Perhaps you remember a quieter, less-connected era. Well, that’s gone. As I wrote about in this month’s Poets & Writers, we will probably never go back to a period when solitude was something to be found in plenty like stones on the beach. For better or worse, the Internet is here to stay. Solitude must be cultivated and engineered into one’s life. As more people struggle with this, more solutions for dealing with it are being developed. I’ve used quite a few of these so-called productivity tools, which also might be called piece-of-mind tools. If social media really is, as David Farley says, like cocaine then here’s your rehab:
For Internet Regulation:
Self Control (Mac)
Self-Restraint (PC)
By far and away the best. Cuts off your computer’s wireless signal. Impossible to reset. Has other settings, which I have not experimented with.
Freedom
Does the same, but early versions could be reset by rebooting your computer. Not sure about the newer ones.
Leechblock (Firefox)
Great for focusing and blocking website you tend to check without thinking.
Stay focused (Chrome)
Same idea for Chrome.
Anti-Social
Blocks social media.
Rescue Time
Much ballyhooed program with a variety of features, most notably analytics about how you spend your time online. (Be afraid!)
About Me
Similar program as an add-on for Firefox.
Readability
Cleans up web pages so you can actually read them.
For on screen distraction/focus
Isolator
Very nice program that lets you work on one program at a time, blacking out others.
Concentrate
A bit spendy, but this is a big suite of things, mostly along the Isolator lines, but also with some Internet control features.
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