Why I built this
I'm a developer. Twenty years of building software. I know exactly how attention hijacking works — the variable reward loops, the infinite scroll, the notification badges designed to trigger dopamine. I've read the papers. I've given the talks.
And I still got hijacked.
The worst part was the 3am witching hour. Phone in bed, cycling through Twitter, Reddit, Hacker News — not enjoying any of it, just... unable to stop. My brain convinced me I needed to read everything. That I'd miss something important. There was a physical discomfort at the thought of closing a tab with an unread thread.
Info anxiety. That's what it is. And no amount of knowing that made it stop.
I tried every blocker. Every screen time app. They all had the same fatal flaw: they were too easy to dismiss. One tap. One click. The impulse brain answers before the prefrontal cortex even gets the memo.
"I tried every productivity app. Every screen time blocker. They all had the same fatal flaw: they were too easy to dismiss."
So I built the thing I actually needed. An app where distraction is locked by default. Where you have to deliberately choose to unlock something — pick a mode, pick a duration — and then the app enforces your choice.
Those few seconds of friction are everything. That's the gap between autopilot and intention.
— Jamis