I've been working on a Chrome/Firefox extension called Intention to help me stay focused and not get distracted, and for me and my friends, we've found it more effective than other tools we've tried.
The idea behind it is extremely simple: Commit to a time limit before using a distracting site.
This prevents the two most common ways that we get sucked into distractions online:
1. Habitual navigation: Throughout the day, we reflexively type t/f/r <enter> and immediately start scrolling through Twitter / Facebook / Reddit / etc. Intention stops you before you start browsing and gives you the opportunity to decide not to get sucked in.
2. Mindless browsing: Our willpower is no match for the endless stream of personalized content optimized to keep our attention for as long as possible. Intention pauses your browsing after your intended time limit and restores your focus.
You can set a daily limit to know how much time you've spent across all distracting sites, and for every day you stay under your limit, you'll grow your personal streak.
I designed Intention with privacy as a core priority, and here's what that means:
- Intention requests access only to the sites you select, not all sites.
- Intention gives you full control over the data you share.
- Your browsing history stays in your browser and is never transmitted.
Intention is part of a suite of tools I'm developing to help people spend their time well, and I'd love to hear your feedback.
DK
P.S. If you'd like to read about the process behind developing Intention, I've been publicly writing a daily journal at https://roadtoramen.com
- It is even worse when a 10 min break turns out to be a 2h rabbit hole.
But most of the current software does not address that. For example:
- I use social media after midnight, and it does not stop me then but cuts the limit for the next day.
- There is a nasty surprise when an app kicks me out, with no warning. So nasty (especially when I am in the middle of writing a long comment) that it may prompt be to uninstall it.
- To strict limits. Sometimes I know that a given day I need more social media.
In your case, it solves all. Also, I see that the timer is at 23 sec, so I click "reply". :)
I really like this idea! The setup was also very easy too and honest about permissions (using Firefox). I 'enabled' Hacker News for 5 minutes so i could leave you a comment :)
I also get sucked in by depth first searches that never end.
And while it'd be cool to have an addon that made me check in on, you know, are you still trying to figure out that statistics problem you were looking at or are you relearning linear algebra instead...
Firefox doesn't seem to have a reading list, at least not out of the box, and I don't end up using it on Mobile Safari anyway. Having a way to 'get out' of a loop by saving it for later, and ideally have them randomly show up on the landing page I think would help me, possibly others.
This is great. I think it'll fit better with the way I want to control my impulse browsing than others I've tried (StayFocused and manually editing /etc/hosts are the other mains ways I've tried). Thank you!
This is absolutely amazing, thank you so much, and also thanks for being clear about the data you are using and privacy up front. Because of this, I'm definitely up for paying you, let me know where to send my dollars.
Just want to say thanks for this. I was using Leechblock before, but it would frequently navigate away from in-progress forms while I was writing longform comments and lose work, whereas Intention offers a modal prompt to extend the period.
Also appreciate that it only requires access to the sites I'm blocking.
Some stats I'd like to see on the prompt would be: how many times this hour/day/week/month I've extended the unlock period. This would help me nudge myself to stop doing it.
First look: I like this. I like that it will help raise awareness of time I waste on some sites, but that I can easily bypass it if and when I need to. I like that I can choose to have it work only on some sites.
I've tried to use other somewhat similar extensions or tools in the past but removed them as they often "got in the way" of what I needed to do. Right now, this seems to be just right for me.
Thanks for doing this.
Normally, I immediately delete any unsolicited emails. However, if you want beta testers for any other creation, feel free to email me (username at gmail) mentioning that you created intention. I promise to have a look at what you create and to give you some feedback.
I’ll use this as soon as there’s an override my aggressive reward system that rwmequites double or triple the amount of dopamine to reach the same satisfaction as neurotypical individuals? until then I’m a slave in the sea of my own mind, and a wiki walk is in progress.
I love this idea and just installed it. However it falls into a similar problem I have found myself in with iphone's screen time.
On my iphone I have found myself mindlessly clicking the "add 15 minutes" of screen time and typing in my 4 digit code so often that it is now just muscle memory to do so. Yes, I have no self control.
Could you add a feature so you have to type in a pin to continue BUT the number pad is in a random order, to break up muscle memory? Or randomly re-arrange the add 1,5,15 min buttons? Or a math problem?
I think the math problem could help, but you also need to ask yourself if you're just going to keep bypassing it anyway.. in which case software is unlikely to help much.
For you I would recommend the book: The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. (audiobook is also well narrated)
It's well written and full of great methods for gaining your self control back.
