how can we help?

1. Download the kip app

Find it in the App Store. Open it, sign up with your email, and follow the welcome flow.

2. Create your first mode

You can create up to 5 modes in the app all with different app selections. Such as Focus, Wind-down, Family. Pick one to begin with. You can build more once you've got the feel of it.

3. Take it for a test run

Tap disconnect in your app and tap the top of your phone to your tag once. The mode kicks in and your blocked apps go quiet. Tap again when you're ready to come back online.

4. Set one reminder

One is plenty to start. Pick a moment in your day where you'd like to be more present and put a reminder there.

That's the whole setup.

You don't need to perfect everything on day one. Most people find their groove inside the first week. If anything's not working, head to the help centre or send us a line at hello@kip.life. We read every email.

A good first move once you're set up: try the kip 10-day challenge (see digital wellness and challenge). It'll give you a soft, structured start.

1. Open the kip app first

Your tag needs the app open and listening before it'll respond. When you press disconnect in the app, you should see a Ready to scan prompt on screen. If you don't, the app isn't picking up the signal yet.

2. Check NFC is on (Android only)

On iPhone, NFC quietly runs in the background. There's nothing to switch on. On Android, head to your phone's Settings, search for NFC, and make sure it's toggled on.

3. Tap the right spot

NFC sits near the top of the back of most phones. Tap the top back of your phone against the kip tag for a full second. If nothing happens, slide your phone slowly across the tag until it picks up.

4. Take your phone case off

A thick or metal case can block the signal. Pop it off and try again. If it works without the case, that's your culprit.

5. Restart everything

Close the kip app fully, restart your phone, and tap the tag once more. A clean restart fixes most stubborn pairings.

If none of that has worked, send us a line at hello@kip.life. Tell us what phone you're on and what's happening when you tap, and we'll get you sorted.

You can build up to ten.

To create a mode

1. Open the kip app and head to Modes.
2. Tap + New mode.
3. Give it a name. Keep it short and specific ("Dinner," "Studio time," "Sunday morning").
4. Choose what gets blocked. You can pick the apps to block, or pick the apps to allow and block everything else. Most people find the second option simpler.
5. Pick a colour or icon if you want. It makes the mode easier to spot in your list.
6. Save.

To edit a mode

1. Open Modes and tap the one you want to change.
2. Update the name, the apps, or the icon.
3. Save.

To delete a mode

Open the mode, scroll to the bottom, tap Delete mode. The history of when you used it stays in your insights. Only the mode itself is removed.

Here's something we hear a lot, and it's worth saying out loud: when you start spending less time on your phone, the first thing you bump into is the boredom you'd been outsourcing to it.

Don't panic. That's not a problem. That's the doorway.

You don't need a five-step plan or a new hobby empire. You just need a small list of things to reach for instead. Here's a starter set, pulled from what the kip community comes back with most.

Things to do alone

• Read 10 pages of a book. Any book. The first 10 are the hardest.
• Go for a walk without a podcast. Just the walk.
• Cook something properly. Something that takes more than 20 minutes.
• Stretch. Five minutes is plenty. Your body will thank you twice.
• Write down three things you're thinking about. Pen, paper, no audience.
• Do the small thing you've been putting off. The cupboard, the form, the email.
• Sit with a coffee and look out the window. This counts.
• Try the thing you used to do before life got busy. Drawing, running, baking, music.
• Plan something to look forward to. Even a small thing in the next two weeks.
• Take a nap. A real one.

Things to do with people

• Call someone instead of texting them. Old school. Underrated.
• Have a meal with someone you've been meaning to catch up with.
• Go for a walk with your partner, your mate, your dog.
• Cook for somebody.
• Play a card game, a board game, anything analogue.
• Watch a film on the sofa, properly, no second screen.
• Visit family without an agenda.
• Sit at a bar or a café alone and talk to whoever's next to you.
• Volunteer for two hours somewhere local.
• Throw a small thing. Six people, a kitchen, a Tuesday.

Things to do out in the world

• Find a class. Pottery, language, dance, climbing. Beginners welcome everywhere.
• Go to a live gig in a venue you've never been to.
• Catch a film at the cinema in the middle of a weekday if you can.
• Walk a part of your city you don't normally see.
• Sit in a park for an hour and don't earn it. Don't read, don't scroll, don't tick anything off.
• Go to an exhibition, a market, a talk, a screening.

