Improve Your Focus and Productivity With These 3 Tools

Don’t we just wish maintaining focus during work was simple? How could that wish possibly come true with the internet lending itself as a distraction? Here’s a look at three tools that will help you maintain that focus (excuse me while I check my Twitter feed in the meanwhile).

Cold Turkey

Cold Turkey is as cold as it sounds. It allows users to block for a specified amount of time the websites and/or apps that are sure to disrupt productivity. It’s upto users to choose the presets in the app or tweak options to their own liking. Personalized blocking means that users can add distracting sites and apps to various groups. It’s effective in the sense that it simply displays the error message of not being able to access the web page as witnessed in the case of disconnected internet.

ColdTurkeyFull

Once in effect, the program applies to all browsers and users on the computer. Thus, you are not allowed any shortcuts via different browsers. Disabling the program prior to the end of the specified finish time would block all the websites until the PC is restarted. The Basic version comes free of cost whereas the Pro and Pro Bundle variants set users back by $14.99. The priced versions add a couple more features in ‘scheduled blocks’ to block specified groups at specified times and ‘wildcards’ to add exceptions for sites to allow access to.

Cold Turkey is available for PC and Mac.

Focus Booster

Built around the idea of the Pomodoro technique, Focus booster prompts users to focus on tasks for every 25 minutes before enjoying a break spanning 5 minutes. It complements a time-management system with a to-do list in order to help you enlist the daily tasks and then monitor the time as you strive to accomplish the challenge. Each time the 25 minutes elapse, an alarm signals the end of the session which is time for you to maybe stretch those legs or grab a bite.

Focus-Booster

A slick dashboard analyses your activity and displays stats for you to monitor your progress. Analysing past activities is made easier with the option to label each assignment you work on. Organising yourself and expanding yur productivity has never been simpler. You may get the version with Pomodoro timer and short term time tracking that retains data for 3 days for free or one with Pomodoro timer and long term time tracking with unlimited data retention for AUS $2.99 per month.

Focus Booster is available for PC and Mac.

StayFocusd

What good is your browser if it can’t stop you from squandering your time? StayFocusd is a free extension for Google Chrome that allows users to set a limit to the time they waste on distractions to their work. Once you have used your quota of minutes on a specfied website, the extension disallows you from further access until that period comes to an end.

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An additional Nuclear option allows those who are extremely serious about meeting deadlines to only access websites on the list of allowed websites. In that case, you must make sure you enlist all websites that you must need in such a case. Think of this as a way of grounding yourself as you make up your mind to focus on work alone. Brings back memories of being told you could watch TV or play games for only an hour or two a day, doesn’t it?

StayFocusd is available for PC and Mac.


  • such Apps deeply entrench my trust in the long prevailing urban-rhetoric “ostrich’s Head in the Sand”.. :D


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