I myself have tried these types of apps before which sometimes might help, but often I face the same problem as you, when my behaviour devolves to disabling the add-on and doing whatever I want.
Now what I have practised is being mindful of my actions, and treat the time when I work, study as time without youtube videos, without writing long HN posts and so on.
It's a lot harder than having some app to ping you to stop browsing. But I think it's what works better in the long run. You choose the time when you work, say a couple of hours, then take a break. No mindless browsing in between. Or well actually what has worked best for me is to have no mindless browsing at all during the best part of the day, since the feedback loop is too strong when you get accustomed to looking "just one more video".
But I'm curious to try this out. We'll see. But I'm sceptical.
I, too, had that problem, but pins and random math problems aren't so good.
What works for me is taking a random piece of text, converting it into binary and using that as the challenge text (to retype). Typing so many 0s and 1s would require a lot of focus - I'd never dare even try changing the configs.
Hey this looks really helpful! I appreciate your commitment to privacy, that's a very important feature for me. Nonetheless, having been burned by Chrome extensions in the past [1], I'm worried about privacy and I'm wondering if you'd be willing to make it open source to allay those concerns.
I'd love to open source Intention like I've done with a ton of previous projects (http://github.com/dkthehuman/), but since it's a Chrome extension, that'd make it trivial for anyone to copy. Given that I'd like to eventually develop a paid plan and make working on this full-time financially sustainable, I hope you can understand why open sourcing doesn't seem like a viable option.
I'm brainstorming ways to make the extension as transparent as possible (e.g. if I ever decide to include analytics, (1) providing an opt-out and (2) a way to view all the information that's transmitted in a human-readable way), but at the heart of it, using Intention will require some trust in my integrity and care as a developer. I'm also hoping that writing about my decision-making process publicly in my journal (https://roadtoramen.com) will provide transparency and help develop that trust. If you ever see me going astray or not thinking clearly, please keep me accountable!
If it helps, here are some of the things I've written about privacy (I think about this quite a bit):
One thing to that's good to know is that it's against Chrome store policy to make the extension code unreadable or inaccessible in any way. They will actually take it down from the store very quickly. I know this because I had a client once who wanted me to obfuscate their extension code and in about an hour it was taken down. So, if you install the extension, you can open up the source.
Thanks so much! I spent a ton of time making sure that it's as privacy-oriented as possible and asks for minimal permissions, unlike most extensions in this space that ask for permissions for all sites. It doesn't make sense that a tool to help with YouTube or Twitter should also have access to your banking site and emails.
I agree, exceptionally well done. I very much appreciated the onboarding process, especially regarding privacy. I also very much appreciate the fact that it only monitors whitelisted sites, rather than just blanket tracking everything I do.
I've developed an easy to follow method to stop procrastinating in time "black-hole" sites, like social networks, etc... I've observed that the problem in my case is having the possibility of accessing my account at those sites immediately, as soon as I get bored doing any repetitive task at work, or I have an idea about something I could post in a social network, etc... So the easiest way for me to avoid that is to use a long, very-hard-to-remember password there, write it down in a notepad, and never save the login info in the browser. Bonus measure, you could leave the notepad outside home (in the car f.e.)... that way, losing time procastinating requires actually more effort for me than just stand up for a little and then return to work. The point is never allow that to be an easy option, an easy way to escape from responsibilities... Installed "walls" via browser extensions etc never really worked for me, as in the end I just disable them if I feel that's bothering me. PS. Also of course, avoid to save the cookie session once you close the browser in "dangerous" sites...
As a feature request, I would love to be able to restrict my time spent on websites I arrive at _from_ e.g. HackerNews, not just _on_ HackerNews itself.
Here's a similar one that I build few years back. It forces you to wait specified number of seconds before visiting a website. That way you break the dopamine cycle.
breaking the dopamine cycle requires a bigger effort because it must include phone browsing and notifications, there is a good video about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk
I find myself caught in the y/t/f <enter> loop all the time. I use a site blocker, but if I do want to visit a site, I end up turning off the blocker and forgetting to re-enable it. This seems like much a better solution that allows me access to the sites I need, but ensures I don't get lost in them, and tracks my usage.
I am seriously so pumped about this, funny that I needed to visit one of my blacklist sites (hacker news) in order to find this. Please keep us posted with updates (settings page of the app?), if I continue to use this I'd be happy to pay for it in the future.
