Selfcontrol for abstaining from visiting websites without expending your precious willpower. If you’re a mac user.
Sorry for not following the rules but, I think discovering a whole category of software (like terminal multiplexers) is often higher value than discovering the best in that category.
EDIT: I’ve actually put in the effort to find the best software for this use instead of the first one I could find. Here are my findings:
- Cold Turkey, StayFocusd, Freedom all worked based on browser plugins, which took me 2 minutes to circumvent, so I found these (and others like it) quite useless. - Focus is decent. It has schedules and it actually blocks on an OS level
The problem with blocking on the OS level, though, is that you cannot block sections of websites. Say you don’t want access to Facebook except for a certain group that announces events you want to go to, or something. This fine-grained control isn’t possible with an OS level block because it bases it on the IP address
I ended up choosing for FocusMe, which also blocks on the browser level but seems developed enough that it will still be hard to get around, even if you try to install or re-install a browser. It is the most customisable tool that I have found by a long stretch. I’m quite convinced this is the best one.
Meta finding: do actually compare pieces of software before using something. If only I had done this before my past 2 years could have been like 5% more productive...
EDIT 2: while FocusMe is promising, the execution is just dreadful. I ended up being forced to factory-reset my mac. I have left a review here
Looks like an upgrade. One problem is that it’s not 100% surpassable, especially on phone, but for some use cases that’s fine. For my phone I use Scalefusion, by the way
Selfcontrol for abstaining from visiting websites without expending your precious willpower. If you’re a mac user.
Sorry for not following the rules but, I think discovering a whole category of software (like terminal multiplexers) is often higher value than discovering the best in that category.
EDIT: I’ve actually put in the effort to find the best software for this use instead of the first one I could find. Here are my findings:
- Cold Turkey, StayFocusd, Freedom all worked based on browser plugins, which took me 2 minutes to circumvent, so I found these (and others like it) quite useless.
- Focus is decent. It has schedules and it actually blocks on an OS level
The problem with blocking on the OS level, though, is that you cannot block sections of websites. Say you don’t want access to Facebook except for a certain group that announces events you want to go to, or something. This fine-grained control isn’t possible with an OS level block because it bases it on the IP address
I ended up choosing for FocusMe, which also blocks on the browser level but seems developed enough that it will still be hard to get around, even if you try to install or re-install a browser. It is the most customisable tool that I have found by a long stretch. I’m quite convinced this is the best one.
Meta finding: do actually compare pieces of software before using something. If only I had done this before my past 2 years could have been like 5% more productive...
EDIT 2: while FocusMe is promising, the execution is just dreadful. I ended up being forced to factory-reset my mac. I have left a review here
Freedom has served me a lot better here, and is also available on phones and I think Windows. Though Selfcontrol is also pretty decent.
I personally have found FocusMe to be more flexible than Freedom and Self Control.
Looks like an upgrade. One problem is that it’s not 100% surpassable, especially on phone, but for some use cases that’s fine.
For my phone I use Scalefusion, by the way