If you're looking for connection specifically

Our friends at Cliq run real-world events designed for exactly this. Small groups, in-person, built around doing things together rather than swapping handles. It's a good place to start if your social life has quietly migrated to your phone and you'd like to bring some of it back into the room.

One last thing

You don't have to fill every minute. Empty time isn't a problem to solve. Some of the best hours of the next month will be the ones where you sat with a coffee and didn't do anything in particular.

You bought a kip tag because you wanted your phone habits to shift. The first 10 days are about making the tag stick. Turning it from a thing on your counter into something you reach for without thinking.

Ten days, one small action a day. Most days start with a tap. A few are quieter, just you and a small decision. None of them ask you to give up your phone.

Set your challenge

Before you start, open Insights and look at three numbers: screen time, pickups, and time disconnected. These are your starting line. Pick the one you'd most like to shift over the next ten days.

• Screen time: aim for one hour less per day than your current average.
• Pickups: aim for 25 fewer per day. Most people pick up the phone 90 to 150 times a day, so this is a meaningful dent without being unrealistic.
• Time disconnected: aim for 90 minutes more per day than where you are now.

One target. That's it. The tag will do the heavy lifting.

Day 1. Build your first mode

Open the kip app and let it walk you through creating your first mode. Pick the moment in your day where your phone pulls hardest. School run, dinner, the first hour at your desk, whatever it is for you. Name the mode. Choose what it blocks. Save it.

This is the foundation for everything that comes next. Don't overthink it. You can always add more modes later.

One last thing while you're in the app: set a reminder for whatever moment your mode is for. The reminder gives you the nudge. The tap on the tag does the rest.

Day 2. Your first tap

Today, tap your kip tag for real. Use the mode you built yesterday. Notice what happens. The phone goes quiet. The urge to check it doesn't disappear, but the response does.

This is the loop you're building. Tap to start. Tap to come back. The tag in your hand instead of the phone.

Day 3. Build a second mode

Add a second mode to your app. A different moment, a different feel. If day 1 was about work, make this one about wind-down. If day 1 was family dinner, make this one about a morning walk.

Two modes give you range. Now you've got a tap for two different parts of your day.

Day 4. Phone off the table at one meal

Tap into a mode for one meal today. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Whichever you eat with someone, or alone with intention. Phone face-down isn't enough. Put it in another room and let the tag do its thing.

Day 5. A walk without your phone

Twenty minutes is plenty. Tap into a mode, leave the phone at home, and walk. No podcast, no music, no maps. Notice what your brain does with the silence.

Day 6. Tap into deep work

Use your tag for the first hour of work today. Whatever your work mode is. Desk, studio, school, shop floor. One hour, properly off the phone, properly into what you're doing.

If one hour feels easy, try two tomorrow.

Day 7. Share what you reclaimed

Open Insights, scroll to the bottom, and tap Share. You'll see your time disconnected for today or this week. Pick whichever you're prouder of.

Choose a photo from your camera roll. Make it something you actually did with the time. The walk, the meal, the book, the people. The point isn't to brag. It's to show yourself, and anyone who sees it, that the time was real.

Share it to your stories, send it to a mate, or save it for yourself. People who share early tend to stick with kip longer. There's something about putting it out there that makes it stick in your own head.

Day 8. Tap into wind-down

Build or use a wind-down mode an hour before bed. Phone off the bedside table, properly out of the room. Tap into the mode and let the evening be quieter than usual.

While you're in the app, set a reminder to go with it. Pick a time an hour before you usually go to bed, with a short message you'd actually want to read at that moment ("phone in the kitchen for the next hour" works well). The reminder is the nudge to tap. The tap is what makes the rest happen.

Sleep is usually the first thing people notice shifting. Pay attention to how you feel in the morning.

For more on reminders, see how to set reminders.

Day 9. Notice one urge

No tap today. When you reach for your phone out of habit, just pause. Don't stop yourself. Just notice. Where were you? What were you doing? What did you think you'd find?

This is the muscle the tag is helping you build. Awareness first, action second.

Day 10. Review and share again

Open Insights and look at the three numbers from day 1. Compare them to today. How close did you get to the target you set yourself?

Then scroll down and tap Share one more time. Share your week's time disconnected. Pick a photo from something you did this week that you wouldn't have done if you'd been on your phone. That's the proof.

