5 to 6 hours a day
I am Danylo, I am 17 and I built Make Yourself. A few years ago I was not addicted to games. I was addicted to something quieter: YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and TikTok, 5 to 6 hours a day. Not all at once. Ten minutes here, twenty there, and the day was gone.
The moment I said enough
One day I did the maths. A hundred years is about 36,500 days. That is not a lot. And every one of my days was passing like a snap of the fingers, while I had nothing to show for it.
That number stayed in my head. Every day I scrolled through was one less out of 36,500.
What did not work
- Deleting the apps. I always had a reason to install them again.
- Screen time limits. One tap on "ignore" and they were gone.
- Motivation videos. They worked for a day. Then I was back to scrolling.
What actually worked
I wrote down who I want to become, and what I have to do every day to get there. Not a mood, a plan. Then I followed it.
That was about two years of more discipline and more planning. My screen time went down from 5-6 hours to around 3. Better, but still too much.
The problem with being disciplined
By then I had a new problem. My life was spread across a lot of apps: one for tasks, one for habits, one for training, one for money, one for notes. Keeping them all up to date took a lot of time, and every switch between them was a chance to open the feed again.
Nothing out there did it the way I needed. So I decided to build it.
Building Make Yourself
I started building Make Yourself on 24 December 2025, and I have been building it every day since. Along the way my screen time changed again: the hours that used to go to the feed now go into this app.
It is the app I wanted two years ago:
- Block the feed, keep the app. Shorts and Reels go, YouTube and Instagram stay.
- A plan for the day with a focus timer on every task.
- One honest score: habits, training, money, reading and a journal in one place.
If you are where I was
Do not start by deleting everything. Start by counting your days, writing down who you want to be, and removing the one feed that eats the most hours. Then track every day, because you will not believe your progress until you can see it.
Everything I ask of you in the app, I did first.
— Danylo