
Show HN: Steal back your productivity - Jasber
http://www.heyfocus.com/
======
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-...](http://lifehacker.com/5452620/stayfocusd-blocks-and-manages-
time+sucking-web-sites)

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/](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.

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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/](http://bradjasper.com/blog/case-study-focus/)

Also open-sourced it:
[https://github.com/bradjasper/focus](https://github.com/bradjasper/focus)

~~~
esusatyo
The case study link on the page is broken actually.

~~~
Jasber
Thanks for catching that! Fixed

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james33
I've been using an app called Concentrate
([http://www.getconcentrating.com/](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.

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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/](http://selfcontrolapp.com/)

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

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aray
In my experience, it's not about making accessing these sites _impossible_ ,
just harder. An alternative is artificially injecting a 30-second delay to any
interaction with those websites. When it takes that long for a page to load,
it can slowly teach you to un-learn compulsive checking.

see alt text of this comic for example:
[http://xkcd.com/862/](http://xkcd.com/862/)

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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 :)

~~~
frio
Awesome :)

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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.

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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.

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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/](http://www.getconcentrating.com/)

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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 contact@bradjasper.com I would be happy to help you set it
up.

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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.

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Killah911
The unfinished video alone deserves the upvote. Cool idea, now I need to get
back to work :)

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_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?

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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.

~~~
arikrak
Most time-wasting sites never need to be accessed, though some of them are
occasionally useful.

I think the app should let you access blocked sites when you need to, but make
it difficult in some way. E.g. it could pop up with a warning and require user
to enter a code. Often people waste time impulsively so a small block is
enough to get them back to work.

(Alternatively, it could send out an email or post it online when a user over-
rides a blocked site. Or it could fine the user!)

~~~
marclipovsky
Regarding entering a code: would it be possible to use the google two factor
Auth app somehow for that?

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coherentpony

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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chewxy
I just use RescueTime's get focus functionality.

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isaacjohnwesley
sudo vim /etc/hosts - just add the website you want to block. Be smart to Skip
downloading softwares. :)

