Apps That Block You From Social Media

I detect it hard to get work done while watching movies, visiting theme parks, or hanging out with my friends. So why exercise I remember I can get piece of work done online?

Automate healthy work habits with these 4 workflows

Yes, the internet is a place where work happens, just distractions are always a click abroad. You could say this is a matter of subject field, and it is, but the odds aren't in your favor. The internet is, at this indicate, a dopamine slot machine. The greatest minds of our generation are working around the clock to "increment engagement," which is a tech term that means "doing everything possible to get y'all to spend every waking moment scrolling and liking things." Trying to fight this with willpower solitary is like bringing a h2o gun to a thermonuclear war.

Which is why at that place'south no shame in using tools to help yous build discipline. This is where distraction blocking software shines. Turn these focus apps on, and you can't open anything distracting—information technology won't piece of work. Instead, you'll see a reminder that yous set up software to block apps, and y'all'll exist encouraged to get back to work. Information technology's oddly liberating.

What is a focus app?

How nosotros evaluate and test apps

All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing nearly software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as information technology's intended to be used and evaluating information technology against the criteria nosotros set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from whatever app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in united states to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier web log.

Don't misfile website blocker apps with parental control software—that'south not what they're for. No, these tools are for you, and they hopefully assistance you build better habits. We researched this category extensively and considered dozens of options, so evaluated them against our criteria. Nosotros recall that the best distraction blocking apps should practice the following:

• Block a list of websites and/or apps (determined past you)

• Let you to fix a schedule and/or a timer

• Exist abrasive (at the very least) to disable

• Offering encouragement

In addition, because we're thinking near work, we only considered apps that work on computers—in that location are no mobile-only tools here. Here'southward the focusing software we call up works best.

The 7 best apps to help you focus and cake distractions

• Freedom for blocking distractions on all your devices at in one case

• Serene for planning and following through on deep focus sessions

• Cold Turkey Blocker for scheduled system-wide blocking

• LeechBlock NG for free browser-based website blocking

• RescueTime for fourth dimension tracking with congenital-in website blocking

• Forest for motivating you to put your telephone down

• SelfControl for a nuclear option

All-time focus app for blocking distractions on all your devices at once

Liberty (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome)

Well-nigh distraction blockers work only on whatsoever device you're using right now. Freedom can cake distractions—both websites and apps—on all of your devices, simultaneously. No more blocking Instagram on your computer, but to immediately open up it on your phone. If you start a session, your distractions are blocked everywhere.

Set up every bit many blocklists as you desire, and so start or schedule a session. There'due south a lockdown way, which makes it incommunicable to edit your blocklists while a session is active—consider that if you're prone to working around your ain good intentions. There are besides optional focus sounds, which are basically ambient background noise from coffee shops or nature.

The downside: at that place's no long-term gratuitous version, only a limited trial that lets you run half-dozen distraction-free sessions. That should exist enough time to figure out if it will piece of work for you, though.

Freedom pricing: Premium starts at $6.99/month.

All-time focus app for planning and post-obit through on deep focus sessions

Serene (macOS, Windows "coming soon")

Serene isn't just a distraction blocker: it's a productivity system built around periods of deep focus. Users choose a list of websites and apps they discover distracting, then cake them when it's time to buckle downwards and become some work done. Only at that place's more than that here.

The app is built effectually planning your day. List how many things yous want to work on and how long they'll have. So, when it's fourth dimension to work, click the Go Serene button to start a timer. All of your distractions volition be blocked, optional concentration music will play, and you'll exist reminded that information technology'southward fourth dimension to focus and shown your countdown timer every time you try to open a site that you lot shouldn't. These elements piece of work really well together—you're not only blocking distractions; you're too reminding yourself of what you'd like to accomplish.

You tin can streamline your focus sessions fifty-fifty more with Serene's Zapier integrations, which can create focus sessions from apps like Trello, Asana, Todoist, and any other task direction app you can call up of.

Serene pricing: $4/month. Free trial limited to 10 free deep piece of work hours.

Best focus app for scheduled system-broad blocking

Cold Turkey Blocker (Windows, macOS)

Cold Turkey Blocker is, in a word, customizable. Install this site-blocking app, and you can create lists of websites and desktop apps to block, then fix a schedule for blocking. You could, for example, block social media and video sites during every work day. Y'all could likewise block piece of work apps, like Slack, when the work day ends. Information technology's all up to you. Or, if you prefer, y'all can turn blocking on and off manually. There's even a mode called Frozen Turkey, which prevents you from accessing your computer entirely: turn it on, and you'll run into a bare screen until your scheduled outage is over.