One thing I'd love to be able to do right now is whitelist certain times in the middle of the day. For example, lunch. Punching in 30 mins on a site is an easy fix, but it'd be nice if that were built in.
Thanks so much! There's an in-product mechanism that shows messages on major updates, but I might create a mailing list / Slack channel for a more dedicate space for feedback and updates. If I do, it'll add it to the next in-product message.
Once I get through the incoming bugs, I'll spend some time thinking about what options to provide in Intention while making sure that the product stays simple. Appreciate the kind words!
This is awesome! I would also pay for this after I've seen the privacy-aware and clear onboarding!
Feature request:
"Focus mode"
Ability to start a focus session for 30m, 1h, 2h etc. in addition to having the schedule. E.g. by default my schedule allows browsing reddit on the weekend, but if I need to get something done on Sunday I can get click the focus button. Or disable schedule and use it only in focus sessions. For now I can only either change the schedule constantly or disable/enable the extension. A simple "Focus" button would solve those 2 cases.
The focus mode could even countdown the focus time with a different colour.
This would replace RescueTime for me and I've been a paid user for years.
No problem! I personally use Chrome as my primary browser for various reasons, but I love Mozilla's mission to create an Internet that puts people before profits. Happy to support my privacy-forward users. :)
This is awesome! My mindless browsing became so bad at one point that I made my own extension that I called "Detour". It automatically redirects you from one site to another, so if I absent-mindedly navigated to Reddit, it'd detour me to my homework to-do list. Never got around to really fleshing it out and building the types of features that would really make it useful like this. Kudos!
This is quite similar to HabitLab https://habitlab.stanford.edu/ which also includes a number of other options (such as pausing videos on youtube before playing them, hiding comments and news feeds on Facebook, etc). [Disclaimer: I built HabitLab]
On this topic, another add-on I have found to be fairly helpful is called "Pluckeye" [1]. At its base level, it simply blocks all images and video from your browser. You can customize it by adding/removing websites from the blacklist, and is fairly robust to occasional cravings by having a delay on changes to the blacklist that allow a website. The only downside is that most websites now look broken, but I've found that I don't really miss being bombarded by the colorful graphics on websites.
I think there is significant work to be done on making these tools more widely known, but I'm happy with the progress being made. Good job, again!
"Mindless browsing" is just dopamine addiction, happens with phone notifications, porn and many other stimulus, a good video about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiE-M1LrZk
The advice I got is that you need to take a very hard look at what things in your life recharge you, and prioritize the ones that work well over the ones that are minor or neutral.
Your initial list will contain a bunch of things that are really just playing for time. They don't recharge you, they just keep you still long enough for you to recuperate a little bit.
One of my big ones is naps, but I'm still wrestling with the idea that going to sleep is an activity instead of the absence of (nearly) all activity.
This looks really good, I've been going down the rabbit hole of optimising focus and killing distractions...
Is there any chance we could get it to make a rest API call on certain actions? I'd like to change my lights in home assistant as an added visual reinforcement.
I use Youtube for music, so I usually have a tab open for prolonged time. However, I also waste some time on Youtube by randomly opening a tab. Is there any way you plan on handling this use case?
[+] [-] namuorg|6 years ago|reply
I've been working on a Chrome/Firefox extension called Intention to help me stay focused and not get distracted, and for me and my friends, we've found it more effective than other tools we've tried.
The idea behind it is extremely simple: Commit to a time limit before using a distracting site.
This prevents the two most common ways that we get sucked into distractions online:
1. Habitual navigation: Throughout the day, we reflexively type t/f/r <enter> and immediately start scrolling through Twitter / Facebook / Reddit / etc. Intention stops you before you start browsing and gives you the opportunity to decide not to get sucked in.
2. Mindless browsing: Our willpower is no match for the endless stream of personalized content optimized to keep our attention for as long as possible. Intention pauses your browsing after your intended time limit and restores your focus.
You can set a daily limit to know how much time you've spent across all distracting sites, and for every day you stay under your limit, you'll grow your personal streak.
I designed Intention with privacy as a core priority, and here's what that means:
- Intention requests access only to the sites you select, not all sites.
- Intention gives you full control over the data you share.
- Your browsing history stays in your browser and is never transmitted.
Intention is part of a suite of tools I'm developing to help people spend their time well, and I'd love to hear your feedback.
DK
P.S. If you'd like to read about the process behind developing Intention, I've been publicly writing a daily journal at https://roadtoramen.com
[+] [-] stared|6 years ago|reply
What I've found that:
- No breaks is bad.
