StayFocusd

StayFocusd is a productivity extension for Google Chrome by Transfusion Media.

“You sit down at the computer, and you swear you’ll be productive. Next thing you know, it’s twelve hours later.

You’ve checked your email, updated your Facebook status, browsed the trending topics on Twitter, read your RSS feeds, looked up your favorite band on Wikipedia, vanity googled yourself, cyber-stalked your ex, looked at all your high-school crushes’ Facebook photos, watered your plants on Farmville, and lost a week’s pay playing online poker. What you haven’t done is WORK.”

‐ Transfusion Media

The extension allows you to restrict the amount of time you spend on websites you could regard as ‘time-wasting’ such as Facebook, Twitter, BBC News etc. allowing you to stay focused on what’s more important – your work.

StayFocusd Extension in Chrome example

When you visit your blacklisted sites, the Eyeball/Clock icon will turn red, indicating that time is ticking away. There is even a setting to include sites visited via a blacklisted website, so there’s no cheating while reading Twitter referrals.

Once your time is up, those sites are blocked for the day. That’s right, they’re gone. This may seem extreme but I’ve found this extension to greatly increase my productivity as I’m much more aware of how much of the day I’m wasting.

You can blacklist, or whitelist any sites you wish either on the go or from within the extension’s tongue-in-cheek settings panel, which questions your motives if you try to increase your allowed procrastination time.

Download link
You can download the extension on the Chrome Web Store.

By Mark Hesketh

I'm a PHP Developer based in UK, building modern PHP web applications and writing about everything I learn.