The hardest part about work for most people is getting started. Once you’ve started, you get into the zone and can go on for however long, but to actually take a seat and begin is when all forms of procrastination somehow magically happen. It can be cleaning your room, chatting with friends, browsing social media, or simply gazing at absolutely nothing. In any case, it is still procrastinating, and the least I can do is solve at least one, and possibly, even the biggest of your procrastination options in today’s society: Social media. The anti-procrastination apps listed below can limit your use of specific sites on your own terms and hopefully get you started on your work sooner.
Facebook Anti-Procrastinator
This little lovely removes the news feed, suggested friends and pages, trending social articles, and ads. You can still message others, comment on pictures and statuses, etc. but this app turns Facebook into a useful tool to keep in touch rather than a huge distraction.
Anti-Social and SelfControl
These two apps block out specific sites for specific amounts of time allotted for yourself. Once installed, they are extremely difficult to remove to ensure that you cannot procrastinate as you like.
StayFocusd
You can either block out specific sites for specific times, give yourself a daily total amount of time to spend on your typical procrastination sites, or give yourself a time window. You can choose to block out the entire internet, only block specific sites, or block everything except certain sites, and if you try to give yourself more time, it will annoy you with a few pop ups to discourage you.
Focus Lock
Focus Lock blocks all your addictive game app notifications for 25 minutes, and then gives you a 5 minute window to check everything. The advantage is that you don’t have to go into airplane mode, turn off your phone, or turn off all notifications.
AppDetox
This ppp is for the hard-core procrastinator. You can customize it for individual apps, set it for a specific time window, on certain days of the week, and even to block your access indefinitely. If you choose the latter option and try to use the app, it will give you a snarky reminder to discourage you from your actions.
StrictWorkflow
Focus for 25 minutes, and then get a five-minute break. During the work window, certain sites will be blocked to avoid distraction and procrastination. Simply click on the little tomato icon in the corner of your screen to set the timer, which will then ring whenever it’s time to switch.
Written? Kitten!
By far the happiest and most encouraging of them all, Written? Kitten! gives you an adorable picture of a kitten every single time you reach a goal. You set these goals entirely for yourself. For example, if you are writing an essay, you can set your goal at 500 words. Be warned, this anti-procrastination app could lead to kitten video procrastination.