App to disable everything when you need to study/work

[User122456]

My son is revising for mock GCSEs and using his phone to make notes (eye roll) - looking for an app he can use to temporarily disable everything else for set times eg 30 mins.

Must admit to needing that for myself sometimes so I’m sure others will have similar. I found something a couple of weeks ago but at that point I needed a parental control thing (for my younger DD) so I overlooked it at the time and now I can’t find it again.

Any recommendations of things that work for you?

To be clear, this is for him to install and use, not for me to impose and control.

Does he have an iphone? If yes, there is a feature where you create different focuses, and set what's accessible in each focus and what triggers going into that focus, such as a certain time or opening an app.

For example, I have a sleep focus which starts at bedtime and stops all alerts (except northern lights alerts) and phone calls (except my parents and DH).

I've also got a reading focus, triggered by opening the kindle app or other book app, which limits alerts. And a work focus, with set times when I'm working, which limits the apps I can access.

I have Freedom installed. You can choose what to have blocked - but keep work-related pages available. You can also schedule a session for the future, to give yourself a deadline on internet access.

@skilpadde He’s got a Samsung, but I’ve just found out from a Reddit thread that there is that feature on androids too. I’m just using my work phone to try it out (it’s the same one he has whereas mine is an iPhone) and I can’t get it to work. Argh. I can set it, but when I test it, it lets me open everything.

Any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

@Changed18 i have just seen that one but I looked on trustpilot and it has had lots of dodgy reviews so I’m wary of that one.

Go into settings, then focus, then select the focus you've just created. You need to customise the restrictions... what notifications are allowed, whether it's triggered at a certain time of day or by opening an app, etc.

It's a bit fiddly to set up, especially if you create lots of focuses, but worth it.

@skilpadde So this what I have, as a test. In theory it should only open ‘documents’ I think? I think he uses the notes tool but that didn’t even come up as an option.

Oh my gosh, it’s very fiddly, you weren’t wrong @skilpadde! But I’ve got it working on my work phone so hopefully I can show my son how to do it on his too.

All greyed-out apps are restricted.

To anyone reading who wants to copy this - Success! He has just done it on his phone (turns out his is way newer than my work phone so the options were slightly different).