Screen Time Budget Planner
Updated .
This planner converts a daily screen-time target into concrete per-app limits you can set in Screen Time, distributing the reduction proportionally across your three biggest apps. It also shows what the cut is worth per week and per year, because the annual figure is usually what makes the change stick.
How it works
The planner distributes the required reduction proportionally rather than equally, because equal cuts are unrealistic. Taking twenty minutes from an app you use for two hours is a trim; taking twenty minutes from one you use for twenty-five minutes is effectively a ban, and bans get ignored.
The arithmetic: the required cut is your current daily hours minus your target. That cut is divided by the combined time of your three biggest apps to give a reduction fraction, and each app's new limit is its current time multiplied by one minus that fraction. So an app at 1.4 hours a day, in a set that needs to absorb a 30% reduction, is limited to about 59 minutes.
Two results are worth reading carefully. If your top three apps cannot absorb the whole cut, no set of app limits will reach your target and the remainder has to come from Downtime — a scheduled quiet period — rather than from budgets. And the annual figure is included deliberately: an hour a day is difficult to feel, while fifteen days a year is a number people act on.
Worked example
Current daily screen time 4.2 hours, target 3 hours. Top three apps: 1.4, 0.9 and 0.6 hours a day.
The cut required is 1.2 hours a day. The top three total 2.9 hours, so they must absorb a reduction fraction of 1.2 divided by 2.9, about 41%. Applying that gives limits of roughly 49 minutes, 32 minutes and 21 minutes.
Over a week that is 8.4 hours; over a year it is about 18 days. The three apps account for 69% of total screen time, so they can carry the whole reduction, and the planner says so.
Change the target to 2 hours and the picture changes qualitatively rather than quantitatively. The required cut becomes 2.2 hours, the top three would have to absorb 76%, and the third app's limit falls to about 9 minutes a day — a limit nobody honours. The planner flags that the cut cannot come from app budgets alone, and the honest answer is a Downtime schedule that closes the phone in the evening rather than three limits that will be ignored by Thursday.
Frequently asked questions
Why distribute the cut proportionally rather than equally?
Because an equal cut takes a trim from a heavily used app and effectively bans a lightly used one, and bans get ignored. A proportional reduction asks the same relative sacrifice of each app.
What if my top three apps cannot absorb the whole reduction?
Then no combination of app limits will reach your target, and the remainder has to come from Downtime, which closes the phone for a scheduled period. The planner tells you when you are in that situation.
Where do I find my current screen time figures?
Open Settings and tap Screen Time, then view the weekly report, which shows your daily average and the breakdown by app. Use the weekly average rather than a single day.
Do App Limits actually work if I know the passcode?
On your own phone they act as friction rather than enforcement, which is still most of the benefit, because continuing becomes a decision rather than a reflex. For a child's phone the passcode must be one they do not know.
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