How can i block most websites for focus purposes?

February 2, 2024 3:09 PM

I have a really hard time focusing while the internet is available. There are any number of tools to block specific sites, but what I really want to do is block almost all the sites most of the time, allowing just a few that I need to use.

I do also want to be able to disable this sometimes without it being a huge pain, but a medium pain is fine/possibly desirable. It seems like setting up some kind of child account for myself would be the best way to do this. If so, what's the easiest/best way to do that? If not (an extension would be great), what else can I do? I use Chrome, but am willing to switch browsers if that makes it easier.

posted by lgyre to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: You can do this with Cold Turkey. See here for instructions on how to configure it the way you wanted. I have Cold Turkey, and it works well, though I wouldn't say it's the most intuitive program in the world. Still, after you figure out how it works, it's pretty straightforward.
posted by akk2014 at 3:26 PM on February 2, 2024 [1 favorite]

At my last job, I used LeechBlock to prevent me from wasting time on the internet. I had it set to only allow specific sites for 10 minutes per hour, which was good enough to limit the great swaths of time I'd otherwise lose going down rabbit holes. It can be set to block everything and then only allow some sites. But the timer part of it is what I really liked. If necessary I could override it, although it took a couple steps (thankfully) and there maybe have been a quicker way.
posted by intermod at 3:27 PM on February 2, 2024

Seconding Cold Turkey. It's particularly good at giving you a "medium pain" option to re-enable blocked websites on demand - you can configure exactly how inconvenient it will be to turn off blocks.

Freedom is also good, and has the advantage that it's cross-platform; it will apply the same blocks to your phone or other devices. However it's much easier to disable at will than Cold Turkey if that's an issue.
posted by riddley at 3:47 PM on February 2, 2024

Nth-ing Cold Turkey. I'm technical enough that with other solutions I was able to circumvent the blocking in moments of very low will power.

Cold Turkey's blocking is serious business. It's a bit of a pain to setup, as you need to install the app plus one plugin for every browser app you've got installed.
posted by stungeye at 11:57 AM on February 3, 2024