For Macs you can also use Screen Time to disable various things according to a schedule like 11pm to 7am. SelfControl is also an option but only deals with internet connectivity, not offline stuff.
For Windows (it also runs on Mac but I’ve never used it), I highly recommend https://focusme.com/.
It can block both apps and websites, and has all the tools needed to make a sleep blocking plan work.
I have an “enforce sleep” plan, that prevents me opening every website and app, except my calendar after 9:45 (I check my calendar before bed so I know what to time to get up the next day).
I have it set so that by entering a random string of characters, I can pause the computer for up to 30 minutes, 3 times. This successfully gets the “I can still do the computer if I want to” thing without me having to think about it.
I also have it set up to automatically re-enable itself every morning. This is pretty essential because sometimes I’ll have late night video calls with people from other timezones,and I can’t have my computer randomly shutting down. So I need to turn off the plan before the meeting. But I also don’t want to have to remember to re-enable something that night or the next day. (This would probably cause the bash script to be a non-starter for me).
Yeah. The above setup is in addition to Freedom.to, which is my primary “control online habits” tool. Typically at night I want to be able to do particular kinds of screw-around-on-the-internet, and the problem is that I just end up doing it too long, unreflectively.
A key piece of the setup is that I’m allowed to turn the computer back on, as many times as I want, but each time it forces a deliberate choice, and gives me a moment to notice “you know what? I’m tired, and youtube isn’t actually that good.”
For Macs you can also use Screen Time to disable various things according to a schedule like 11pm to 7am. SelfControl is also an option but only deals with internet connectivity, not offline stuff.
For Windows (it also runs on Mac but I’ve never used it), I highly recommend https://focusme.com/.
It can block both apps and websites, and has all the tools needed to make a sleep blocking plan work.
I have an “enforce sleep” plan, that prevents me opening every website and app, except my calendar after 9:45 (I check my calendar before bed so I know what to time to get up the next day).
I have it set so that by entering a random string of characters, I can pause the computer for up to 30 minutes, 3 times. This successfully gets the “I can still do the computer if I want to” thing without me having to think about it.
I also have it set up to automatically re-enable itself every morning. This is pretty essential because sometimes I’ll have late night video calls with people from other timezones,and I can’t have my computer randomly shutting down. So I need to turn off the plan before the meeting. But I also don’t want to have to remember to re-enable something that night or the next day. (This would probably cause the bash script to be a non-starter for me).
Yeah. The above setup is in addition to Freedom.to, which is my primary “control online habits” tool. Typically at night I want to be able to do particular kinds of screw-around-on-the-internet, and the problem is that I just end up doing it too long, unreflectively.
A key piece of the setup is that I’m allowed to turn the computer back on, as many times as I want, but each time it forces a deliberate choice, and gives me a moment to notice “you know what? I’m tired, and youtube isn’t actually that good.”
Ah, I see.