This free tool is a doomscrolling escape hatch

We all have that one app or website that wastes too much time.

Whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, or something else entirely, it’s easy to get sucked in—even when you only intend to kill a spare minute or two. You might even find yourself opening a certain social media app purely out of habit, only to realize that 15 or 30 minutes have gone by with nothing of substance to show for it.

Next time you fall into that unhealthy pattern, maybe what you need is a little nudge to reflect on what you ought to be doing instead.

Today’s tool is an especially effective way to handle that—with some smart touches that set it apart from the standard options in this area.

This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures!

Your new digital intervention specialist

For a thoughtful way to break up your unhealthy app usage, try ​Minded​.

➜ Minded is a free ​Android app​ and ​Chrome extension​ that discourages you from wasting time on specific apps or websites.

Instead of blocking apps and websites outright, Minded urges you to pause with a thoughtful prompt (and, in some cases, a quick breath exercise) before letting you through.

⌚ The Chrome extension takes less than a minute to set up, while the Android version takes a few minutes of fiddling with system settings.

Minded is hardly the first tool for reducing distractions on your phone and on the web, but I appreciate the light touch it takes compared to some other screen time tools.

With the Chrome extension, for instance, visiting a website on your block list leads to a question screen with a different prompt every time. It might ask what you should be doing instead, what your goals are for the day, or what makes you feel at peace.

You don’t have to answer those prompts, though. If you just want to get through to the website, you can triple-click the white circle icon, answer a question about why you intend to visit, and give yourself a limited amount of time before Minded starts prompting you again. To me, this feels like just the right amount of friction.

Minded’s Chrome extension blocks a bunch of sites out of the box, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit. You can use the initial setup or the extension’s settings page to remove any of those sites or add custom ones.

The Android version of Minded works similarly, but for apps instead of websites. The setup is a bit trickier, though, as you’ll need to give the app several accessibility permissions so it can see which apps you’re using.

Both the extension and Android app let you see how you answered previous prompts. Notably, Minded doesn’t log how often you’ve visited blocked sites or try to guilt-trip you through gamified reward systems, and it makes no attempt to quantify your productivity levels. These are welcome philosophical differences from apps like Forest​ and ​ScreenZen​.

☝️ A couple of quick caveats

Before you install Minded’s Chrome extension, keep in mind that it will change your new tab page to show a list of your previous prompt responses. To keep your current new tab page, make sure to select “Change it back.”

Otherwise, you can head to Chrome Settings > On Startup, then select “Disable” where it says that Minded is controlling the new tab setting.

I also wish Minded were a bit more customizable. Its breathing exercises seem to show up at random with no way to disable them, and it’d be nice if you could disable the new tab page directly through the extension itself.

As it stands, though, it’s the first distraction blocker I’ve tried that actually makes me want to keep using it—even as it nudges me away from the social media distractions that are often hard to resist.

• Minded is available on Android devices​ and as ​an extension​ for Chrome and Chromium-based web browsers.
• Both the app and extension are free, with no usage limits and no account to set up.
• Minded’s privacy policy​ notes that it maintains no backend servers, only stores usage data on your device, and does not have any mechanisms for tracking or advertising.

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