About · Editorial policy Try. Measure. Compare.
Then write down what happened.
Study Mechanics is a lab notebook for people who study alongside a job. We don’t cover how to get motivated. We try environments, plans, logs and tools ourselves, and publish only what we could check with numbers.
01Editorial policy
The problems we cover are concrete. You sit down to study and pick up your phone. Social and video eat your evenings. Plans die in three days. There is no time after work. The goal is there; the execution isn’t.
We don’t treat these as weak-will problems. We treat them as problems of environment, planning, logging, tools, friction and automation — change what can be changed, then measure. We don’t write about motivation, and we don’t hype.
We coverEnvironment design, plan granularity, logging, tool comparisons, friction design, automation, fixed-period experiments, data-driven improvement
We don’t coverMindset, motivation, habits of successful people, “just do this one thing” claims, numbers without sources
02First-party data
The core of every article is a number we collected ourselves: Screen Time before/after, study-time logs, fixed-period experiments, app comparisons under identical conditions, DrillLock usage data, the operator’s own certification study. Third-party research is cited with the exact scope we relied on.
Every number carries one of three labels. This is the foundation of the site’s credibility.
- Measured
- Read directly from a device or app. We keep the screenshot or export and can produce it for a year after publication.
- Estimated
- Involves an algorithm or a conversion — sleep-app estimates, hourly-rate conversions, extrapolation from a sample. The method is stated in the text or a note.
- Hypothesis
- Not measured yet. We only publish hypotheses we plan to test, and we update the article and the label once we have.
Most experiments are n=1. We say so, and we don’t generalize. Reader replications are added after we confirm the conditions.
03Disclosures
DrillLock is developed by Frontline LLC, the company that runs this site. Focus articles include a lot of data collected while building it. Every article that mentions DrillLock ends with a disclosure box.
This site contains affiliate links. Mostly courses, SaaS and books in Learning While Working. We may earn a commission on purchases; it does not affect criteria or scores.
Rules for comparison articles
- Criteria are fixed and published before testing starts; they don’t change midway
- Our product is scored on the same criteria and period as competitors; weaknesses are stated as found
- Tables are ordered by name. Our product is never placed first or highlighted
- Commission never changes order or score
04Corrections
Working with numbers means we will get some wrong. Here is what happens when we do.
- Typos and wording — Fixed quietly (not logged)
- Numbers and facts — Fixed in the text, with the date, change and reason in the article’s revision history
- Errors that change a conclusion — A correction notice at the top of the article
Report issues through the contact form on the company site. We confirm within three business days and reply with what we did.
05About the operator
SM Study Mechanics Editorial TeamDeveloper of DrillLock
Run by a working professional who holds the SME Management Consultant (Japan), Applied Information Technology Engineer, Network Specialist, Registered Information Security Specialist and Bookkeeping Level 2 certifications, among other vendor certifications. Developer of the app blocker DrillLock. Written and maintained alongside a full-time job.
- SME Management Consultant
- Applied IT Engineer
- Network Specialist
- Information Security Specialist
- Bookkeeping L2
- + vendor certifications
Most experiments and first-hand data come from the operator’s own certification study and from building and using DrillLock. No personal name or photo is shown; every article is bylined “Study Mechanics Editorial Team”. The DrillLock connection is stated in both the author box and the disclosure box.