When it comes to our work lives, most of us want to better use our time to be more productive and focused. Self-discipline, of course, is essential to this, but when we’re working online, distractions are ever present, so much so that even the most disciplined among us can find ourselves tuning out.
These distractions, which can vary from replying to the email that just appeared in your inbox to finding yourself scrolling through TikTok, pull you away from the task and make it hard to refocus when you return to what you were doing beforehand.
Fortunately, many distraction blockers, time trackers, project managers, and productivity managers have been developed to integrate into your regular workflow to assist you with your focus. Below, you’ll find some of the top options you can add to your work system.
WP Project Manager
This WordPress plugin will help you focus thanks to its many functionalities that track, notify, and support your projects from beginning to end, individually or as part of a team. When working with a team, it allows you to easily message members, share files, collaborate, and get real-time project updates. This saves you from opening different apps or websites to get everything you need for a single project, helping you stay focused.
With the pro version, you can create Kanban or Gantt charts to help visualize where you are in a project, which, much like building a mind map, can be helpful and motivating tools for completing a task. The time-tracking capabilities of this plugin automate invoicing for client work, helping to streamline your workflow and reduce the number of tasks on your plate.
Toggl Track
Toggle Track is a helpful tool for those wanting to track time and manage projects. It even allows for tracking a user’s time across different devices, separating billable and non-billable hours, tracking projects to stay on track to meet deadlines, and creating individual timesheets and reports for each team member. It’s a versatile tool for both teams and individuals that helps you understand how you and your team spend your time so you can better plan and delegate time to tasks in the future.
RescueTime
RescueTime focuses on tracking time spent on different tasks to develop time reports that help people identify general productivity levels and the most time-consuming tasks. Both of these are helpful metrics in planning future projects, optimizing workflows, and helping you determine where or when your focus is lacking so you can adjust your work style. The time reports are detailed, letting you know what you spent your time on both on and offline and how long you spent on specific apps and websites.
RescueTime also allows you to set a FocusTime session. During a focus session, you cannot open a pre-made list of distracting websites, and you’ll have an on-screen timer as a visual reminder to stay on task. You also don’t have to worry about becoming absorbed by a task when you have a meeting or appointment looming, as RescueTime has an “assistant” that will notify you of your scheduled activities to keep you on time.
Noisli
Sometimes, understanding how you spend your time doesn’t help you when you need more focus in a distracting environment or high-stress scenario. That’s where tools like Noisli come in. Noisli enables you to take on the task by providing your ideal background noise to get work done. It can help mask loud noises with white noise and help reduce stress or anxiety with soothing sounds. It’s a flexible tool that allows you to build soundscapes that work best for you.
StayFocusd
When working online, it can be very tempting to pull up a distracting website when we need to get something done. To help with this, tools like StayFocusd block these distracting websites or set a time limit for how long you can spend on them. You can even block the internet entirely, depending on the type of work you need to get done. This browser extension allows you to set a work schedule for when things need to be blocked or timed to help you stay on task during these times.
Freedom App
Much like StayFocusd, the Freedom App is a tool that blocks distracting websites and allows you to schedule focus periods. However, it also has the added benefit of blocking apps and websites on all your available devices.
Forest App
The Forest App encourages you to stay focused very differently than blocking distracting websites. Instead, it invites you to plant a tree when you need to get something done. Once you’ve started growing a tree, if you leave the app, the tree will die. This helps you avoid picking up your phone to check notifications and helps redirect focus to a project or task. The app donates to Trees for the Future, an organization that plants real trees, so your efforts in planting digital trees pay off in the real world.
Todoist
Todoist is a productivity app for personal and professional use that allows you to get everything you need to do onto a to-do list, which the app says will help you “reach that mental clarity you’ve been longing for.” The app allows you to set a priority level, reminder, and due date for each item you add to a list, helping you ensure nothing falls off your radar – like ensuring you cancel that upcoming recurring Amazon Prime payment or take advantage of the free SC coins daily log-in bonus at your favorite online casino.
In a Distracting World, Tools for Focus Are Essential
While the online world has allowed us to work, connect, and live more comfortably and easily, it’s also come with the catch of being massively distracting to our daily lives. This has led some to believe that when we’re struggling with productivity or focus, our problem isn’t learning how to manage time but rather how to manage distractions. That’s where tools like the plugins, integrations, and apps listed above can assist us. They help us quiet the noise of the online world so that we can focus and find a flow.