. default-deny) for websites on my work laptop these days. I have ADHD though, YMMV.
I often leave the house without my iPhone. Here is my full stack: - Ask wife to set up screen time passcode and not tell me - Block social media and other distracting websites in Screen Time - Set a 1 minute time limit on distracting apps - Keep the phone in the garage as much as possible - Get an Apple Watch cellular so that I can still communicate with people, make payments, get directions etc when I am out and abo…
Apple actually finally managed to allow 0 minutes as a time limit. Screen Time really needs to be finished by Apple, with a few more features, like more allowing certain apps at certain times (not just disallowing one set of apps at a certain time).
And to top it off, in iOS 26 (Beta) you can set time limits for websites too! One feature I (and I'm sure many others) were waiting for since forever.
Alternate solution I haven’t seen anywhere else: 1. Screen time to disable browser, App Store etc. 2. Type random 4-digit passwords until you forget. 3. Use your own Apple account as reset. 4. Remove apple password from password manager. Store in “Notes” app or similar on computer. 5. Lock this app storing password behind mandatory typing of gibberish using Cold Turkey on desktop. Works well for me. I will mention th…
> I get the feeling that the “just be disciplined” comment often comes from people who didn’t have these addictive habits seared into their minds from an early age
I had the exact same mentality as you. I wrote the exact same stuff right here on HN, you can check my older comments. I did the same stuff, the lengths I went to lock down my devices...
That's not the case, older people are not immune because they grew up with less tech or anything. It's (probably) just you.
Turns out I actually objectively had far worse self-control than other people. Turns out I was living life really in hard mode while everybody else were coasting with ease. Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD all my childhood, nobody noticed because my school grades were mostly fine.
Go get checked. My life turned over completely with treatment.
What’s wrong with Screen Time and having your spouse define the PIN for it? I can request an additional minute myself, but after that only my spouse can grant me an exception.
You can also use an online time-lock service such as lockmeout.online to store the PIN for ScreenTime or assistive access (even better as it dumb down the UI).
Lol
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I need Jira, Slack, and GitHub during work hours for example. My question, why do you need them on your phone during work hours? Why aren't you using a desktop/laptop/something else?
If your work-style is butt-in-seat for 8 hours having everything on your laptop probably works. For folks with a more meeting-heavy workload, having at least your work calendar/email/messenger on your phone is pretty hard to go without
I took an easier path. I carry two phones - a smartphone and a dumb phone. The smartphone is usually turned off, and is only charged once every 3-4 days. It holds its charge. The dumbphone is actually a second-hand Sony Ericsson Walkman phone which I really love. It has basic web browsing, some very basic utility apps and excellent sound quality, which I care a lot about and bluetooth too. This physical, non-software…
Really like how you've drawn clear lines between personal and work life
My idea to give my son a dumbed-down phone one day was to only install a terminal on it, and maybe chatgpt. And give him access to a server via tailscale. Then he could do whatever a terminal could do, except without the audiovisual or socialnetworking dopamine fixes. And retain all the basic phone functionality.
He needs uber. He needs google maps. Mostly it's not just about looking up information, it's about functionality.