How I stopped my doomscrolling forever

(it’s been over a week)

Like most people my age, I’m chronically online. Whenever I have a free second, my hand reaches for the phone and goes straight to infinite feeds. I already tried the default feature on Android — app timer. The problem is that I tend to turn it off easily. For example, I need to send a message. And after I did it, I have to remember to come back and set the timer back.

I try downloading apps for app blocking. And guess what? I go and turn off the entire blocking to send the message again. But then I saw a feature: pause blocking. I’ll pause for a few minutes, do what I need, and it will get blocked automatically after some time. Genius! Aaaand it’s behind the paywall. Of course.

I thought that’s such a simple feature, and you want me to give you money just for this one feature? Someone else could do it. Not me. Not in 2026, when I already give tons of money to AI companies for subscriptions every month.

You know what…

But I’m not a mobile developer, and I know nothing about app blocking, and I also have other important things to do …🙄

I gave my AI helper all possible permissions. “Here is my phone. Help me to fight an addiction.” And in a few hours, I had an app that was blocking other apps on my phone. And it has that sweet pause option. Free.

I started using it, and my roommate started using it too. Soon we discovered that we just keep clicking that pause button all the time because we still need to go on Instagram to send messages. So now pausing wasn’t a problem. Instagram chats were the problem. The only contact with other real humans is Instagram messages, and that shouldn’t be blocked. I tasked my little computer subordinate to block everything on Instagram except the Messages tab. Guess what? It did it!

Right after, I edited a similar special block for YouTube where I blocked Shorts.

That was groundbreaking and life-changing!

But actually, the pause feature was still actively used for other apps. The next step was to add friction. In the final iteration, I decided that nothing can cure my addiction better than some little therapy session. Pause and acknowledge what I’m doing. This was actually not my idea. I was just researching how psychology suggests dealing with addictions.

So now when I try to disable or pause block, I have to type an answer to a question that would ask me what I am thinking about, what I am trying to do, or how I’m feeling right now. I can’t paste or voice-dictate an answer, and it has to be 50 symbols minimum. After I type my answer, the timer starts. It tells me when to come back and confirm that I still want to use the app. If I don’t come back to confirm within 30 minutes, it means it’s not that important and is irrelevant now. I’ll have to start the process again.

Sounds like a lot of hassle, but I am truly using the blocker now because it was built for me and “it fits me like a glove”.

I am here not to promote my app (it’s not on any store) and not to promote AI. I’m just sharing a solution to a problem I had, and I hope that someone who struggles like me will get inspired and find their own solution. They will get a ton of freed-up time and mental capacity to work, learn, connect with others, connect with themselves, build B2B SaaS, make $1 billion, cook a healthy dinner, touch grass, and more and more that they can find in an infinite feed of life.

Thank you for reading, I hope you have a great day!

GitHub repo: https://github.com/AnastasiiaPirus/app-blocker

Originally published on Medium.