11 Get Bricked

Your day isn’t vanishing all at once, but it’s leaking away in repeated, reflexive swipes. On this episode, we dig into why doom scrolling happens and share a device called The Brick (getbrick.app) that pairs with your phone to add just enough friction to stop mindless use without completely eliminating these potentially distracting apps. Instead of relying on willpower, we suggest a system to activate focused modes that lock distracting apps, then tap again when you intentionally want access. No sneaky overrides, no “ignore limit for today,” just a simple ritual that protects your attention.

We get practical about setup so it fits real life. You’ll hear how to choose what stays available, which apps get gated, and how to create modes for deep work, meetings, family time, and sleep. Along the way, we explain why friction beats motivation, how fewer context switches restore mental energy, and why designing your environment leads to more focus, less fatigue, and better outcomes.

This is not about quitting your phone. It’s about using it on purpose. By moving social feeds and other high-friction apps behind a physical tap, you’ll reclaim time for writing, reviewing, and being present with people you love. You’ll still have maps, calls, and the tools you truly need, but the reflexive doom scroll loses its grip. If your screen time report makes you ill, this approach can reset the pattern and return hours to your day.

If the idea resonates, try a Brick and build a routine that supports your best work and your best life. If you find value here, subscribe, share this episode with a friend who battles the scroll, and leave a quick reviewto help more people potect their attention.

The Brick - getbrick.app

Blinn Bates - BlinnBates.com

Woods & Bates, P.C. - woodsandbates.com

Right Fit Evaluator: https://blinnbates.com/right-fit-evaluator

Chapters

• 1:00 The Hidden Cost Of Micro-Distractions
• 1:19 Naming The Doom Scroll Problem
• 2:18 Meet The Brick And How It Works
• 4:32 Why Friction Beats Willpower
• 5:32 Daily Routines And Use Cases
• 6:25 Intentional Access And Focus
• 7:01 Weekly Challenge And Link

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:30

Welcome back. Most of us don't waste time intentionally. We lose it in multiple tiny moments of distraction. I do this, I know a lot of people that do this, and today I want to talk about a simple tool that I've found called the BRIC and show you how it can save you hours every day. It's done it for me. I believe it can do it for you. So one of our biggest struggles, I think, is mindless phone use. Our smartphones are incredible tools, but they're also incredibly distracting, or they can be. We don't usually decide we're gonna scroll and what I call the doom scroll. It usually just happens. So we want to check something, it's legitimate. We pull up Facebook feed, and next thing we know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, who knows, is gone. That's the doom scroll. If we multiply that by dozens of times a day, many of our hours in the day disappear, and then we don't know why. At the end of the day, we haven't accomplished anything. This isn't a matter of willpower. Social media, these phones, these devices, they're all set up to steal our attention. They want our attention because our attention means dollars for them. If you take a look at your screen time on your phone, I think what you're going to find is gonna make you sick the amount of time that you spend doom scrolling. And how can we prevent that? Well, I've found this tool, it's called the brick. It's a small little physical device and it pairs up with an app on your phone. So you download the app onto your phone and then you set it up however you want. However, you want. It will remove distractions. You can say I don't want access to these apps once I've tapped the brick, and then you can set up different modes also if you want. So there could be a mode for do not disturb altogether. There could be a mode for work mode. To unlock these, then you have to then tap that brick again. So you have to actually tap that physical device. It's very simple, it's a little physical device, and you have to intentionally do it. It doesn't stop you from using your phone, though. It stops you from using it unintentionally. And why it works so well is it changes our behavior. So over time, as we've limited ourselves, we start to establish the habit of limiting ourselves. So this isn't motivation, this is just adding friction to something and making it harder for us to get to that social media app so that it's not so reflexive. It's not interrupting us, it's not interrupting what we're doing, and it protects our attention automatically because we can't get into it. You don't have to remember to be disciplined, it's gonna save you that mental energy, you're gonna have fewer decisions and less temptation. Unlike the limitations on a phone itself, there's not a workaround without the device. You have to have the device to tap it. You can't outsmart yourself, you can't just say ignore limits for today like you can on the iPhone. This brick device has been a huge time saver for me, and I think it can be really powerful when we're doing things like deep blocks of work or we're writing documents or we're reviewing documents. These Pomodoro sessions we talked about, if we're with our family or we're at a meal, maybe in the morning, maybe at night, maybe we're in a meeting, traveling, vacation, we're doing something that we don't want to be distracted from. So, what I do is I keep my brick by my bedside table. Some people might keep it in a drawer, they might keep it at their office, they might keep it in their car. Somewhere we're going to have to require some effort to get to it. So as I sit at my office, I can't tap that device because that device is at my home. Distance does matter in this case, but we also want it to be accessible such that we can unbrick and we can use our phone if we want to. This brick enforces what I think is an important principle and that our tools should work for us and not the other way around. So the way that I use it is I brick my phone in the morning on a workday, and then if I need it later in the evening, I'll unbrick it, or maybe I'll not unbrick it until the next day. And it that brick stays on my nightstand, forces me to do things like go to my computer if I really want to access LinkedIn or Facebook or one of those social media apps that I have blocked. And this isn't about eliminating it, it's still available to me, but it's really, really intentional. I know when I'm getting on the computer, I am making the decision to do that. It's not just a random, oh, I picked up my phone. Here's the Facebook app, and I'm gonna scroll for 45 minutes. So we're not eliminating it, but we are putting ourselves in somewhat of a do not disturb mode. And we're protecting our attention. So this isn't about absolute restriction, it's about aligning with doing the things we know we ought to be doing. So this week I would challenge you to notice how often you're reaching for your phone without thinking about it. If this distraction or this doom scrolling is stealing your hours, maybe consider adding this friction. You can get a brick, it's get brick.app. I'm gonna put that link in the show notes. Then you can set that up and you can use this tool that I have found to be very helpful to protect your attention. It's one of the most valuable things that I do to protect my attention and prevent that doom scrolling. If we protect our focus, we have to use our tools intentionally. That's how you're gonna maximize your time and elevate your life.