From our founder

The problem

Nonsense phone use had always been a problem for me. It wasn’t that much about the number of hours I spent on the screen, but about how I used it to escape certain situations

Whenever I started a task that required focus, I quickly found myself feeling exhausted or unmotivated to continue. I comforted myself with the classic “I’ll do it later“, and rushed to grab my phone for absolutely nothing useful. Sometimes it was TikTok, other times Instagram, or even a YouTube video, but the goal was always the same, escape the work and feel “at ease“

This became a vicious cycle in which I would procrastinate any heavy lifting task, and what should take 30 minutes to do, would take more than 2 hours

The solution

When looking for solutions for this problem I couldn’t find anything besides easy to trick apps, and timers, which wouldn’t work for me. That’s when I decided to build something myself

While trying to figure out a solution, I realised two things. First, no matter what anyone says, a real solution will always rely on your willpower. And second, while all solutions focus on blocking or restricting access to your phone, it makes more sense to focus on mitigating the impulse itself; you will always end up deleting an app or snoozing a timer, but the real victory lies in building new healthier habits

That is how EMBO was born, to help you defeat nonsense phone use by making small changes that result in long-lasting habits