A friend recently suggested to use the “Downtime” feature in the iPhone’s Screen Time settings.
When enabled, all your apps are blocked, except for the ones on your “Always Allowed” list.
How to enable “Downtime”:
1. Go to Settings
2. Go to Screen Time
3. Go to Downtime
4. Enable Downtime and customize settings
5. Go back to Screen Time
6. Go to Always Allowed and choose apps you want at all times
My personal downtime is from 20:45 to 06:00. From then on I only allow Audible, Podcasts, Calendar, and some other utilities. Everything else is blocked.
My expectations weren’t very high, and I was positively surprised. I really like this feature. Especially that all notifications and badges are hidden.
Also, in “emergencies”, it’s very easy to allow an additional 15 minutes for a particular app. I like the “opt in” aspect of it. There is a hurdle, but you can get your thing done if you really need to.
[Thank you for this suggestion, Denis Nordmann]
