For Households
Those feel like two problems. They're one. Two visits, and you end up with a shared vault either of you can get into at 2am — and a page on the fridge that everyone signed.
Every house has a version of this. The streaming password lives in somebody's head. The electric bill login is in a text message from 2023. One of you resets a password every single time because it was never written down anywhere you could both find it.
And separately — or so it feels — the phones are out at dinner. Somebody's scrolling while the other one is talking. The kid's tablet is a nightly negotiation.
Those look like a technical problem and a manners problem. They're the same problem: nobody ever sat down and decided how this house uses its technology. The passwords ended up wherever they ended up. The phone habits did too. Nothing was chosen — it just accumulated.
You can hire a screen-time coach. They'll talk to you about balance and habits — and they can't touch your devices, so the passcodes never get set and nothing changes by Thursday.
You can hire a computer guy. He'll set up a password manager and leave — and he has no opinion about your dinner table, so the part that was actually bothering you is still bothering you.
I do both, in your house, in two visits. I'm an IT guy who makes housecalls. Setting up the vault and running the conversation about phones at the table are the same appointment, because in a house they're the same subject.
Not my opinion — this is what the research on households and technology actually shows.
Researchers have measured computer frustration for twenty years. How good you are with computers doesn't change how much it stresses you — and most frustrating problems are repeat offenders. Tech stress is a design problem. So the fix is changing the setup, not the person.
In the couples research, the damage tracks with fighting about phone use more than the phone use itself. A written agreement everyone signed goes straight at that — fewer standoffs, because the rules were decided together instead of enforced by whoever's angriest.
Studies of people locked out of their digital lives — done mostly with older adults, though the mechanism is human, not age-specific — show it's the helplessness that does the damage, and confidence that reverses it. Each of you getting back into an account alone, before I leave, is that reversal on purpose.
In a study of 45,000 students, every hour of screen time after getting into bed was linked to 59% higher odds of insomnia. A 122,000-person study ties pre-sleep phone use to less sleep. Moving the chargers out of the bedroom is the best-evidenced change I install.
And I checked my own math. I had every number on this site checked against the actual studies. One of my own claims didn't survive the check, so I corrected it. The whole audit is public — sources, sample sizes, and the one I got wrong: read the audit.
Two visits, about two weeks apart. The gap is deliberate — you live with the plan before I build it.
About two hours at your kitchen table. I inventory every device, account, and subscription you have — including the ones nobody can get into anymore. Then we write down how you actually want to use all of it. Your words, not mine.
I send back your household agreement and a written plan of every change I'm proposing, device by device. If you don't want something, say so before I come back and it doesn't happen. Objections are cheap now and expensive with a screwdriver in my hand.
Shared password vault, notifications off, app limits, phone-free zones from your own agreement, shared calendar on whatever you already use. Then each of you gets back into an account on your own while I watch — because a vault only one person can recover is worse than the sticky notes it replaced.
Four things, and they're yours. Nothing here depends on calling me again.
One page, in your words, signed by everyone who lives there — kids included. It goes on the fridge, not in a drawer. It covers phone-free times and places, what gets posted about each other, and what happens when somebody breaks it. That last part is the one that makes it survive.
Everything I touched, on every device, and how to undo it. If a time limit turns out to be wrong or you actually needed that notification, the reversal is written down. You don't have to call me to undo my own work.
Where things live and how each of you gets back in alone if a phone goes in a lake. There are no passwords on it — it's a map, not a key. Keep it where you keep the passports, and make sure you both know where that is.
A printed copy of The Human Side of Technology — everything we talked about at the table, plus the parts we didn't get to. Read it here first if you want to know how I think before you let me in your house.
There's an add-on for that. Age-appropriate limits, school devices sorted out, and a section of the agreement written at your kid's reading level that they read and sign themselves.
Two rules I don't bend. Both parents get the passcode — a control only one of you can undo is just an argument you haven't had yet. And the kid knows what's on their device. I explain every setting to the kid it applies to, at their level, before I leave. The day a kid discovers a limit by hitting a wall is the day the whole agreement stops working.
I won't install anything on anyone's device that they don't know about. Not your spouse's phone. Not your kid's tablet. Every control I set up gets explained to the person it applies to. And I won't help one of you monitor the other — not location, not messages, not browsing. If that's what's needed, I'll say so on the phone and save you the visit. (For what it's worth, the research agrees: couples who watch each other's accounts end up less happy a year later — not safer.)
I'm not a therapist or a counselor, and I'm not licensed as either. This is an IT service with a conversation attached. If what's going on in your house turns out to be about the two of you rather than about the phones, I'll tell you that plainly and stay on the phones. That's not me brushing you off — it's me being straight about what I'm qualified to do.
About the money. It's a flat fee — one number for both visits, quoted before I do anything, and it doesn't move because a visit ran long. The kids add-on is a second flat number. Nothing is billed by the hour, so there's no meter running while we talk at your kitchen table. Ask and I'll tell you both numbers on the phone in about thirty seconds.
Partly, yes — I do set things up. But a computer guy fixes the device in front of him and leaves. This is about how the whole house works together: who can log into what, what happens at the dinner table, and what you'd do if one of you lost a phone tomorrow. You end up with a written agreement and a setup that matches it.
Where you can type them yourself, you do — I coach, you type. Where you can't, I do it in front of you. Nothing gets written down, photographed, or kept. You watch me destroy my working notes before I leave, and I keep no access to anything of yours afterward: no admin account, no vault membership, no remote profile.
Then it's not the right time. Both adults need to be there and both need to agree — I don't work in a household where one person doesn't know it's happening. If one of you is curious and the other is skeptical, read the guide together first. That's usually the honest starting point.
Yes, and I say so out loud in front of both of you. Some accounts are genuinely shared — streaming, utilities, bills. Some stay private: personal email, work credentials, personal social accounts. Private is normal and it's not the same as hiding something. I won't let the setup turn into a loyalty test.
You have a written record of every change I made and how to undo it, so you're never stuck waiting on me to reverse my own work. Most households don't need anything else. If a new device shows up or the agreement stops working, that's a follow-up session — ask and I'll quote it.
Tell me what's driving you nuts and I'll tell you whether this fixes it. If it doesn't, I'll say that too.