[ineedasername]

I'd like something I could use to lock me out of everything but a whitelisted set of programs & websites for a set period of time.

I can't tell you what a relief it would be to have little choice but to focus on work tasks instead of get distracted.

Sure, I would need to have the key to the lock in case I really needed it, but it would need to be something mildly time consuming, like answering a set of relatively simple math problems that would still take a few minutes to do them all even with a calculator, to stop casual alt-tab to random distractions.

[blockmarker]

I use ColdTurkey, you can block any website or program you want on a schedule, or on a timer. You can add breaks, allowances and Pomodoro style setups. You can remove them whenever you want, but you can add a password I believe, or choose the option to be unable to remove the block while it is active(if you do this, make sure you leave a way to delete it).

I too wanted something like that, must solve an equation or something, but this is close enough.

[TheMightyLlama]

This deserves far more attention. Perhaps even a post on its own.

Ever since the rise of the attention economy I've felt more and more disillusioned with the way the internet of information has evolved. With each of us being a commodity and companies creating content that was more likely to keep us looking at the page (and ergo ads) with content that was increasingly more divisive.

Any tool that helps us remove pages from our consumption that are designed to keep us engaged in that horrendous economy is simply a must have.

Thank you.

[fbelzile]

Maker of Cold Turkey here. I'm humbled to see it mentioned here :)

For people that want to get locked into one app for set period of time (or a few apps, in the pro version), check out Micromanager: https://getcoldturkey.com/micromanager/

[ineedasername]

Seriously thank you for Cold Turkey. I purchased Pro about 45 minutes after getting the recommendation and checking it out. This should let me get out of my back log hole in a week or two, and stay out of it. I've been stressing out for weeks that I've been unfocussed... I'm not sure the feeling will go away, but the unproductive side effects can be minimized. This isn't just a productivity boost for me, it's a mental health boost. Feel free to use that as a quote wherever you care to.

Micromanager looks interesting, though the advanced features of Cold Turkey Pro kind of let me do the same thing. But stripping off bits of features into less expensive stand alone apps seems a good idea for people that have specific needs instead of my more systemic attention issues at the moment... homeschooling kids while WFH is hard, switching back & forth without letting more distractions side track me is harder than I'd anticipated.

And if you had something for phones that did this, I'd buy that too... for now I'm just leaving my phone in another room. Low-tech & free!

[ineedasername]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Edit: Just checked it out, yes, yes yes exactly what I need. Even let's you set an "unlock" to be a certain length of random text, which suits my needs to find something sufficiently annoying to have to do in order to break the lock.

I REALLY cannot thank you enough. +1000 upvotes.

[amwelles]

Seconding ColdTurkey. I started using it when I began working from home a few years ago. It’s great for keeping me on track.

[ineedasername]

Working from home has really been what increased the need for me to have something like this. I was prone to distraction anyway, but now it's 10x worse, especially as I've got kids to keep track of, home schooling etc. It's took easy to have a 2 minute distraction to help my kids and come back to my computer and say "well let me just check out X" before I get back to work

[DenverCode]

Any suggestions for iOS?

[amwelles]

I use Forest. It doesn’t actually lock you out, but I’m reminded not to look at my phone when I start a timer.

https://www.forestapp.cc/

[sneak]

There are several browser extensions that will do just that, in various different ways. I think RescueTime does it, but if you search for “distraction” on the chrome extension site I imagine you can find several different ones that do just what you are trying to do: just enough barrier to make you stop branching off to timewasters.

[ineedasername]

That would help for sites, I'd like something for programs too. But I'll look into the extensions, thanks.

[beachy]

I edit /etc/hosts to block access to all my common time wasters, wapo, hn, etc.

Sometimes I weaken and uncomment then all and binge for a bit. But for some reason it works better for me than just trying not to go to those websites.

[mixmastamyk]

I used to do this and then firefox bundled its own DNS aka DOH. Still haven't decided on the best course of action.

[mandelbrotwurst]

I also do this, I actually maintain two versions of the file. Swapping them out is a simple one-liner, but I find it works quite well because getting the page not found errors act as a reminder of intention before slipping back into mindless browsing.

[x87678r]

I've found this problem WFH. At work all social media is blocked but at home its a huge distraction.

[Kelamir]

For Android, the screen pinning festure works well for me, it doesn't let me to leave the current app unless I unllock the screen. Good for the pomodoro technique.

[jks]

Freedom (https://freedom.to) sounds like the app for this need.