I’ve become a huge fan of making interactions with my phone more intentional. As I age into my 30’s, I find the constant pinging, vibrating and / or screen-lighting of push notifications to be an intense annoyance. I’ve ruthlessly disabled all but the most critical of notifications, and set healthy time limits for time-sucking apps like Instagram using the built-in settings on my iPhone. As a result, my phone use is more, “when I mean to” rather than, “when I’m prompted to.”
But despite setting a 75-minute time limit in Screen Time for Instagram, there was one problem Screen Time couldn’t resolve for me: using the entire day’s limit in a single session.
Now, I know Instagram has settings for break reminders, but it’s not the only app that can become an accidental time suck. Not every app has break reminders built-in, nor should every app have to make them. This is a perfect task for my operating system to manage. I would love for Screen Time to offer more granular controls for app usage. Not just a daily limit, but a session limit with a minimum break time between sessions.
For example, my 75-minutes per day limit for Instagram seems healthy enough. Except when I open it “for 5 minutes” and accidentally spend an hour or more scrolling through reels without fully realizing it, triggering my whole day’s limit before lunch. At that point, the damage has been done. I spent a huge block of time mindlessly scrolling, and it completely kills my ability to focus and be productive. Not to mention I generally feel like garbage after such a long span of time with my “brain off” like that.
I wish Screen Time would allow me to change my daily limit from “75 minutes a day” to “75 minutes a day, but not more than 15 minutes at a time and at least 45 minutes apart.” This would be a powerful tool in helping people manage consumption of endless-feed apps like Instagram in a more moderate way. Since Instagram, TikTok, etc. are incentivized to have people look at them as much as possible, we can’t depend on them adding consumption controls out of the goodness of their hearts. This increased granularity in app usage limits is now the only new feature I want my phone to have.
In the meantime, I’ve created an iOS shortcut that allows me to achieve the first half of that feature request in any app I’d like. It adds less friction than the Screen Time limit screen, but having used it for a week I’ve found it incredibly helpful in avoiding getting sucked into the endless feed blackhole in the first place. With this, I’ve cut my daily average time spent in Instagram from 62 minutes, to 12 minutes. I don’t expect it to stay this low, but I certainly feel far more in control of my Instagram consumption which is the ultimate goal.
It’s incredibly simple.
iOS Shortcut for App Session Time Limits
All this shortcut does is prompt you to set a timer whenever you open specific apps. Using the Shortcuts app, create an automation that runs whenever specific apps are open to start a timer. You can have it set a specific time limit, or as I opted to, have it prompt you for a time limit each time you open the app.
This, of course, doesn’t really try to stop you from using the app in the way Screen Time could. But I’ve found that the timer going off is usually enough to snap me out of it, and I close the app. Again, Instagram offers built-in settings for this, but this shortcut can be applied to any app I’d like.
And if you’re a fan of the Pomodoro technique, this can be a great way to automate setting your timers, if any of your work involves focused work in particular apps.
Okay, enough blathering… Here are the setup instructions, followed by screenshots if you’re more of a visual person:
Create a new automation in the Shortcuts app, selecting “App” as the trigger
Choose the app(s) you want to set time limits for, “is opened”, and “run immediately”
Select “Start Timer” as the action
Enter a duration, or select “Ask Each Time” from the keyboard (recommended)
Now, whenever you open the apps you selected, you’ll be prompted to set a timer. I find this super flexible to be able to set a short limit if I’m just checking messages, or longer limits when I’m specifically taking a break. If I’m feeling particularly disciplined, I’ll hit cancel on the prompt and not set a limit.
I hope this shortcut proves as helpful for others as it has been for me!
Side note: I intend to submit this feature request to Apple, as soon as I find the best way to do so. If there’s ultimately a place for others to indicate support for this idea, I’ll update this post with a link.
