Tech-Fencing: Building Human-Friendly Devices (a 90-day experiment)

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Context:
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I've been involved as a 'lurker' in the porn addiction recovery community for about 10 years now, and have had various successes and failures. Have had various 90-day streaks and many relapses.
I'm disappointed with the mainstream response so far to porn addiction. Based on how many data points we should have, we seem to know very little about what it actually takes to fully recover.
I also work from home - and have done so for the past 4 years. This is a gift and a curse.
I now believe that defending my attention done from all angles - but ultimately needs to start with building 'fences' and 'moats' around my habits. This experiment will include ANYTHING screen-related that is a time-suck, but my main focus is porn)

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Premise:
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If tech companies (social media, news outlets, porn) have billions of dollars of research & trillions of data points backing up their habit-forming sites, then I believe I need to spend time and money defending with tech.

I'm not a developer/coder and know very little about customizing my devices above and beyond the software that's available.

That being said, the technology currently available is awesome - if you use it well.

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Experiment
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For this next 90 days I'm going to develop and explore as many tech solutions as I can, and create an optimized setup for both my Mac and my iOS device.

I understand there is mixed perception in this community about the use of 'blockers' and 'software' to aid in recovery. This is an experiment. It may fail, it may succeed, but ultimately I'm likely to discover something I didn't know before that will allow me to contribute to this community in new ways.

I'm currently on day 2/90, with multiple 90-day streaks behind me in past years. This is the first time I've taken 'technology fencing' seriously.

I believe 95% of my relapses COULD'VE been prevented by a good 'fence' in my digital systems.
The other 5% is another issue for another time.
This experiment is an attempt to deal with the 95% to free me up to focus on the 5%.

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Initial Setup
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Bought and installed all the blocking software I'll need to help me on this.
- BlockSite for both Chrome and Firefox. - $0

- I loaded up a list of porn sites I found on reddit's Nofap. I added it to a spreadsheet and uploaded it to Blocksite via .csv. (I don't believe it's appropriate for me to share this list on this forum, however if there's interest, I'll discuss with Moderators how to get it distributed in a safe, secure way)​

- WasteNoTime and Porn Block Plus for Safari - $0
- xBlock for iOS - $20
- Zero Willpower for iOS - for Facebook and general 'distractions' - $3

- Important note: I have completely deleted the facebook app on my iPhone and ONLY use Safari. This allows me to use their platform in a bit of a 'clunky' way, which massively reduces my total time on Facebook without impacting my browsing experience by much.​

- SelfControl as a backup 'catch-all' for Mac - $0

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ADVANCED
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- Textexpander - $3/mo

- What it does: This is usually a tool used by power-users to store and save short snippets of text when they type certain words (from entire email templates to short words)
- How I'm using it: I'm experimenting with setting this up as a 'line of defense'. Example: I go to type in 'my-usual-porn-site' - I can make textexpander pick up the 'my-usual-porn-site', REPLACE that text with techcrunch or something, automatically press 'ENTER' and I'll end up at techcrunch instead of relapsing
- Why I think this is useful: my fingers are faster than my thoughts. I can have three tabs open with three different sites / searches open in less than 7 seconds. In addiction-terms, this is a 'pattern interrupt'.
- Why this is powerful: It intersects with the BEHAVIOUR of searching. If I were an alcoholic, it'd be like automating/training the bouncer to push me back into my car every time I tried to walk in the door. So even if I eventually get to the 'door', I'm pushed back.
- This is not foolproof. There are ways around it, but I have to 'intentionally' get around it - which is a whole other problem. Right now I'm focusing on the initial 'habit​

If there is interest in using Textexpander, I can provide 'ready-to-use' templates for people to download and install without having to get acquainted with the software (although I highly recommend learning it if you use computers a lot)

- Keyboard Maestro - $40.

- This is a POWERFUL piece of software when used well.
- This somewhat clashes with TextExpander (as above), but like I said, I'm experimenting with multiple lines of defense.
- Basically, if you're able to execute something on your computer using keyboard-commands, you're able to automate whole SERIES of these things
- USE-CASE: If I type my search-string ANYWHERE, or type a URL ANYWHERE, display a message on the screen and TURN MY COMPUTER TO SLEEP.
- How this works: There are only like 20-30 search terms I use to find things.
- Why this is powerful: I don't plan on blocking YouTube, because I use it all day for the work that I do. HOWEVER, I do find that Youtube is a 'porn loophole'. I can find videos that are 'close enough' and then search for them in Youtube. When I identify the 'search terms' I use for youtube-searches, I IMMEDIATELY rig up a Keyboard Maestro automation that will 1). Display 'What U Doing? as large text on my screen for 3 seconds. 2.) turn my computer to sleep.
- This is basically an infinitely customizable 'porn-interruption' technique. It's non-fatal to any work I'm doing (it just turns my computer to sleep) but it basically is a 'tripwire' for me.

I can also share Keyboard Maestro setups with people who are interested. It is powerful software beyond this use, but it is a GREAT defense against the automatic-habit of searching for porn. ​

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Yes, I know this is overkill, but I want full control over my computer. I want to be able to block porn sites, and I want to be able to block any other random 'distracting' sites at will (which means I need multiple layers).

AGAIN: This DOES NOT address underlying emotional and psychological issues involving porn use. For that, I'll start another thread - I'm currently studying Gabor Mate's 'In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts' - which is fantastic.
This ONLY addresses giving yourself lines of defense against multi-billion-dollar tech companies, but I think this is a very powerful way to get started.

I'll be updating what I find as I go.