Ways people use Just me

How to set it up

1. Pick the apps that take your evenings, like social media and video, as the apps that need minutes. Only time in them counts down.
2. Keep the 30 free minutes a day to start. Unused minutes reset at midnight.
3. Add a habit or two for the evening, each with a tag where it happens: Do the dishes by the sink, or Tidy up for 10 minutes on the laundry basket.
4. At zero, the apps lock. A notification tells you when 5 minutes are left, and a locked app offers Take a break when you need a moment.

Tip: pick only the apps that pull you in. Apps you leave out, like messages or maps, never count down.

How to set it up

1. Add a habit of your own, like Study for an hour, and choose the minutes it earns.
2. Stick its tag on your desk, so the tap comes when you’re done.
3. Give it days, a time window and a reminder that match your week, like Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 17:00, with a reminder at 9:00.
4. If you work in two blocks, let it count twice a day.

Tip: if you work in different places, leave the habit without a tag, and check it off in the app when you’re done.

How to set it up

1. Add Work out, with its tag on your gym bag. Give it days and a reminder, like Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 18:00.
2. Add Walk outside without a tag, and check it off in the app when you’re back. It can count more than once a day.
3. Stretching at home? Put a tag on the yoga mat.
4. Turn on earned breaks and keep the walk: once your minutes are at zero, 300 steps win you a break.

Tip: the walk counts with your phone locked in your pocket, and your steps never leave the phone. If it doesn’t count your steps, allow Motion & Fitness for DoneThen in your iPhone’s Settings.

How to set it up

1. Add a reading habit, like Read 20 pages.
2. Stick its tag on the nightstand or the bookshelf, and tap it when you close the book.
3. Let it earn about what it takes: 20 minutes for 20 pages.
4. Add a reminder for the evening, if you like.

Tip: if you read on your phone, leave your reading app out of the apps that need minutes, so reading never costs you any.

For more ideas, see habits and where to put their tags.

How to set it up

1. There’s nothing to turn on: once your setup day is over, your limits are protected. Changing your apps or limits, including the steps below, takes a tap on one of your tags, or a 10-minute wait. Then changes stay open for 10 minutes.
2. Lower your free breaks to 0 or 1.
3. Turn on earned breaks, in Settings under Your limits, and keep the games you like: a chess puzzle, a 300-step walk or a minute of breathing.
4. Choose what a win adds, 5, 10 or 15 minutes, and how many earned breaks you get a day, from 1 to 10.

Tip: when you want more time, pick the walk or the breathing: 300 steps or a minute of slow breaths before your apps open again.

It’s a speed bump, not a cage: your iPhone’s Settings can always turn DoneThen off. More on free and earned breaks, and the research on limits people set for themselves.

How to set it up

1. On your first day, everything stays open, so try your apps, habits and limits before they’re protected.
2. In the first week, keep the 30 free minutes a day, or more, and see how your days go.
3. Then look at Week, this week next to the week before, and lower your free minutes by 5 or 10. Earn the rest with habits.
4. Keep a break or two, free or earned, for the days that need one.

Tightening is a change too, so it opens with a tag tap or the 10-minute wait. More in Start generous, then tighten.

Tip: on Sundays, DoneThen sends “Your week”. It’s a good moment to look at Week and change one thing.

How to set it up

1. Tap the minutes card on Today. It opens Take a break, with Use fewer minutes at the bottom; with no break to take, it opens Use fewer minutes itself. It shows while you have minutes left.
2. Take off 10, 15 or 30 minutes, each when you have that many left. Or tap Lock now, which asks “Lock your apps now?” and then takes every minute left.
3. It needs no tag and no wait: it only makes your limits stricter.
4. Slipped? The result offers Undo. The minutes come back only within two minutes, so it’s a fix for a slip, not a way around the lock.

Tip: pair it with a habit. Lock now before you study, and let the habit’s tag earn your minutes back when you’re done.

How to set it up

1. On the Family tab, tap Join in. It sets up your habits, Screen Time for yourself with Face ID, and your apps.
2. You start like Just me: 30 free minutes a day, at most 120 saved, 2 breaks a day, and earned breaks off. The family’s subscription covers it.
3. Me opens your own space, and Family switches back. The two are never mixed.
4. In a family chore, choose yourself too, like Do the dishes for Sam, Mia and you. Each of you earns with your own tap.

Tip: try a reading half hour for everyone: one tag on the bookshelf, and a chore for the children and you. The other parent can join in too, on their own phone.

Started with Just me? Start a family, in Settings, keeps your habits, minutes and limits in your own space. There’s no way back to Just me, short of deleting your account. More in Join in, for parents.