Stayfocusd

Do you dither near deadlines? Are you a professional procrastinator? Would you be more productive if you were a Twitter teetotaler? If surfing the Web is what's keeping you from completing tasks, Stayfocusd (free) can help you kick yourself into gear. The free extension for Chrome is like Internet Adderall, blocking you from surfing time-wasting websites to help you focus when you need to get work done. You can customize the days and times when you need more self-discipline, or grant yourself a daily allotment of time for surfing, read trashy articles, watching videos, or however else you use that amazing, virtual treasure-trove of distraction. Stayfocusd is much more rigorous and effective than KeepMeOut (free, 1.5 stars) for Firefox, which only blocks you from accessing URLs when you try to reach them from bookmarked shortcuts, and never kicks you off a domain once you're already on it.

With Stayfocusd, you can restrict yourself from entire sites, specific subdomains, specific paths or pages, and even certain kinds of content on a domain, such as videos, games, and forums. What makes Stayfocusd a true revelation in self-discipline is just how hard you can lock down the program. The tool has a "require challenge" feature, which gives you pause (and a very difficult challenge to complete) before you can make any changes to the settings you've implemented. Stayfocusd nips procrastination in the bud.

How to Perk Up Your Productivity
As a Chrome extension (i.e., plug-in), Stayfocusd is a lightweight program that you install on the Chrome browser. It takes less than a minute to install and enable, and just a few minutes more to customize. When Stayfocusd has been added to Chrome correctly, a small, round, blue icon will appear at the top right of the browser. To start using the tool and customizing which URLs you want to block, click the icon.

When you click the icon, a quick list of commands appears: Block entire site, Advanced options, Settings, and Help/FAQs. Clicking "Block entire site" will block the current domain, the one that's in the open tab. The Advanced options link lets you allow the entire active site, only block pages on the domain, or only allow pages on the domain. There's also a field where you can type in any domain (if you're not currently on the site) and allow or block it. The purpose of the "allow" option is so that you when you put more rigorous restrictions on yourself and the forbidden sites, you don't accidentally blockade sites you need.

Stayfocusd's icon changes color based on the status of the site you're on. Allowed sites are green, blocked sites are red, and sites that aren't in the system get a blue icon. I like this feature because if I land on a time-sucking website that I had forgotten to block, Stayfocusd lets me know that I haven't restricted the site yet, and I'll (hopefully) remember to add it when I see that blue icon.

If you have a hard time remembering which sites kill your productivity, you can choose from some suggestions that Stayfocusd lists in the Settings area. Under Blocked Sites, see "Check out this list."

When you're entering sites to be blocked, you can look to the Settings area for more advice about how to add restrictions. Stayfocusd provides short and sweet guidelines for using asterisk wild cards (for example, *.com blocks all .com sites) and blocking the entire domain rather than just the homepage (leave off the www before typing the site's name).

Functionally Focused
You can customize Stayfocusd so that it lets you onto otherwise restricted sites or domains for a specific amount of time each day. A countdown clock shows how much time you have left. When you leave an active window or tab, the clock pauses automatically, so you don't have to be too generous with the amount of time you give yourself.

One of the tool's shortcomings is that in the current version (1.2.0.11), you can't put a specific time limit on each blocked site. Rather, you enter one time limit that extends across all blocked sites in aggregate. For example, if you give yourself 10 minutes each day to play around, you get 10 minutes total?not 10 minutes per site. And once the daily limit has expired, you can't change it until the next 24-hour cycle starts at midnight. Transfusion Media, which developed Stayfocusd, has mentioned that the number one requested feature is the ability to customize time limits per site, and that he's hoping to roll it out in a future release.

Another way you can customize Stayfocusd is to enable its controls on certain days and times, such as only weekdays between 9a.m. and 5p.m., giving you complete freedom to lollygag online evenings and weekends.

Within the Settings area, you can also restrict the type of content on a particular site.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/JtYqZg_ca3k/0,2817,2388903,00.asp

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