# HOW TO CONSISTENTLY USE BLOCKING SOFTWARE One of my favorite life hacks to stop procrastinating is to install website/app blocking software on your phone and computer.
However, many people have tried this method, and found that they can’t do it consistently. They inevitably end up uninstalling or disabling the software a few months into using it.
In a moment of “weakness”, they uninstall/disable/remove the software, and then never end up reinstalling/enabling it for months.
The truth is, this moment of “weakness” isn’t weakness at all. It’s a natural human response to lack of autonomy, which Self-Determination Theory posits as one of the three basic human needs.
When a wall is getting in the way of our basic autonomy, our natural response is to knock down the wall.
Solutions to procrastination should never feel like you’re **coercing** yourself into doing the “right behavior” as decided by you at a particular point in time—these are unsustainable and actually create more procrastination in the long run because we’re taking away the autonomy of our present selves.
Rather, environmental solutions to procrastination should feel more like you’re **cooperating** between your past, present, and future selves, taking input from all 3 selves to decide what makes the most sense in the moment.
## TURN WALLS INTO GATES For blocking software, the solution to this issue is to turn walls into gates. Instead of making it impossible to get to the other side, you want to make a series of gates, which take some effort to get through, but allow you increasingly more freedom as you go through each successive gate.
This way you’re not limiting your freedom, but instead just allowing a short reminder from your past self saying “Hey, just a reminder I wasn’t so thrilled about what’s on the other side of this gate,” while allowing your present self to say “I hear, and this one time I’m deciding that it’s important for us to go on the other side of the gate now.”
In addition to turning walls into gates, you need to make sure your gates are robust enough that it’s not easier to just knock them down then to go through them.
If you build your gates really flimsy, it’s to easy for your present self to say “Oh, I just want to get onto the other side of the gate the fastest way possible” while forgetting to cooperate with your past and future selves. The path of least resistance has to be to pass through security you’ve set up at the gate.
## HOW TO CREATE ROBUST GATES WITH BLOCKING SOFTWARE
So the first way to make sure you use blocking software is to make sure it’s hard to just knock down. Your blocking software should have robust protection against all the easy ways to knock down the gate like: - Removing it from startup - Uninstalling or disabling it - Closing it using the task manager - Using a different browser - Switching computer users
In addition, the software should make it easy to install various levels of gates with differing security to get through various blocking plans, like: - Having a way to pause the plan for just a little time, that you need to enter a random set of characters to access. - Having a way to enter a few random characters to whitelist a particular site, so that for instance you can whitelist a particular youtube video you need without allowing all of youtube. - Having a setting that will automatically re-enable plans at the beginning of a new day, so that even if you’ve decided to enter your random password and take a day to just lounge and watch Netflix, it doesn’t require any intervention to re-erect the gate. - Having Pomodoro style blocking plans that can continually block then allow short breaks on a schedule.
## WHAT SOFTWARE ALLOWS THE CREATION OF ROBUST GATES? The only software I know of that has these features (having tried between half a dozen and a dozen different blocking software and tools) is FocusMe. It’s not the most user friendly blocking software out there, but it’s incredibly good at creating robust gates that allow you to cooperate between your past/present/future selves.
Unfortunately the Android version isn’t yet that great at creating gates, but the Mac/Windows version incredible.
I highly recommend this blocking software if you’re working on overcoming procrastination, and learning the settings to use to create a system of gates.
It also has excellent customer service, and a “lifetime plan” which prevents you from having to subscribe.
# HOW TO CONSISTENTLY USE BLOCKING SOFTWARE
One of my favorite life hacks to stop procrastinating is to install website/app blocking software on your phone and computer.
However, many people have tried this method, and found that they can’t do it consistently. They inevitably end up uninstalling or disabling the software a few months into using it.
In a moment of “weakness”, they uninstall/disable/remove the software, and then never end up reinstalling/enabling it for months.
The truth is, this moment of “weakness” isn’t weakness at all. It’s a natural human response to lack of autonomy, which Self-Determination Theory posits as one of the three basic human needs.
When a wall is getting in the way of our basic autonomy, our natural response is to knock down the wall.
Solutions to procrastination should never feel like you’re **coercing** yourself into doing the “right behavior” as decided by you at a particular point in time—these are unsustainable and actually create more procrastination in the long run because we’re taking away the autonomy of our present selves.
Rather, environmental solutions to procrastination should feel more like you’re **cooperating** between your past, present, and future selves, taking input from all 3 selves to decide what makes the most sense in the moment.
## TURN WALLS INTO GATES
For blocking software, the solution to this issue is to turn walls into gates. Instead of making it impossible to get to the other side, you want to make a series of gates, which take some effort to get through, but allow you increasingly more freedom as you go through each successive gate.
This way you’re not limiting your freedom, but instead just allowing a short reminder from your past self saying “Hey, just a reminder I wasn’t so thrilled about what’s on the other side of this gate,” while allowing your present self to say “I hear, and this one time I’m deciding that it’s important for us to go on the other side of the gate now.”
In addition to turning walls into gates, you need to make sure your gates are robust enough that it’s not easier to just knock them down then to go through them.
If you build your gates really flimsy, it’s to easy for your present self to say “Oh, I just want to get onto the other side of the gate the fastest way possible” while forgetting to cooperate with your past and future selves. The path of least resistance has to be to pass through security you’ve set up at the gate.
## HOW TO CREATE ROBUST GATES WITH BLOCKING SOFTWARE
So the first way to make sure you use blocking software is to make sure it’s hard to just knock down. Your blocking software should have robust protection against all the easy ways to knock down the gate like:
- Removing it from startup
- Uninstalling or disabling it
- Closing it using the task manager
- Using a different browser
- Switching computer users
In addition, the software should make it easy to install various levels of gates with differing security to get through various blocking plans, like:
- Having a way to pause the plan for just a little time, that you need to enter a random set of characters to access.
- Having a way to enter a few random characters to whitelist a particular site, so that for instance you can whitelist a particular youtube video you need without allowing all of youtube.
- Having a setting that will automatically re-enable plans at the beginning of a new day, so that even if you’ve decided to enter your random password and take a day to just lounge and watch Netflix, it doesn’t require any intervention to re-erect the gate.
- Having Pomodoro style blocking plans that can continually block then allow short breaks on a schedule.
## WHAT SOFTWARE ALLOWS THE CREATION OF ROBUST GATES?
The only software I know of that has these features (having tried between half a dozen and a dozen different blocking software and tools) is FocusMe. It’s not the most user friendly blocking software out there, but it’s incredibly good at creating robust gates that allow you to cooperate between your past/present/future selves.
Unfortunately the Android version isn’t yet that great at creating gates, but the Mac/Windows version incredible.
I highly recommend this blocking software if you’re working on overcoming procrastination, and learning the settings to use to create a system of gates.
It also has excellent customer service, and a “lifetime plan” which prevents you from having to subscribe.
If you’re interested in the software, you can check it out using my affiliate link here: https://focusme.com/?ref=102&campaign=LW
Or, if you’re not down with the affiliate thing, use a non-affiliate link here: https://focusme.com/
I’m also interested if anyone knows any Android blocking software that allows for the creation of robust gates!