Effort and friction.

A small immediate cost can change whether an action happens.

Friction is the effort between you and an action: a form, an extra tap, or something left out of reach. Small barriers can decide whether an intention becomes an action.

About an hour a day

Freed up when people were paid to deactivate Facebook for four weeks.

Allcott, Braghieri, Eichmeyer & Gentzkow 2020

Add a little friction on purpose: take the app off the home screen, or take a month off and let each one earn its way back. That was a paid four-week break, not a chosen one, so expect less from your own.

Allcott, Braghieri, Eichmeyer & Gentzkow 2020 · Bettinger, Long, Oreopoulos & Sanbonmatsu 2012