- It is even worse when a 10 min break turns out to be a 2h rabbit hole.
But most of the current software does not address that. For example:
- I use social media after midnight, and it does not stop me then but cuts the limit for the next day.
- There is a nasty surprise when an app kicks me out, with no warning. So nasty (especially when I am in the middle of writing a long comment) that it may prompt be to uninstall it.
- To strict limits. Sometimes I know that a given day I need more social media.
In your case, it solves all. Also, I see that the timer is at 23 sec, so I click "reply". :)
Thanks!
[+] [-] rubenbe|6 years ago|reply
> Intention requests access only to the sites you select, not all sites.
Very few add-ons implement it (talking about Firefox) but it makes the add-on much more trustworthy.
[+] [-] mattwad|6 years ago|reply
Next I need this for my phone.
[+] [-] hinkley|6 years ago|reply
And while it'd be cool to have an addon that made me check in on, you know, are you still trying to figure out that statistics problem you were looking at or are you relearning linear algebra instead...
Firefox doesn't seem to have a reading list, at least not out of the box, and I don't end up using it on Mobile Safari anyway. Having a way to 'get out' of a loop by saving it for later, and ideally have them randomly show up on the landing page I think would help me, possibly others.
[+] [-] phalangion|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andy_ppp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pgt|6 years ago|reply
Also appreciate that it only requires access to the sites I'm blocking.
Some stats I'd like to see on the prompt would be: how many times this hour/day/week/month I've extended the unlock period. This would help me nudge myself to stop doing it.
Good luck and never sell out!
[+] [-] hjek|6 years ago|reply
So this is using gamification to game gamification? Interesting.
> immediately start scrolling through [...] Facebook
There are some other interesting add-ons in this area. I'm a big fan of safebook[0].
> - Your browsing history stays in your browser and is never transmitted.
That sentence worries me. If I told you "I haven't stolen anything from your living room," you'd probably start to think what other room I'd looted.
[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/safebook/
[+] [-] aroberge|6 years ago|reply
I've tried to use other somewhat similar extensions or tools in the past but removed them as they often "got in the way" of what I needed to do. Right now, this seems to be just right for me.
Thanks for doing this.
Normally, I immediately delete any unsolicited emails. However, if you want beta testers for any other creation, feel free to email me (username at gmail) mentioning that you created intention. I promise to have a look at what you create and to give you some feedback.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ddrt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddrmaxgt37|6 years ago|reply
Have you thought about blurring the background in the modal? I find that for news sites, the modal still lets me read the headlines
[+] [-] stared|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbasner|6 years ago|reply
On my iphone I have found myself mindlessly clicking the "add 15 minutes" of screen time and typing in my 4 digit code so often that it is now just muscle memory to do so. Yes, I have no self control.
Could you add a feature so you have to type in a pin to continue BUT the number pad is in a random order, to break up muscle memory? Or randomly re-arrange the add 1,5,15 min buttons? Or a math problem?
[+] [-] service_bus|6 years ago|reply
For you I would recommend the book: The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. (audiobook is also well narrated)
It's well written and full of great methods for gaining your self control back.
[+] [-] tekkk|6 years ago|reply
Now what I have practised is being mindful of my actions, and treat the time when I work, study as time without youtube videos, without writing long HN posts and so on.
It's a lot harder than having some app to ping you to stop browsing. But I think it's what works better in the long run. You choose the time when you work, say a couple of hours, then take a break. No mindless browsing in between. Or well actually what has worked best for me is to have no mindless browsing at all during the best part of the day, since the feedback loop is too strong when you get accustomed to looking "just one more video".
But I'm curious to try this out. We'll see. But I'm sceptical.
[+] [-] lain_|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richthegeek|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rohitb91|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j88439h84|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://robertheaton.com/2018/07/02/stylish-browser-extensio...
[+] [-] namuorg|6 years ago|reply
I'd love to open source Intention like I've done with a ton of previous projects (http://github.com/dkthehuman/), but since it's a Chrome extension, that'd make it trivial for anyone to copy. Given that I'd like to eventually develop a paid plan and make working on this full-time financially sustainable, I hope you can understand why open sourcing doesn't seem like a viable option.
I'm brainstorming ways to make the extension as transparent as possible (e.g. if I ever decide to include analytics, (1) providing an opt-out and (2) a way to view all the information that's transmitted in a human-readable way), but at the heart of it, using Intention will require some trust in my integrity and care as a developer. I'm also hoping that writing about my decision-making process publicly in my journal (https://roadtoramen.com) will provide transparency and help develop that trust. If you ever see me going astray or not thinking clearly, please keep me accountable!
