Ideas & Tips
4 min
Keep Disabling Your App Blocker? Try Strict Mode
Blocking apps seems easy enough at first. Pick your apps, choose how long to block them, and… done.
To begin with, I find something else to do. Thirty minutes without Instagram? I can handle that. Then an hour goes by. Okay… this is starting to feel a little long. What if my best friend has posted a Story? Or that influencer I love has something interesting to share?
I open the app. Nope. Still blocked. Fine, I’ll do something else.
An hour and a half in, I’m getting restless. Hang on. Why am I blocking it, anyway? I don’t really have a problem. I’m not addicted. I can stop whenever I want. Well…
An hour and forty-five minutes. I can’t do this anymore. I NEED to know what everyone’s doing. I need to scroll.
Delete.
I lasted almost two hours.
Sound familiar? You’re certainly not the only one. Setting up an app blocker that you’ll actually stick with takes a little thought. Motivation can wobble, and sometimes the urge to scroll wins.
The good news? There are ways to make that moment easier to handle.
But first, let me introduce myself! If this is your first visit to our blog, the little voice talking to you is Laureline. I’m the co-founder and designer of Jomo. Since 2022, we’ve been building an app to help you take back control of your phone and block distractions. We also write this blog to share tips, tutorials, and explanations of internet trends and the habits that keep us coming back to our apps.
Let’s get into it 👀
Why Is It So Hard to Resist?
I’ll spare you the whole speech about endless feeds, notifications, and apps competing to keep your attention. You already know how easy it is for a quick check to become a long scroll.
Instead, let’s look at things we can actually change. Starting with how we set up the block in the first place.
Art by Steph Meade
1. Your Rule Doesn’t Fit Your Life
Sometimes, a block doesn’t stick because the setup doesn’t make sense for you. Picking a random limit, crossing your fingers, and opening a book won’t magically change all your habits. If only.
A good blocking rule should:
Fit the way you actually use your apps.
Work with your daily routine.
Help you reach a realistic goal.
If you currently spend more than four hours a day on TikTok, jumping straight to a five-minute limit is a pretty ambitious leap. And probably a frustrating one.
Start with your actual screen time. Understanding your habits makes it much easier to decide what to change.
First, open your screen time report:
How much time do you spend on the app each day?
Then look at when you use it most. Are there patterns? A long scroll after work? A quick check that takes over your entire lunch break?
Next, think about how you tend to react:
Do I get frustrated quickly when an app is blocked? How manageable does that frustration feel?
Do I like planning my day and sticking to a schedule?
Do I need more structure, or do I prefer some flexibility?
Then give yourself a reason to make the change. What do you want that time for?
Reading more.
Cooking dinner every day.
Spending time on your hobbies.
Exercising more often.
Now put those pieces together. Let’s say this is your situation:
Your screen time: around four hours a day on TikTok, with a lot of scrolling between 7 PM and 9 PM. You’re tired after work and putting off doing things for yourself.
Your reaction to limits: you tend to ignore them as soon as they become frustrating. A tiny daily allowance feels like being grounded.
Your goal: make time to cook in the evening, then read in bed before going to sleep.
One possible setup would be a scheduled session blocking TikTok from 6:45 PM until 6 AM the next morning. It starts just before your usual evening scroll and covers the rest of the night, so you’re not simply waiting for the block to end before opening TikTok in bed.
If that feels like too much to begin with, start with a shorter window around dinner. The point is to protect time for something you want to do, with a rule you can realistically live with.
2. Your Rule Is Too Easy to Undo
Then there’s the other problem. Even with a sensible rule, you can still change your mind in the middle of a block.
If all the settings remain available, what’s stopping you from just… deleting it?
That’s exactly why Jomo’s Strict Mode is made for!
Art by Nika
How to Use Strict Mode in Jomo
Strict Mode adds protection to your blocking rules. You choose how and when that protection applies, so it can fit the moments when you’re most likely to override your own decision.
What Does Strict Mode Lock?
On iPhone, Strict Mode can:
Prevent changes to your rule (and stop trying to bypass it). You can’t simply move the end time, add more breaks, or remove an app from the block while the protection applies.
Prevent you from deleting the rule. You can’t discard the whole plan just because you suddenly feel like scrolling.
Prevent changes to your iPhone’s date and time. Moving the clock forward isn’t a way to make the session finish sooner.
Prevent Jomo from being uninstalled. Deleting the blocker itself is no longer the easy way out.
For a time limit, that means you can’t simply increase the allowance once you’ve used it up. Any breaks or extra unlocks you deliberately allowed when setting up the rule still follow that setup. Strict Mode protects the choices you already made.
How Do You Turn It On?
Start by creating the rule you want. Before adding Strict Mode, check that it blocks the right apps, at the right times, with the breaks you intended to allow.
Do those checks first. Once the protection applies, you won’t be able to casually edit the rule whenever you feel like it.
Then choose when Strict Mode should apply:
For a set time. Lock changes for a set number of hours after the rule starts. Useful when you want extra protection at the beginning.
During the session / After limit is reached. Protect the rule while the session is running, or once your time limit has been reached. You can make adjustments outside the protected period.
Always-On. Keep changes locked until you enter a password or retype a random code. You can set a password yourself, or ask someone you trust to set one for you.
On a time range. Apply Strict Mode during particular hours, every day or on selected days. Handy when you know exactly when the temptation tends to hit.
To save your choice:
Open Jomo and select an existing rule, or create a new one.
Turn on Strict Mode at the bottom of the rule’s settings.
Choose the mode and configure its timing or code.
Add or save your rule.
The protection will apply according to the mode and timing you selected
Why Is This Setup Useful?
There are a few reasons we’ve made Strict Mode work this way:
It protects the decision you already made. If you planned a break, you can still take it. What gets locked is the ability to keep changing or deleting the rule whenever the urge to scroll comes back.
It can work around your schedule. We don’t all have the same commitments, routines, or working hours. You can protect the moments that matter and leave a window for adjustments, instead of keeping every setting locked all day.
It addresses the moment when motivation drops. You don’t have to negotiate the entire plan again every time you want to open Instagram. The rule you chose earlier is still there, doing its job.
The Takeaway 🍔
And that brings us to the end. Already!
We’re often asked what Strict Mode does and why it’s useful. The idea is simple: choose a blocking rule that fits your life, then protect it from the moment when you feel like throwing it away.
You can decide which apps to block, when to block them, and whether to allow breaks. Strict Mode helps you stick with those choices when the temptation to change everything comes along.
If you enjoyed this article, feel free to share it and let us know what you think. You can also help choose the next topic right here. It’s free!
This article was written by a human who isn’t always great at spelling, or at English. So I used AI for translation and proofreading. ✨
🫡 See you next Monday!
