I built this because
nothing else worked on me.

The story

It started with a number I did not want to look at.

My weekly screen time report said something I have never repeated out loud in full. It was not the total that got me. It was working out what else fits in that many hours. A language. A body that works properly. A book, written rather than started. All of it, every year, gone into a feed I could not have described to you an hour after closing it.

The worst part was not the waste. It was that I did not remember choosing it. I would put the phone down, and then it was in my hand again, and I had no memory of the decision in between. That is a strange thing to notice about yourself.

What I tried first

Apple's Screen Time. I set limits. When the limit hit, a screen appeared with a button on it that said Ignore Limit. I tapped it in about a second and a half, every time, for several months. A lock with the key taped to the front of it is not a lock.

Deleting the apps. This works beautifully for roughly four hours. Reinstalling takes eleven seconds and does not require you to remember a password. The version of you who deletes the app and the version of you who reinstalls it at eleven at night are not the same person, and the second one always wins because he is the one holding the phone.

Greyscale. Lasted a day. Turning it off is three taps.

Other blocker apps. I paid for several. Every one of them had an escape hatch, because an app that genuinely cannot be turned off gets refunded and one star. They all showed me a padlock and a friendly message and a button to make it go away. None of them ever showed me a single true fact about myself.

Willpower. The classic. It fails for a reason that took me embarrassingly long to understand: willpower is only invited to the decision after the app is already open. By then it is not a decision, it is a negotiation, and you are negotiating against a system with more information about you than your family has.

What I got wrong

For about a year I thought the answer was a harder lock. Make it truly impossible, no exits, no exceptions. I built a version like that. It did work, and I hated using it, and so did everyone I gave it to. A tool you resent is a tool you delete.

What finally changed my behaviour was not force. It was having something to lose. The first time I had a streak worth protecting, and an honest count of how many times I had reached for the app that morning, I did not need to be locked out. I just needed to stop being able to lie to myself.

So that is what Offliner is

It blocks, because at eleven at night you need something between you and the app. But the block is not the product. The block is a moment, and in that moment it shows you what this is costing you today and hands you four things you could do instead. Then it lets you decide. Most of the time, given the real number, people close it.

The other half is what you get for staying off. A streak that counts every clean day, and a point for every minute you were not in a distracting app. Nothing in Offliner pays you for opening Offliner. That was deliberate, and it is the line I will not cross.

The app was called LOCK IN before this. It got rebuilt from the ground up in 2026, which is where the streak, the levels and the new design came from. Same App Store listing, almost nothing else in common.

I still use it every day. My streak is not perfect and I break it sometimes. That is fine. That is the point of a streak you can start again.