Considering this is a system-wide tool and not just a browser extension, you can't work around it by changing browsers. But it goes further than that—in that location are all kinds of settings that thwart future versions of yourself from working around your current intentions.

You can block the Time & Language settings, stopping you from working around a scheduled block by changing your computer's time. You can terminate yourself from accessing the Chromium Task Manager, which you could, in theory, utilize to disable the blocking extension. You lot tin can even make it impossible to uninstall Common cold Turkey Blocker until your scheduled blocking is consummate. I could go on, but the basic point is that y'all can end yourself from working around your block. Try this out if y'all're the self-sabotaging sort.

Cold Turkey pricing: $39 Pro plan with unlimited blocking, scheduling, and the ability to block desktop apps besides as websites.

Best gratis browser-based website blocker

LeechBlock NG (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera)

LeechBlock NG (the NG stands for "next generation") works on most major browsers, is free, and gives you a bunch of options for blocking distractions. You can make lists of sites to block, then restrict them in all kinds of ways.

You can schedule times for apps to be blocked outright, which is very straightforward. Alternatively, you tin limit your fourth dimension on distracting apps by setting upwards rules. For instance: you could give yourself 20 minutes of YouTube time every solar day, or four minutes of Twitter every hour. You tin become even more specific, if you want, combining time limits with a schedule—think v minutes of Instagram every hr betwixt 8 a.k. and v p.m. Or, if y'all don't want to mess with schedules, you tin trigger a one-off "lockdown" schedule.

It's a lot of power, particularly for a free tool, and you can even lock down the settings during block sessions if you desire. The only downside: this is a browser extension, non an app, so you tin work effectually it past switching browsers. If yous can avoid that temptation, though, LeechBlock should piece of work nicely.

LeechBlock pricing: Costless

All-time focus app for fourth dimension tracking with built-in website blocking

RescueTime (Windows, macOS, Android)

RescueTime isn't, primarily, a distraction blocker—it'southward 1 of the best time tracking apps. But it does include a distraction blocking feature called FocusTime, which allows you to cake distractions using your time tracking history.

This works using data yous're already providing RescueTime, which allows you to designate apps and websites equally productive, distracting, or very distracting. In FocusTime, you can cull to block distracting apps or fifty-fifty just anything y'all oasis't specifically tagged as productive. It'southward a swell mode to cake distractions without having to build a separate block list, particularly if you're looking for a time tracking app anyway.

You can block distractions automatically using RescueTime'south Zapier integrations, which allow you to do things like schedule a daily FocusTime session.

RescueTime pricing: $12/month. Notation that the free version of RescueTime does not include distraction blocking.

Best focus app for motivating you lot to put down your phone

Wood (Android, iOS, Chrome)

Your phone is a time machine, but not in a useful way. It's way too like shooting fish in a barrel to choice information technology up and and then discover a couple of hours take disappeared. Woods is an adorable app designed to assistance y'all with that.

The idea is simple: you open the app and say you want to plant a tree. And so y'all put your telephone down. If you selection up your telephone and switch to another app, your tree will die. Last 25 minutes, and your tree will live. Over time, yous'll abound an entire forest of copse, a reminder of all the time you intentionally spent getting things done instead of scrolling through Twitter. Plus, if you use a paid version of the app, your focus time could help fund real trees via a partnership with Copse for the Hereafter.

Forest likewise offers a Chrome extension, meaning y'all tin grow copse on your estimator equally well. This one works more than like the other apps in this listing but with an option to load distracting sites if you desire to. The downside to overriding the block: y'all'll have to bargain with delightfully twisted re-create. "This volition kill your cute, piddling tree," you're warned. It gets worse: attempt to look at a distracting site and yous're told, "your tree is dead." It's manipulative, sure, just it's manipulating yous to spend your time wisely. Better than the reasons most apps manipulate you lot.

Woods pricing: Free on Chrome and Android, $1.99 for iPhone. Android Pro version costs $1.99, one-time, and offers syncing across devices and more tree varieties.

Best focus app for a nuclear option for Mac users

SelfControl (Mac)

SelfControl looks spartan: there's a blocklist, a dial for setting how long your block flow should be, and a get-go button. That's it. Just it stands out for one cardinal reason: it's impossible to disengage.

Seriously, this app is hardcore. Endmost the app does naught—all of your distractions are still blocked. Deleting the app doesn't do annihilation, and neither does rebooting your computer. The only way to disable blocking, once you fix the timer, is to reinstall macOS entirely (which would delete all of your apps, settings, and documents).

Information technology is truly the nuclear pick for blocking distractions—none of the other apps on this list come close to this level of permanence. If you're the sort of person who starts blocking, then caves, this app is for you.

SelfControl pricing: Free

This commodity was originally published in December 2018 by Stephen Altrogge.

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