Do you find yourself reaching for your phone every few minutes? Do you check your messages even if you haven’t received a notification? It’s something most Android users are guilty of and always checking your phone can make you waste some valuable time.
These apps will help you stay focused and finally get things done on time. They will prevent you from using your phone or apps for a certain amount of time so you can be more productive.
1. Forest: Stay Focused
Forest: Stay Focused is a free app that will block your phone for a maximum of two hours. If you hang in there and leave your phone alone until the time lapses a tree or plant you previously selected will grow. You can choose from a variety of species, and the one you choose will be the one that you’ll see grow as the time passes.
The more you resist grabbing your phone, the more coins you’ll earn. When you’ve gathered enough coins, you can go to the app’s store and buy things such as more plants or trees such as a ball cactus, flourishing grass, wisteria, ginkgo, Chinese pine tree, and more!
If it helps you focus, you can also listen to relaxing sounds such as the rain forest as you work. There’s an option to turn these sounds off if you find them too distracting. If you want more sound options to help you relax, you’ll need to win as many coins as possible to buy them.
To see how much you’ve progressed or not, go to the app’s settings, and you will see how much your forest has grown. At the bottom, you’ll see how successful you’ve been in staying focused thanks to the graph.
The features the app has are useful, and the idea of hanging in there until your plant flourishes makes the app more attractive. It’s a great app to try if you have a decent amount of self-control, but one drawback is that it gives you an option to give up.
Download: Forest: Stay Focused (Free)
2. AppBlock – Stay Focused
Locking yourself out of your phone for extended periods of time isn’t always a good idea. You may need to answer an important phone call or send an Email to a co-worker. If what is prevent you from staying focused are certain apps, you should give ApplBlock – Say Focused a try.
This app gets the job done since you have no way of unblocking those distracting apps. All you can do is wait until the time is up. You’ll need to create profiles that’ll include the apps you want to block.
For example, if there are apps that you can go without while you’re at work, you can create a profile called Working Days. In this profile add the apps that distract you, the time you want to block them for, and whether to block the notifications as well.
AppBlock Pro
To enjoy more features, you can always go Pro. For $4.33 you can use features such as unlimited times in profiles, unlimited apps, no ads, unlimited notification list, and unlimited profiles. If you don’t want to pay for all the features and only want one or two, you can buy each feature for $1.70.
Download: AppBlock – Stay Focused (Free)
3. Cold Turkey
To completely block your phone you should try Cold Turkey. Just like the name indicates, you go cold turkey, and you have no access to anything on your phone. You can unblock your phone and even tap on an app, but you’ll only see Cold Turkey showing you how much time you have to wait.
Cold turkey is a great option if you don’t have anything important to do on your phone since you have no way of accessing any app or file. The app is very straightforward. You open the app set the slider to the time you want to block your phone and tap on the lock button. It’s that simple.
Download: Cold Turkey (Free)
Conclusion
It’s important to stay focused if you want to get things done since time doesn’t have a backward button. But, with these apps, you’ll find yourself getting things done in record time. Do you have a hard time leaving your phone alone? What app do you think you’ll try first? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Brad says
Great info. I was looking for something like this.
Paul says
Thanks for the suggestions. I can’t work 15 minutes without finding myself checking my Twitter account. Nice work.