Set a screen cutoff time

Pick a consistent hour to put screens away and protect the wind-down window.

Why it works

A defined cutoff converts a vague intention into a concrete cue, which is how behavior change actually sticks. It also reclaims a buffer between stimulation and sleep, letting both arousal and light exposure fall before you try to sleep — addressing displacement and the lights-out transition at once.

How to do it

1. Choose a realistic cutoff time you can keep most nights and tie it to an existing cue.
2. Move the charger out of the bedroom so the cutoff is enforced by friction, not willpower.
3. Have a planned non-screen activity ready so the gap doesn’t pull you back to the phone.

Evidence

Implementation intentions (a specific when/where plan) are among the most robustly supported behavior-change tools, and reducing the device’s availability raises the friction that helps a cutoff hold. (rct)

The behavior-change tooling is well supported; the specific "best" cutoff hour is individual and unstudied as a number.

Sources

• Gollwitzer & Sheeran (2006), meta-analysis of implementation intentions, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

Common mistake

Setting a cutoff but keeping the phone on the nightstand, so willpower has to win every single night — and eventually doesn’t.