If it helps, here are some of the things I've written about privacy (I think about this quite a bit):
- My privacy principles: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-97-Privacy-Principles-5...
- Privacy gut checks: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-86-Privacy-Gut-Checks-0...
- Exploring whether I should include analytics: https://www.notion.so/dkthehuman/Day-45-Should-I-include-ana...
[+] [-] warent|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JMTQp8lwXL|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattboulos|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] namuorg|6 years ago|reply
Glad you appreciate it. :)
[+] [-] vaer-k|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgomez|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbieber|6 years ago|reply
As a feature request, I would love to be able to restrict my time spent on websites I arrive at _from_ e.g. HackerNews, not just _on_ HackerNews itself.
[+] [-] m_a_g|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mscavnicky|6 years ago|reply
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/waitblock/kcnjfepp...
[+] [-] mattigames|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devmunchies|6 years ago|reply
now we don't browse while laying in bed in the morning or at night. this simple change cutdown on my addiction even when out of my bed room.
When we go to our bedroom at night we know it means bed time, its a mental change.
Also, at first you'll feel an urge to look at your phone at night, but it goes away.
[+] [-] fredifrum|6 years ago|reply
I find myself caught in the y/t/f <enter> loop all the time. I use a site blocker, but if I do want to visit a site, I end up turning off the blocker and forgetting to re-enable it. This seems like much a better solution that allows me access to the sites I need, but ensures I don't get lost in them, and tracks my usage.
I am seriously so pumped about this, funny that I needed to visit one of my blacklist sites (hacker news) in order to find this. Please keep us posted with updates (settings page of the app?), if I continue to use this I'd be happy to pay for it in the future.
One thing I'd love to be able to do right now is whitelist certain times in the middle of the day. For example, lunch. Punching in 30 mins on a site is an easy fix, but it'd be nice if that were built in.
[+] [-] namuorg|6 years ago|reply
Once I get through the incoming bugs, I'll spend some time thinking about what options to provide in Intention while making sure that the product stays simple. Appreciate the kind words!
[+] [-] hkdobrev|6 years ago|reply
Feature request:
"Focus mode"
Ability to start a focus session for 30m, 1h, 2h etc. in addition to having the schedule. E.g. by default my schedule allows browsing reddit on the weekend, but if I need to get something done on Sunday I can get click the focus button. Or disable schedule and use it only in focus sessions. For now I can only either change the schedule constantly or disable/enable the extension. A simple "Focus" button would solve those 2 cases.
The focus mode could even countdown the focus time with a different colour.
This would replace RescueTime for me and I've been a paid user for years.
[+] [-] jmondi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] namuorg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gintery|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BaitBlock|6 years ago|reply
- It even offers you summaries of links before you click them where available.
- Blocks cookie notices.
- Hides Facebook/YouTube feed.
- 1st party tracking resistance (deletes cookies on every page load for websites that you're not signed in to)
- Website blocking
The upcoming version even has in page reader mode so you dont leave the page (video in tweet): https://twitter.com/BaitblockApp/status/1252623683266494464
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/baitblock-distract... - for chrome
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/baitblock - for firefox
[+] [-] thehappypm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geza|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheApexTheater|6 years ago|reply
On this topic, another add-on I have found to be fairly helpful is called "Pluckeye" [1]. At its base level, it simply blocks all images and video from your browser. You can customize it by adding/removing websites from the blacklist, and is fairly robust to occasional cravings by having a delay on changes to the blacklist that allow a website. The only downside is that most websites now look broken, but I've found that I don't really miss being bombarded by the colorful graphics on websites.
I think there is significant work to be done on making these tools more widely known, but I'm happy with the progress being made. Good job, again!
[1]: https://www.pluckeye.net/
[+] [-] mattigames|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hinkley|6 years ago|reply
Your initial list will contain a bunch of things that are really just playing for time. They don't recharge you, they just keep you still long enough for you to recuperate a little bit.
One of my big ones is naps, but I'm still wrestling with the idea that going to sleep is an activity instead of the absence of (nearly) all activity.
[+] [-] seppin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] psandersen|6 years ago|reply
Is there any chance we could get it to make a rest API call on certain actions? I'd like to change my lights in home assistant as an added visual reinforcement.
[+] [-] enricozb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] namuorg|6 years ago|reply