A while back I was walking to pick my daughter up from kindergarten. I stopped, looked at my phone for a few seconds, and noticed something different. I was consciously aware of the reflex.
The compulsion. I wasn't in control. I was just… doing it.
A few days before, my daughter had wanted something from me. I was scrolling. "One minute, sweetheart." She shouted: "Daddy, put down the phone."
That landed. But the wiring in my brain that wanted to just check what's new didn't care.
I went into Samsung settings to find the daily-use number. Six to seven hours a day.
That's it, I thought. I'm dumping this drug. Getting one of those old Nokias I had in high school — calls, messages, and that snake game.
Then I stopped. What about WhatsApp? What if I want to pay for something? Navigate somewhere? What if there's an emergency?
So the actual problem became this: how do I make my phone dumb again — but not plain stupid?
Nothing worked. Maybe this is evolution now, I thought. Who can do six hours a day on this thing and keep their sanity, when research says even thirty minutes a day costs you focus and sleep you don't get back?
I liked that 30-minute number. Strict but real.
This isn't a discipline problem. It's a craving. And if you give a craving enough time without feeding it, it stops fighting.
That's when I thought of Jason. The Argo passing the Sirens. Jason had himself tied to the mast — the Sirens' song would drive any sailor onto the rocks, and he didn't trust himself to resist it. He told his crew: whatever I yell, do not untie me. The Sirens sang. He yelled. They obliged. They passed.
He didn't trust himself. So he made it physically impossible.
I needed the same thing.
Six apps on the home screen. Six things I actually need: wallet, maps, camera, banking, Bolt, calendar. Plus phone and messages, always — those don't count.
Anything else: hidden. Not blocked behind a settings page. Hidden.
To get to anything outside the six, you tap "request unlock," confirm, then wait twenty minutes. Then fifteen minutes of free access. Then it locks back. Most cravings don't survive twenty minutes — that's the whole trick.
I made it brutalist on purpose. No settings to soften the rule. No customisation. No nice fonts. Draconic. Because every "make it nicer" feature is a Siren song, and I'm Jason.
It worked.
A friend tried Thirty. Asked: "What if there's an emergency and I need to use YouTube?"
Brother. That's the addict talking.
But fair question, and there's a real answer. At setup, you generate a one-time rescue code. You give it to someone you trust — partner, sibling, close friend. You don't keep it; they do. To skip the wait, you ask them. They get to decide whether your "emergency" is one. Used once, the code is burned.
Thirty isn't for people whose phone use is fine. If yours is fine, this isn't for you. Find a different tool.
If you've already tried apps, made resolutions, watched the screen-time number climb anyway — same as me — give Thirty a week.