What clearspace does
Clearspace helps users cut their screen time approximately in half by adding just the right amount of friction before social app opens.
The Current Landscape
Apple just released their ScreenTime API, giving developers the levers to restrict other apps for the first time.
Clearspace is one of the first apps to make use of this, with the other notable player being Opal. Where Opal takes a productivity-focused approach, oriented around scheduling “focus blocks” in your day, Clearspace takes a behavioral approach, oriented towards building lasting habit change over time.
Clearspace’s Birth Story
Clearspace came from a straw-that-broke-the-camels-back moment. A mindless instagram open after several bouts of deleing and re-downloading. The sinking realization that our digital environments were in control of us, and not the other way around.
The Solution
You tell Clearspace what apps and websites you want to reduce your usage of and it does the following to train better habits:
(1) App Intercepts: Clearspace injects a mandatory 15 second breathing exercise before opening apps you’ve added.. This helps to break the dopamine feedback loop that your brain has learned, where tapping an app icon yields an instant reward.
(2) Intentional Sessions: at the end of said breathing exercise, you tell Clearspace how long you want to use an app for. Then you enter and we'll pull you out after that amount of time.
(3) Cumulative Progress: each day you stay below your intended time limit adds to your streak of successes. Over time, protecting your streak frequently becomes more important than a "quick scroll" before bed (and if you get a 100 day under-budget streak, they’'ll send you a hat).
(4) Teammates: you can add “teammates” who will receive automatic texts if you exceed your budget on an app, remove it from Clearspace, or delete Clearspace entirely.
Straight from Founder
The currency that powers the internet is attention. Two decades of relentless improvement at attention-capturing techniques has robbed us all of the once-quiet moments in our lives. Our mission is to build tools that fight as hard to protect your attention as the internet does to seize it.
A Customer Story
- “I'm a Clearspace user who found this app via a post on HN, and I can't thank the creators enough. I have not fully extracted myself from use of Reddit yet, but it's remarkable how effective this app was at breaking my cycle of opening, scrolling, closing, and reopening less than an hour later. I've tried other screentime management apps, but it seems like something about Clearspace's approach with the centering exercises and the intentional choice to spend X minutes browsing changes your mental relationship with the feed.
- I genuinely feel as though I am more present during idle moments and have reclaimed time to myself - truly to myself - during my weekends.”
- “My partner and I have been using this for a couple of months to curb phone addiction and happy to say it has worked wonders for both of us. I was spending more than an hour scrolling Reddit before but now I look at I for maybe 5 minutes a week. You’ve changed our lives - thank you”
Check it out : https://www.getclearspace.com/
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