I love social media. I love the communities to which I belong, I love the conversations I’ve had with amazingly interesting and/or funny people, I love connecting with like minds from all walks of life and every corner of the earth…in fact, trolls aside, I love just about everything about life online. So much so that I tend to spend rather a lot of time there…which isn’t always a good thing.
Because it turns out there can be a dark side to being too social…mostly when you look up from your conversations, realize that an hour (or two or five) has passed, and you haven’t actually accomplished any real work. (Hands up if you recognize yourself in that scenario…yep, I thought as much. 😉 )
It seems the Internet time-suck is a problem by many of us who are self-employed and don’t have a boss looking over our shoulders…especially when we can justify time on social media presence as being part of our marketing/online strategy. But fear not, because there’s quite literally an app for that–two, actually–which will allow you to turn off as much or as little of the Internet as you need to in order to reclaim your work day.
First up, the Freedom app, at a one-time cost of ten dollars.
This app shuts down the Internet altogether on your computer for the time that you specify. Short of rebooting your computer, there’s no way you can shut it down or circumvent it, so you’re guaranteed x number of distraction-free hours. You can even schedule it to pop up at a certain time each day–sort of like having an imaginary boss stick his/her head into your office and scowl in a meaningful, “isn’t it about time you got to work?” kind of way.
I liked Freedom for the most part, and it certainly kept me honest, but I found that shutting down the entire Internet connection didn’t work for me. While I was happy to stay off social media for my allotted work hours, sometimes I still needed to hop onto the net for research purposes.
Enter the Anti-Social app at a one-time cost of fifteen dollars. This app allows you to shut down specific sites–your worst offenders, if you will–while still allowing you access to the rest of the Internet. The beauty of this particular app is that you can decide for yourself which sites are your “worst offenders” and add those to a list of sites to be blocked (and you can change the list anytime). For me, my problem areas were Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and my email (such a time-suck, that last one 😯 ). As with Freedom, you can specify the time for blocking (anywhere from 15 minutes to 8 hours), and you can schedule it for specific days and times.
Both apps offer a 60-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied, and both are super easy to download and get running. Depending on how much of the Internet you want to cut yourself off from, I can happily recommend both.
So there you have it: two apps to get you off those social media sites, keep you honest, and make you accountable…not to mention way more productive. You’re welcome. 😉
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