That’s great! Genuinely. We all struggle with our own vices.

I loved when I worked in a place with a beer fridge -chilling out on a Friday afternoon when it was sunny in Dublin was great - but for any alcoholics around it probably was hell. On the other hand, I hate it when places have free lunch and snacks because I am a compulsive eater.

One trick, even though it doesn't "lock it down" the same way, is to use a minimalist launcher. Check out OLauncher. It is a text-based launcher, it only has room for a few apps on the homepage, and it discourages fiddling with your phone.

https://github.com/tanujnotes/Olauncher?tab=readme-ov-file

https://github.com/tstromberg/quietude is how I manage my Pixel phone as well as my kids; I begin with “quietude.sh disable all”, but usually re-enable maps.

It takes a similar approach to the OP - changing restrictions requires a USB cable and a computer.

andoff[1] works well. I use it to lock down DNS settings to nextdns to block all the sites I want. Then I use lockmeout[2] to lock opening andoff to change the settings.

Also there is limitphone[3], but it has less settings and is easier to uninstall than andoff, but works via the same mechanism.

1: https://docs.andoff.one/ 2: https://www.teqtic.com/lock-me-out 3: https://limitphone.com/

On LineageOS 22 this is what I did:

* Remove Jelly browser with `adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 org.lineageos.jelly`

* Disable F-Droid so you can't install another browser on a whim with `adb shell pm disable-user org.fdroid.fdroid`

Author here: I think so! A reader shared with me that they used the adb cli to remove all the apps they didn't want, including the Play Store.

Are you using a desktop or laptop? I used to carry my laptop around with me to use whenever wherever as designed, and found myself always using it. Setting aside a dedicated desk space where I limit the use of the laptop made it much easier to just think of it as desktop and less mobile. Now, using it feels like I'm at work, and it is much easier to walk away from it.

Finding other things to do when bored instead of opening a browser is key. You're going to fill the time with something, so you have to find the something else.

There was K9 Web Protection but it was ended in 2019 by Symantec. It was perfect because after setting up password you had to wait one week to unblock it back again :)

You can try LeechBlock. It works as plugin in all browsers.

First thirty seconds are the worst for will :)

So it is better to ask a relative/friend/parent/spouse to set up a password for you - then you cannot unblock the sites back again without them.

What worked for me: working in person with others.

I found that it's much harder for me to procrastinate on my laptop when I am working with peers. The repeated focus time on the laptop during work hours 'conditioned' me to use it for work more.

Write your own hosts file and block all websites you don’t want to visit.

Switch to a desktop!

pomodoro

Yep that is half the job done already!

> lockdown mode

That's interesting. I didn't know about lockdown mode. Noting!

> I've installed hosted-profiles (.mobileconfig) files without factory-reset, curious why didn't you go for that route?

Afaik the only way to disable the App Store is to go through this schlep of a factory reset and having Configurator prepare the phone for 'supervision'.

> installing a configuration profile isn't supported with lockdown mode

You can disable lockdown mode, install the .mobileconfig, enable lockdown mode again. Which is what I did with https://apple.nextdns.io

You can install mobileconfig files without factory-reset, but I've found some settings won't "take" until the phone is supervised.

No.

Source: Used to do enterprise Apple MDM for a living.

I think it only disable the icon, not underlying frameworks, etc

I have App Store disabled on my kids iPad and it does disable updates. I have to manually re-enable it and install updates every few days.

I also searched for this and couldn’t find an answer.

Strangely enough, I found Claude and ChatGPT crucial to making all this work.

In the essay:

> Whenever I need some information, I can just ask my LLM, and it can give me a distraction free summary. It helps the long-tail of weird situations too: for example if someone asks me to take a look at a website, I can ask my LLM to scrape it and summarize the details for me. It’s pretty hard to get distracted this way.

I find google searches distracting, I can only imagine what an AI chat must be like. I use a flip phone.

or a twisted way in calling Claude and ChatGPT dumb which I wouldn't disagree with myself