Brickify Guide — Set up your own phone for a digital detox

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Unlike a parent locking a child's phone, this is you locking your own — on purpose, with a friend or partner holding the piece you don't have. That's the whole mechanism: willpower doesn't have to hold at 11pm if unlocking genuinely isn't up to you alone.

Setup

Choose a PIN — then hand off the second factor

During setup, pick an authenticator app or email code as your second factor. Then give that piece to someone you trust: install the authenticator on their phone, or use an email address only they can access. Knowing your own PIN isn't enough to get back in without them.

Block the apps that actually get you

Be specific rather than blocking everything — a phone with no apps at all just gets deleted or ignored. Target the two or three you genuinely lose hours to.

Decide: always-on, or scheduled?

Two ways to run this — pick whichever matches the problem:

Always blocked

Leave your profile as the default with no schedule. Tap BRICK when you're ready to commit. Only your second-factor holder can undo it — there's no "just for five minutes."

Blocked at the times you actually struggle

e.g. midnight–7am for late-night scrolling. Create a second profile scheduled for that window with the block list on it; keep your default profile open the rest of the day.

For the scheduled version: set the profile up like an overnight window — start time 00:00, end time 07:00, every day (or just the nights that are actually a problem). Brickify treats an overnight window as normal; it doesn't need to be "all day" to wrap past midnight.

Tap BRICK once to arm it, and it repeats every night on its own from then on — no re-arming required.

Worth doing too

Screen Time / Device Admin — set this up so you can't just delete the app at 1am to get around it. That defeats the entire point.
Recovery codes — write them down and store them somewhere your future, tempted self won't think to look, but you'll find in a genuine emergency.
Be honest about scope — block what you actually struggle with. A profile that blocks everything tends to get abandoned within a week; one that blocks the two apps that matter tends to stick.

Your profile at a glance

Pick one approach — you don't need both.

Profile	Default?	Blocks	Schedule
Default (always blocked)	Yes	The 2–3 apps you actually struggle with	Always active — no schedule needed
Overnight (scheduled instead)	No	Same apps, on a dedicated second profile	e.g. 00:00–07:00, every night

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