one sec | delay apps & focus 4+

This app is super useful because it reduces that immediate hit of dopamine when you have to wait for which ever social media app you hate to love to open. I recently read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and was looking for ways to reduce my screen time. While Apple’s native “app limit” feature is nice, it doesn’t create that immediate friction I need to stop myself from mindlessly opening reddit and scrolling like a zombie.

There are a few things I wish this app could improve on. The first is that I wish the setup was simpler. I understand that given the closed-door nature of Apple’s products that this might be difficult. The second is that I wish the desktop browser extensions were more fleshed out. While I appreciate the macOS app and Safari extension, I use Chrome as my browser on my MacBook Pro, so it would be a lot more useful to me if the Chrome extension had more features. Overall though really great app!

Firstly I want to say that is app is %100 worth the money. The app's main feature where it focuses you to wait an certain amount of time before opening a configured app is prefect for curbing mindless dopamine hunting. Using this app has certainly brought back intentionality to my phone use. That being said there are two curial features I wish this app had that would make it prefect. The first is that it's too easy to turn off blocks and interventions, I wish I could setup a passcode needed to turn off blocks and interventions. Ideally one would have a trusted person setup the passcode so that one wouldn't be able to turn it off even if they wanted to. I often find a flimsy reason to turn off a block or intervention and I end up relapsing. The second thing I wish this app had is the ability to set daily allowances for app use that would then block the app after the allowance ran out. I understand that somethings are not possible within the apple ecosystem so if that is the case with this things I will change my rating to 5 stars. I will also change my rating to 5 stars if these features do get added.

I’ve been using the app for one day and it’s already giving me so many hours back in my day. The disturbing part is how it reveals the depths of your addiction. Today it blocked my attempts to open Twitter 107 times, and since I downloaded the chrome extension too it blocked Reddit and Twitter about another 100 times on there. It was just a mindless habit that would have added up to hours per day.

The concept behind this app is so simple yet somehow Apple couldn’t figure it out with all their brainpower. As we all know the screen time feature is practically useless. When you get the delay screen, it sort of jolts you as if from sleep, and you don’t even remember having opened the app in the first place. I definitely applaud this app and highly recommend it, it’s only been a day but I think it will be life changing.