u/Individual-Cash-2547

I made an app, and I think it's pretty decent. But I can't reach anyone. I have been posting on Reddit, X and blogs, but I can't seem to reach anyone. I hear people say talk to people who need the app, find discord channels, comment on groups and all that stuff, but how do I find these relevant channels, and people. I don't have money for paid ads, so I need to grow organically. So, if anyone could give me advice about that, it would be very helpful.

Thank you

For most of last year I was losing the first hour of every day to my phone. Alarm at 9. Roll over. Grab phone. Look up at 9:40 already wired and stressed about three things that had nothing to do with my actual life.

I tried the obvious stuff first. Phone in another room. Grayscale mode. App timers. Habit apps with streaks. None of it stuck for more than a week or two. The streak apps were the worst — break the streak once and the whole system collapsed, and I'd come back angrier at myself than before.

What actually worked was something dumber. I stopped trying to use my phone less and started trying to change the *first thing* it showed me.

There's a concept in behavioral psychology called priming — whatever your brain processes first sets the tone for what comes after. If your first input is a stressful feed, you spend the next few hours unconsciously reactive. So I set up my phone to push a notification at 5am, every day, with a single sentence about something I actually want to do with my life and a single sentence about a habit I'm trying to leave behind.

By the time I wake up at 9, that notification has been sitting on my lock screen for hours, on top of everything else. So when I reach for the phone on autopilot, the first thing I see isn't a feed. It's a reminder of what I actually care about.

Not dramatic. Just enough of a pause to break the loop.

The thing I wish I'd understood earlier is that discipline doesn't have to feel like fighting yourself. The streak-and-shame model assumes you're lazy and need to be punished into compliance. But for me at least, I wasn't lazy — I was just running on autopilot. Once the first input changed, the rest got easier without any extra willpower.

What's actually worked for you in breaking morning autopilot? Curious whether anyone else has tried changing the *first* thing their phone shows them rather than trying to use it less.

If you want to know about my app DM me, I do want to market my app, but not blatantly. As I guess it's a violation of the policy. But yeah, I would love people to try my app and also give me feedback.

Thank you

I'm a chronic morning doomscroller. Or I was.

For most of last year my mornings followed the same script. Alarm at 9. Roll over. Grab phone. Forty minutes gone before my feet hit the floor, already stressed about three things that had nothing to do with my actual life.

The frustrating part wasn't that it happened. It was that I knew it was happening and couldn't stop. Willpower wasn't going to win this one. The phone was designed by people much smarter than me to be exactly this sticky.

So I started reading about how habits actually break, and two ideas stuck.

The first was priming — the idea that whatever your brain processes first colors everything that comes after. If your first input is a stressful feed, you spend the next few hours unconsciously reactive. The mornings I felt best were always the ones where I'd stumbled into something other than my phone first. A window. A book. The kettle.

The second was nudge theory. Richard Thaler's idea that small, well-placed cues shift behavior more reliably than strict rules. Punishment-based systems collapse the moment you're tired. Gentle reminders, placed at the right moments, tend to survive.

The problem was that nothing on my phone was actually applying any of this. Every habit app I'd tried wanted to scold me into submission — streaks, charts, guilt trips about screen time. Shame had never moved me an inch.

So I ended up building my own version. Something with a dead simple idea: three notifications a day. One in the early morning, one late afternoon, one at night. Each one shows me one thing I want to do with my life and one habit I'm trying to leave behind. No streaks. No scolding. No charts. There are more features in th app, but this feature has helped me personally.

The surprise was which notification mattered most. The early-morning one fires while I'm still asleep, and by the time I wake up it's been sitting on my lock screen for hours — covering everything else. So when I reach for the phone on autopilot, the first thing I see isn't a feed. It's a line about something I actually care about.

Not dramatic. Just sitting there. But it's enough of a pause to break the loop.

I haven't stopped scrolling entirely, and I don't think that's actually the goal. But the first hour of my day is mine again, and that's done more for me than any amount of self-flagellation about screen time ever did.

Curious if anyone else has tried something like this — changing the *first* thing your phone shows you, rather than trying to use it less. What worked for you?