Self Control

Today is Election Day in the United States and it’s always a stressful day watching the news, seeing the social media posts, and just sitting around watching it with zero control with outcome except my single vote. Yesterday, I made a joke on Twitter that I was preparing for today by adding a bunch of sites to my /etc/hosts file.

Out of this came a lot of great replies but Tom Schlick recommended an app called SelfControl that takes this to the next level.

SelfControl is a free and open-source application for macOS that lets you block your own access to distracting websites, your mail servers, or anything else on the Internet. Just set a period of time to block for, add sites to your blacklist, and click “Start.” Until that timer expires, you will be unable to access those sites—even if you restart your computer or delete the application.

What I love is how hard core this app is. “Until that timer expires, you will be unable to access those sites—even if you restart your computer or delete the application.” Now that is some serious blocking. haha

If you ever struggle with wasting time on certain sites I’d recommend giving SelfControl a try and also consider the following books for getting hyper focused:

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
• Deep Work by Cal Newport