Habit scienceVideo0:28

Why ten seconds of friction beats willpower

Short answer

Put a small task between the urge to check a site and the site itself. The pause gives you a moment to decide, and often the urge fades; in a PNAS study of the app one sec, people closed the target app in 36% of attempts after a short pause.

3 steps

What the video shows

  1. 1

    The urge to check a site is strongest in the first few seconds. Put a small task in that gap, and it often fades on its own.

  2. 2

    Redirect lets you pick the task: type a line, write a reason, breathe, or wait 60 seconds.

  3. 3

    If you still want in after that, it is a real choice.

Read the transcript

Willpower runs out by the afternoon. A little friction does not. The urge to check a site is strongest in the first few seconds. Put a small task in that gap, and it often fades on its own. Redirect lets you pick the task: type a line, write a reason, breathe, or wait 60 seconds. If you still want in after that, it is a real choice. Get Redirect at heyredirect.com.

Related

Close the tab. Open your goals.

Redirect sends distracting sites to the goals you wrote down, and makes every pause a choice.

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