Guides
The short answer
These guides cover the same problem from different angles: why an infinite feed beats intention, how to block apps on an iPhone and which blockers people actually keep, and how to build a reading habit that survives the second week. Each one works whether or not you install anything.
Everything here is written for the problem, not for the app. Some of it recommends BookGate at the end, because that is what we built and it is the honest answer to a few of these questions — but none of it needs BookGate to work.
Start with how to read more, how to start a reading habit, how to stop doomscrolling, how to get back into reading, how to focus while reading, how to remember what you read or how to block apps on an iPhone. Product comparisons live separately in Compare.
Shorter pieces are below.
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How to block apps on an iPhone
Every way iOS can block an app — App Limits, Downtime, restrictions and the loopholes each one leaves — plus how to make a block you cannot undo in one tap.
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How to block Instagram on an iPhone
Most people do not want Instagram gone — they want Reels gone and the messages kept. How to do that, and how to make a full block that survives a bad evening.
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How to block TikTok on an iPhone
TikTok is the hardest app on the phone to put down, and its own screen-time tools are the weakest. What to use instead, and the two loopholes that undo it.
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How to get back into reading
You have not forgotten how to read. You have lost the conditions for it. A plan for restarting that assumes a wrecked attention span and a pile of unfinished books.
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How to improve your attention span
The eight-second attention span claim has no real source. What is true about attention, why it feels worse than it is, and the practice that rebuilds it fastest.
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How to focus while reading
Rereading the same paragraph is not a concentration defect. It is what a mind does ten minutes after a feed. What is happening, and the five changes that fix it.
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How to retain what you read
Forgetting is the default, and it is fast. What makes a book survive a month, and why the effort has to be spread out rather than simply doubled.
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How to stop phone addiction
Screen time is the symptom, not the problem. What compulsive phone use actually is, the changes that reduce it, and the point at which an app is the wrong answer.
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How to stop scrolling
The scroll is a gesture before it is a choice — thousands of repetitions deep and mostly unconscious. Ten minutes of setup that makes the unconscious opens stop.
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How to remember what you read
Highlighting feels like remembering and is not. What to do in the five minutes after you close a book so that a month later you can still say what was in it.
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How to read more
Most reading advice asks for time you do not have. This is the method that works with the hour you already spend on your phone, and what to do when you stall.
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How to stop doomscrolling
Why doomscrolling is a design problem, not a willpower problem — the five interventions that hold up, and how to give the hour you get back somewhere to go.
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How to start a reading habit
A reading habit is a slot, a cue and a size — not a resolution. How to build one that survives the second week, and what to do on the night you do not want to.
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31 things to do instead of scrolling
Not a list of hobbies you have no time for. Thirty-one things sized to the hour you lose to your phone, sorted by how much effort they take to start.
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