The Morning Routine Hack

EP. 05

You know you're addicted to your phone when your alarm goes off and you're immediately scrolling... but what if I told you that you could use that addiction to actually be productive?

My friend has a chronic condition and has to take meds first thing in the morning—before food, before water, before anything. But even with the best intentions, they'd forget. Because let's be real—morning routines are hard.

Instead of giving them pep talks like a normal human being, I built an app.

I wanted to use negative reinforcement, basically make it so annoying to NOT take the meds that taking them was the easier option. So I built an app that hijacks their phone the second their alarm goes off and locks the entire phone. No texting, no scrolling, no apps, nothing—until they tap "I took my meds."

Now this isn’t completely feasible on iOS given Apple’s security features. But I was able to hack the use of Shortcuts + Custom Automations + Guided Access that automatically launches the app once your alarm is off, starts guided access (which locks your phone on the app), and you have to enter a passcode once you’ve taken your medications to access the rest of your apps.

I didn’t try to fix the habit. I changed the environment.

I used the thing that we’re all addicted to as incentive to do the thing you want to do.

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Now I know apps like this exist, but when you build your own, your data doesn't get sold to another company. That's the trade-off of tiny apps.

If you've been trying to build a morning habit and failing miserably, check out the demo. What should I build next?

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