Services to help you focus on your work

June 10, 2024 4 min read

Unconsciously switching to lower priority tasks while working is the norm for anyone with any degree of self-control and responsibility. You’ve probably made numerous attempts to increase your focus in order to be more productive. Since we live in an era of powerful advances in information technology and artificial intelligence, why not give robots the task? The Apperito team has prepared some useful applications to help you focus on the task at hand.

Blocker

Go Fucking Work – an extension for Google Chrome that will prevent you from accessing resources you have blacklisted during work hours. If you try to download one of them while you’re doing an important task, you’ll get a reminder to get back to work instead.
Self-Control – The application will also block a specified list of sites for a specified period of time. During that time, you won’t be able to access the blocked site, even if you have messages, comments, and notes waiting for you there. The list of sites can be edited at any time.
Concentrate – this application is especially useful for those who often switch between different tasks. For each of the regular tasks in the program you can set the tools that will be launched. If you need to prepare a text right now, the “Not in place” status will be activated in all messengers, social networks will be closed, and only the necessary program will remain in front of you. In addition, there is a timer here, which will improve concentration during the task.
Freedom – a paid program that blocks emails, social networks and any websites for a few hours or a whole day.
Focus Booster is both a to-do list and a tracker in one app. It is based on the Tomato Principle, one of the ways to increase personal efficiency. With this app, you can focus on one task for no more than 25 minutes and develop concentration.
Notational Velocity simplifies the life of those who are constantly multitasking. The application stores all your notes in one place on your desktop and synchronizes them with similar applications on your smartphone.
Think is similar to the Spaces application for MacOS, which lets you switch between desktops.It allows you to bring one task to the forefront and hide everything else behind an opaque background. Simply put, it clears your workspace of everything unnecessary and lets you focus on your priority task. We recommend using it in conjunction with FocusBooster.
StayFocusd – Google Chrome extension that is the exact opposite of Anti-Social and Self-Control. It doesn’t block procrastination sites, it takes time away from visiting them. There are some similarities to Parental Control.
Anti-Social is a simplified version of Freedom Blocker. This app only blocks the sites that take up your time – Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. It is similar to the Self-Control app, but it comes with a pre-defined list of banned sites.

Timers

Timesheet – a multifunctional product that allows you to track the time spent on one or more tasks; add tags to tasks; take breaks into account; calculate the total working time during different periods.
Timeout is a free product for iOS that will remind you to take a break. According to the developers of the application, you should rest your eyes for 15 seconds every 25 minutes, and after one hour of work you should be distracted for 10 minutes. The program reminds you of this by dimming the phone screen.There is also an activity tracker.
Time is a paid AI-based application for Apple mobile devices, where you can set tasks, set the deadline for their completion and record the actual time of their fulfillment. The smart app analyzes your metrics and makes personalized recommendations to improve your productivity.
Forest is a free assistant that will “forbid” you to use your phone in a playful way. If you overpower your desire to go to the social network, you can grow a beautiful tree and get coins with which you can plant another tree or buy background music.
Escape is a paid iOS application for monitoring the time spent on a particular website.
Install it on your iPhone and you’ll get a daily report of how much time you’re spending on work, breaks, and time wasters.
FocusWriter is an assistant for those who often work with text.The application opens only the text editor and blocks all other applications, even hiding the menu. The application itself is quite functional – it has a spell checker, word statistics and even a voice.

P.S. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that man himself is constantly looking for reasons to be distracted. So take procrastination for granted, but try some of the applications.