Getting started: your first challenge

Three steps before your first signal ever fires.

1. Name your distraction

NoOut asks what controls you the most — social media, video, games, or "everything distracting." This label is just for you; it shows up later as "Protected: Social media" wherever your commitment is displayed. It doesn't filter anything for the next step — Apple doesn't let any app pre-filter its own Screen Time picker by category, so you'll browse the same full list either way.

2. Stake the actual apps

From that same step, you open Apple's own Screen Time picker and choose the specific apps (or categories, or web domains) you're staking. NoOut never sees their names or icons — only an opaque token Apple hands back. Pick at least one, or there's nothing real to lock later.

3. Set your active hours

Signals only fire inside a window you choose — a wake time and a sleep time. No 3 AM ambushes. Inside that window, the exact moment is unpredictable; that's the entire mechanic.

4. Read the contract, then choose your game

Before anything goes live, NoOut shows you exactly what a miss costs: the first-miss lock duration, how it escalates if you miss again in a row, and that a successful response resets the ladder back to zero. Then you pick which mode starts it — Solo or Global. See Solo vs Global if you're not sure which. Either way, the apps you just staked are what's actually on the line — the other mode isn't a separate setup, it's just a second way to win or lose the same stake, and you can join it later from its own tab.

What happens next

Once you accept, NoOut is armed. A signal will arrive at an unpredictable moment inside your active hours with a short code — respond in time and nothing changes. Miss it, and your staked apps lock themselves immediately. See what happens when you miss a signal for the full consequence ladder.