The two-week rule for installing any new app

New rule. Memorise it. Every new app gets two weeks. At the end of two weeks, write one sentence stating how it made your life better. No sentence, no app. Off the phone.

That is the rule. Read it again. There is no clause about "but I might need it later." There is no exception for "it was free." Two weeks. One sentence. Decision.

Why two weeks

Three days is not enough. Day three is novelty bounce. Everything feels useful at day three because it is new. You will keep every app you audit at day three. Useless test.

Six weeks is too long. By six weeks the app is wallpaper. You stopped seeing it. You will keep it on inertia.

Two weeks outlasts the novelty. Two weeks is short enough that nothing accumulates. Two weeks is the window.

The sentence test

The sentence is the gate. The sentence is the work.

Specific passes. "This app cut my grocery bill by tracking pantry stock so I stopped buying duplicate olive oil." Pass.

Vague fails. "Useful for productivity." Fail. Off.

Conditional fails. "Could be useful when I travel." Fail. Off. You are not travelling now.

Subjunctive fails. "Might help me organise my notes someday." Off.

If you cannot write the sentence in twenty seconds without hedging, the sentence is not there. The app is not there. Delete.

The numbers

Average iPhone has 80 apps installed. The user opens 9 daily. The other 71 are dead weight. Notification surface area. Visual noise. Cognitive tax. Every one of them was kept by the same logic. "I might need it." None of them are needed. All of them are paid for in attention.

Audit what you already have

Do not start with new installs. Start with the dead weight already on the phone.

• Settings.
• General.
• iPhone Storage.
• Sort by Last Used Date.

Anything not touched in 60 days, off. Do not negotiate. You will not miss it. If the situation arises, reinstalling takes 30 seconds.

Do this once a quarter. Set the calendar reminder now.

Why this matters more than any setting

A leaner phone is a less interesting phone. A less interesting phone is a less compulsive phone. This rule is upstream of every other intervention. Notification settings, screen-time limits, focus modes, app blockers. All downstream. All work harder than they should because the phone is full of bait.

Cut the bait. Then tune the settings. Not the other way round.

The honest framing

If you cannot follow this rule, that is information. Useful information. Note it.

It tells you the relationship between you and the phone is not what you said it was. You are not "just using tools." You are collecting them. The collection is the behaviour. The behaviour is the problem.

ScreenFine charges you money when you go over. That works. People respond to money.

The two-week rule charges nothing. No fines. No apps to install. No subscription. And it is harder than what we charge for. That should tell you something about how the brain prioritises pain.

Sit with that.

Your assignment

Run the audit this week.

• Open Settings, sort by Last Used. Anything past 60 days, gone.
• Any app installed in the last two weeks that does not earn its sentence, gone.
• Write the surviving sentences in a note. One per app. Reread next month.

That is the protocol. No reinterpretation. No "I will start Monday." Today.

Report back next Sunday with the count of apps removed and the count of sentences written.

Move.