What happens after day 10

You'll have a few modes that work for your life, a tag you actually use, and an honest sense of where the time goes when you're not paying attention.

Most people don't hit every day. That's fine. The challenge isn't a test. It's a way to start.

If you want to dig into the why behind any of this, head to digital wellness, explained. If you've made room in your day and aren't sure what to fill it with, have a look at what do I do with my time now?

Most people have a clear sense of what good sleep, food and exercise do for them. The phone is the one that sneaks under the radar. We pick it up 90 to 150 times a day on average and most of us have no idea.

This isn't about giving up your phone. It's about being honest with yourself about where the hours go, and what they cost. Here's what the research actually says.

What heavy phone use is doing to your body

Your sleep takes the biggest hit. Phone use in the hour before bed is linked to poorer sleep quality, longer time to fall asleep, and less deep sleep. Blue light is part of it. The bigger part is what scrolling does to your nervous system right when it should be winding down.

Your eyes work harder than they're built to. Sustained close-range screen time leads to dry eyes, blurred vision, headaches and what's now called digital eye strain. Eye specialists are seeing this in adults and children at rates we've never had before.

Your body sits more. Heavy phone users move significantly less throughout the day. Less standing, less walking, fewer steps. Sedentary time is now considered an independent risk factor for heart disease, regardless of how much you exercise.

Your posture changes. The neck holds the weight of your head at around 5kg upright. Tilted down to look at a phone, that load can rise to 25kg or more on the cervical spine. Physiotherapists have a name for what they're seeing: tech neck.

What it's doing to your head

Your attention span gets shorter. Studies tracking attention over the last twenty years show our ability to stay focused on a single task has more than halved. Constant notifications train the brain to expect interruption, and concentration becomes harder even when the phone isn't in the room.

Your dopamine system gets noisy. Every notification, like, and refresh delivers a tiny hit of reward. Over time this raises your baseline for what feels stimulating, and quieter moments start to feel boring or uncomfortable. That's not weakness. That's the system doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Anxiety and low mood track with screen time. Multiple large studies now link heavy social media use, particularly in teens and young adults, with higher rates of anxiety and depression. The picture is more nuanced for adults, but the trend is clear: more time on the phone correlates with feeling worse, not better.

Memory and learning suffer. The phone in your pocket, even face-down, even on silent, has been shown to reduce cognitive performance in tests. The brain is using effort to ignore it.

What you get back

When people start reclaiming time from their phone, the changes are quiet rather than dramatic. They're also surprisingly consistent.

• Sleep improves within a week of putting the phone outside the bedroom.
• People notice their kids more. Their partners more. Their meals more.
• Books that have been sitting unread for months get finished.
• Walks feel longer. Conversations feel longer. The day feels longer.
• Boredom comes back, and turns out to be where most good ideas live.

None of this is a productivity hack. It's just time. The hours were always yours. The phone was just borrowing them.

If you're ready to put any of this into practice, our 10-day challenge is the easiest place to start. Have a look at the coach.

A few things our most loyal users do early on. They're small. They're not rules. Pick the ones that fit your life.

Put the tag where the temptation is

On the coffee table. Stuck to the fridge. BY the front door. Wherever you reach for your phone the most.

Build modes around moments, not days

"Family dinner" works better than "evening." "First hour of work" beats "weekday." Specific moments are easier to actually live by.

Use insights as a mirror, not a scoreboard

Look once a week. Notice what's shifted. Adjust if you want to. Don't grade yourself.

Pair the tag with a routine you already have

Tap when you sit down for dinner. Tap before bed. Tap when you walk into the gym. The habit is the bit that sticks.

Don't try to cut everything at once

The phone isn't the enemy. Pick one moment a day where you'd rather be present, and start there.

Tell someone

Family. A mate. Your partner. Real change is a team sport. People who do kip with someone tend to stick with it longer.

That's the start. The rest is just showing up.

You might want one tag at home, one at work, and one in the gym bag. Each tag pairs to your kip account, so wherever you tap, your modes, your insights and your history all stay in sync.

A few useful things to know

• There's no extra cost for adding a tag to your account.
• One kip tag can be shared across a household. Tap it with your phone, your partner taps it with theirs, your kid taps it with theirs. Each person's data stays on their own account.
• A kip tag in a shared space (like a kitchen) is one of the easiest ways to build the ritual into family life.

If a tag stops responding after pairing, take a quick look at kip tag isn't working. It's almost always one of the five things on that list.

