Show HN: Steal back your productivity

[jaysonelliot]

I've been using StayFocusd for this exact purpose for years. As others have mentioned, there are rather a lot of extensions and apps that will selectively block distracting sites for you.

http://lifehacker.com/5452620/stayfocusd-blocks-and-manages-...

Clearly, I have not added HN to my blocklist :)

[Jasber]

I saw a lot of these apps out there but none that worked quite how I wanted. I wrote a little more about this in the case study: http://bradjasper.com/blog/case-study-focus/

Eventually my goal is to make Focus pretty extensible so you can run your own custom scripts on focus & unfocus. Hope to have some of this out soon.

[Jasber]

This is a small Mac app I made that helps me stay off Hacker News :). It's a menu-bar app that with 1-click blocks certain websites.

If you're interested I did a little write-up here: http://bradjasper.com/blog/case-study-focus/

Also open-sourced it: https://github.com/bradjasper/focus

[hakcermani]

I could really use this ! but seems fine (get the nice inspirational quotes) with Chrome and Safari, but Firefox still is able to get through. I am typing this using Firefox 26 ...

[10feet]

This is great, thanks for releasing the app and the source code.

Just one question, why is it so big? 1.8mb executable seems quite large.

Still, fantastic!

[esusatyo]

The case study link on the page is broken actually.

[james33]

I've been using an app called Concentrate (http://www.getconcentrating.com/) for probably 5 years that does the same thing, but it also lets you define apps and services to block (so for example, if I want to get really focussed, I block my Mail app so that I can't check it for the next hour).

[Breefield]

I had the pleasure of working with Made By Rocket (makers of Concentrate) when I was a senior in high school (I was 17). Living alone in downtown Boise Idaho, working 40 hour weeks for two different startups, and finishing high school, man that was a rough year.

[Jasber]

Concentrate is great, but I'm going for something a little different with Focus over the long-term. Hope to have more features out soon that make this clear :)

[msy]

There's an older app called Self Control that does this but for a specified time window and cannot be disabled once it's started, including by rebooting. http://selfcontrolapp.com/

[ralphc]

Considering the number of machines, physical and virtual, that I have laying around, that wouldn't be much of a barrier.

[frio]

I'd really like a one-click focus app that:

    * blocks distracting websites (and arbitrary hosts so I can't SSH to my IRC bouncer!)
    * starts playing some elected noise (either generated -- pink noise -- or pre-selected rain/ocean/etc.)
    * blocks notifications (can the OSX notification stuff be set to DnD?)
    * is a Pomodoro timer: will unblock everything by itself in 25min (or whatever time is elected)

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to make it :(.

[Jasber]

I'm working on integrating some of this into Focus already, and plan on adding pre-focus & post-focus hooks to add your own custom functionality to cover everything else.

Should be out soon and the app is set to auto-update, so stay tuned :)

[mad44]

You can insert scripting to the pomodoro app to block wifi (and maybe even play white noise): http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2013/05/one-pomodoro-two-po...

[robinhoodexe]

Just to add, I'd love the ability to block notifications as well (as possible with the built-in "non-distracted mode") except for a chosen few applications. For example, I'd like if iCal could still keep me updated on schedules via notifications.

[eddflrs]

Thanks for making this. It's beautifully crafted and great attention to detail is shown with the inspirational quotes and the optional b/w icon.

[robinhoodexe]

Nice, exactly what I'm looking for. A few ideas for features:

More options in the filter preferences. How are wildcards handled and multiple domains?

A system-wide hotkey for turning on and off the distraction (I'm an avid Vim user and do a lot of text editing so I'd prefer not to use the mouse too much). Maybe even make it work together with Alfred.

Custom messages for the blocked website.

[Jasber]

Thanks, these are great suggestions. Should definitely be able to get these added.

[metabren]

Nice touch showing a motivational quote when you try to visit the blocked website.

I've been using Concentrate[1] so far with great results. It has a few more options (such as a growl message every X seconds) but no nice motivational quote for websites! :) Also – the first version is actually free (click the buy button).

[1] http://www.getconcentrating.com/

[bicv]

I just can't seem to get Focus to work.

I am using DNSCrypt from OpenDNS, but when I disable it, I still can't get Focus to work. I have Automatic Proxy Discovery and Automatic Proxy Configuration turned off in System Preferences -> Network, but turning these on didn't seem to work either.

Could you add a quick install guide with the required settings?

Thanks!

[Jasber]

Hi, if you email [email protected] I would be happy to help you set it up.

[sneak]

There's a great free Safari extension called WasteNoTime which does something similar without a proxy, and also has the added benefit of tracking the time you spent daily, weekly, or monthly across all sites (including non-blocked ones) so you can see which ones you need to block.

[Killah911]

The unfinished video alone deserves the upvote. Cool idea, now I need to get back to work :)

[_august]

This app is awesome! I've tried out others, StayFocused, manually editing /etc/hosts, but I love the simplicity of this.

Would it be possible to add exceptions to sites? For example, certain subreddits allowed only?

[arikrak]

It would be cool if you could set a schedule for certain times to block sites (or time limits). There are various browser extensions for this, but it would be more effective on the system level.

[Jasber]

Thanks this is something I'm definitely thinking about, but can't resolve what happens when you really do want your internet connection back.

Should it just let you?

What happens if a client calls or an emergency happens and you need access?

Would love feedback from anyone who wants this feature.

[coherentpony]

    Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

    The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

[xerophtye]

Looks pretty useful but since its OS X only, so I can't use it.

Btw, just cursious:

>Do you have a grayscale icon? I don't like colorful icons in my menubar.

Wow, are all Mac users this... particular?

[psteinweber]

> Wow, are all Mac users this... particular?

I can't speak for all, but me, yes. It's just a visually very quiet area in the upper right, because most icons are black or greyscale. So it is slightly annoying if one of them is colorful.

[charlesdenault]

In Chrome when going to https version of a blocked site, I get the "Error code: ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED" instead of the inspirational quotes!

[Jasber]

I couldn't find a way to intercept SSL traffic that wasn't insecure (method I used was a custom root certificate), so opted for a broken connection instead.

I think the only way to do this securely is a browser extension which I was planning for a later version.

[robinhoodexe]

Same here on Firefox 27

[treskot]

509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

[HaloZero]

Would this interfere with RescueTime? I like having the metrics of which app I use the most but want to block things using Focus.

[chewxy]

I just use RescueTime's get focus functionality.