r/nosurf • u/thecalmman420 • 20h ago
I kind of broke my phone (And you can too!)
Over the past 2 years I keep blocking more and more aspects of my phone with various apps. I tell people my goal is to “make my phone useless” outside of what I actually want from it.
I don’t wanna do the dumb phone thing as phones are very useful such ass Calculators, Calendars, Maps, Communication (for work this is mandatory), Banking and payments, etc.
However there’s so much useless stuff like social media (I have none on my phone, nothing), YouTube scrolling, REDDIT scrolling! The worst!
Over the past 2 years I’ve installed a bunch of apps, some free some paid, to do some form of app/website blocking but I always was able to turn them off here or there.
Then something funny happened.
Youtube is blocked on my browser. I literally can’t turn it off. I’ve opened tons of apps, gone through setting, I have no idea where this “Youtube block” exists.
I THINK what happened was I had a paid app, blocked YouTube, didn’t pay to extend it, deleted it, and now it’s still just blocked somewhere on there.
So the past 2 months I just started doing more of that.
I use Blank Page, Screen Time, Down Time, Simple Phone, Blank Spaces, and more and set up schedule blocks, app blocks, total blocks, I use Blank Pages and blocked a gigantic list of websites and had my coworker I don’t know that well set a random PIN that he doesn’t remember the code to (every block list has a different PIN and I can’t keep track of them), and so on.
My MacBook is similar in that I use 1Focus and set up a bunch of unbreakable blocks with PINs I don’t even know.
Now my Reddit use is only open 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening so I just write down stuff I wanna do for when it opens up but I know from experience that in a week I’ll miss half these open blocks and break this habit.
Fun stuff.
1
20h ago
I have been on a similar journey for over a year now. I downloaded minimalist launcher app on my phone and tablet. I have stuff blocked for 30 days at a time like social media, play store, chrome, youtube, etc. My laptop is the only open device I have. I only use it at work.
1
u/IntelligentWish4915 19h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/comments/1gepnjv/the_best_solution_for_addictive_blocking_on/
read it carefully, the tool is free, block anything you can imagine. try this for your phone and throw away your computer if you can
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