One of the quietest things kip does is also one of the most powerful: it gives you a way to make your time disconnected visible. Not as a number on a screen, but as something you can hold up next to a photo of what you actually did with the time.

How to share

1. Open the kip app and head to Insights.
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap Share.
3. Choose what you want to share. Your time disconnected for today or this week.
4. Pick a photo from your camera roll. The walk, the meal, the book, the people. Whatever you actually did with the time.
5. Choose where to send it. Stories, a friend, your camera roll for later.

That's it. Your time disconnected sits over the photo, and the rest tells its own story.

Why it works

People who share their time tend to stick with kip longer. There's something about putting it out there that makes it stick in your own head. The share card isn't about bragging. It's about giving the time a face.

A number on its own is easy to forget. A number sitting over a photo of you and your kid at the park, or a meal you cooked, or a book you finished, is something you actually believe.

A few things people do with it

• Stories on a Sunday. A weekly habit. One photo from the week, your time disconnected over it. Quiet, consistent, builds the muscle.
• Send it to one person. A partner, a mate, a parent. Someone who's noticed you're around more. They'll notice the share too.
• Save it for yourself. A private record. A camera roll full of moments you wouldn't have had if you'd been on the phone.
• Show your kids. Especially if they're old enough to have their own phones. The conversation is easier with a picture than without.

One last thing

The point of the share card isn't to make digital wellness performative. It's to make it real. The time was always there. The share card is just a way of saying, to yourself first, anyone else second, that you used it for something you wanted to.

If you're new to kip and looking for a way to build the habit, our 10-day plan uses the share card on day 7 and day 10.

Before anything else

• Have a proper look in the obvious places: bag, pocket, bedside table, by the door. Most lost tags turn up within 24 hours.
• Check with the people you live with. Tags get borrowed.

If it's properly gone

1. Use emergency reconnects to keep your phone usable while you sort it. You've got five built in (see Emergency reconnect).
2. Order a replacement through the app. Go to kip.life → shop. We'll send you a new one and pair it to your existing account, so you don't lose any of your history, modes or insights.
3. Drop us a note at hello@kip.life if you'd rather have a human walk you through it.

The good news

Your insights, your modes, your reminders. All of it sits with your kip account, not your tag. Losing the tag doesn't mean losing your progress. The new one picks up exactly where the old one left off.

To set a reminder

1. Open the kip app and head to Reminders.
2. Tap the + to add a new one.
3. Pick a time. First thing in the morning, the school run, the hour before bed, whichever moment matters to you.
4. Pick a message. Keep it short. Something you'd actually want to read at that moment ("phone in the drawer for the next hour" works well).
5. Save.

A few that the Community swear by

• One in the morning to set the tone for the day.
• One around dinner to keep phones off the table.
• One an hour before bed to wind the screen down.

You can edit, snooze, or delete any reminder by tapping it in the list. They're meant to flex around your life, not lock you in.

If you ever stop noticing a reminder, change the message or move the time. The point isn't the reminder. The point is the moment of noticing it gives you.

What you'll find inside Insights

• Pickups. How many times you reached for your phone today. Most people are surprised the first time they see this number.
• Screen time. How long you spent on it.
• Time saved. The hours kip helped you keep for yourself.
• Top apps. Where the time tends to go when you're not paying attention.

Tap any number to see the day-by-day view. Swipe between weeks to track how things are trending.

What insights aren't

There's no streak to break. No public leaderboard. No shame.

These numbers are a mirror, not a scoreboard. They're there for one reason: so you can notice. The first week you use kip, you might be surprised. By week two, the numbers start to settle. By week four, you'll spot patterns you didn't know you had.

That's what an emergency reconnect is for.

To use one

1. Open the kip app.
2. Head to Settings → Emergency reconnect.
3. Tap Use an emergency reconnect.

You'll have full access to your apps straight away. No questions. No penalty. We trust you.

How many you get

You start with four emergency reconnects. They reset on a rolling cycle, so you've always got something in reserve. If you've used all four and need them reset sooner, drop us a line at hello@kip.life and we'll sort it.

A small note from us

Emergency reconnects exist for a reason. They're there for the moments life genuinely needs you back online. Not for "I just want to check Instagram quickly." That's the urge kip is here to help you sit with for a moment longer.

Use them when you need them. Trust the rest of the time.