How to Easily Reduce Screen Time with Freedom Premium

Lately I’ve been a bit of a Freedom evangelist. “Greetings, my sister, have you heard that Freedom will help you reduce screen time?” “Afternoon, brother, have you tried to cut back on screen time with Freedom today?” Maybe I’ll be on Bourbon Street like the religious zealots but instead of eternal damnation paraphernalia, I’ll just have a big green Freedom butterfly sign and QR code stickers.

When you first try Freedom, you might be a bit overwhelmed and maybe even confused. I know I was.

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Four tips for using Freedom Premium to Reduce Screen Time

Create a solid blocklist.

You need that before anything. For me and maybe you too, I wanted to get away from social media. So it’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads Facebook Messenger and BlueSky that I got rid of. Cool thing is, most of the sites you can block at once. Like maybe gambling sites, adult sites, games, or New York Times (that’s what they get for not even giving me a call for the restaurant critic role lol j/k).

Go ahead and do locked mode.

Somehow I accidentally did locked mode and really truly it’s quite fine. Basically you have no way to end a session, minus that minute or so when it starts. (Like say you go to do a focus break and then remember you’re supposed to watch a prayer call on IG Live at the same time.) I bet I can undo it, but I see no reason to.

Try it at small intervals first.

You can always add sites to your blocklist during a session, but you can’t remove them. It would suck if you, say, cut off all Meta which includes WhatsApp but then you’re on an island vacation and that’s the prefered method of communication. Now you stuck on the beach alone, while everyone gon’ lime without you. Another great thing about Freedom is that when you’re not purposefully locked out of whatever apps, you can use them with ease as usual. I used to use a really long crazy password and log out every time, but that’s so hard when I need to log in and post on social for work or something. Freedom lets me choose how much time, on what days, in advance or in the moment. I am NOT an influencer, but I think this app would be great for people who have to be online a lot for work, and don’t want to do it when they’re off. Or if you do a social media fast or something.

Don’t cheat.

My Maw Maw always said that “when you cheat, you play with the devil.” I don’t wanna play with him! Sometimes I know my social media session will be done, but it’s like Freedom hasn’t caught up so I can keep on doing whatever. And I know I can edit screen time in settings if I wanted to, which could scratch the itch for the apps even though it’s laggy when you do that. That’s why I like what I call the double-rubber screen time reduction plan.

But seriously, just don’t cheat. When your online time is over, just let it be over. Make sure you’re not in low power mode, go to Freedom and swipe down to refresh. If your phone dies, just go to Freedom and swipe down to refresh once you cut it back on.

Hello, Freedom? If you’re here, please make it so we can block the settings app in iPhone. Thank you!

💵 Collection Plate/Tip Jar 💲

Are you ready to reduce screen time with recurring sessions?!

When I was doing each session manually, I found myself with too much screen time on my hands. So tempting to “just check this one thing” and then boom an embarrassing amount of time has passed. Recurring sessions were perfect for me! My session is easy! On my computer, I can only access my chosen distracting sites on my blocklist on Monday. On my phone, I can access them from 11 a.m. through noon daily. And that’s it, set it and forget like a lil roast beef. Might even shorten those sessions. Will definitely shorten Monday because MY GOD, MAN.

Cut back on screen time starting now with a free trial!

Below you’ll see a super brief video about how Freedom got started. Really, absolutely I truly adore it, and think it’s worth the money. I paid $28 for a year, and it’s freed up so much of my time. I could have a garage sale with all the cleaning I’ve been doing, to be able to pay for it multiple times over. Plus I think being offline more helps me curb spending too! Dem heauxs don’t liiike dat! Here’s a link to a free trial! (Lemme know if that doesn’t work, I can try another link.)

Parting advice

This is actually the biggest tip. Find something else to do to occupy your now free time. I know you have home improvement stuff to do, maybe you want to do your hair, rearrange some furniture. Like my Paw Paw who gave up smoking and turned to peppermints. Or Kirstie Alley (I know, I know) who started spending her cocaine money on fresh flowers.

“Dang Megan outchea calling us coke heads. Rude!” No! I promise I’m not. However, it’s all dopamine. The same way “all the girls [are] standing in the line for the bathroom,” folks are walking down the street, at church, at school, in bed on these phones. Can’t recall which book it was, maybe Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke, but there was a part that said to picture all the people looking at their phones, shooting up instead. Whew.