I don't know about you, but procrastination is a bit of a problem in my life. I'll get to four in the afternoon and realise that I have spent hours upon hours scrolling through Instagram instead of doing work, leading to another late night catching up.

Now, not to make excuses, but, according to Gretchen Rubin, I am an Obliger - meaning that I need other people holding me accountable for me to get things done. It's probably a mix of this, and finding more interesting things to do, that have got me in this last-minute work ethic to be honest. I am so easily distracted that even remembering that my course is costing me £9,250 per year is not enough to get me to drop YouTube and start working! I mean, going cold turkey for Lent the last two years hasn't helped me ditch the habit either!

This being said, there are some great tools that I have been using during my degree which have helped me.

Therefore, today I am sharing my top free (!) anti-distraction apps with you all, plus a few extra tips, to help you study more productively this coming term.

Self Control

If you just need to stop yourself accessing the web for a set amount of time, with no way back in, this is the app for you. With a couple of clicks, you can set the amount of time you don't want to be able to access certain websites for, and once you start there is no way you can access those websites until the time is up. No matter if you restart the app, or even your computer, this app will stop you accessing your Instagram feed, but you can still double check a fact on Google as you write your assignment.

Stay Focussed (free version)

[Note: There is a Google Chrome extension for this, but I haven't used it so can't comment on it. I also don't know if there is a version for iOS. What I can comment on is the free Android version 😇]

I love Stay Focussed.

This app completely blocks any app of your choice, but will also block apps after you have used them for a certain amount of time, and during certain periods of the day. This will stop the endless scrolling if, like me, you have no understanding of time and can binge YouTube for hours, thinking that you've only been on it for 10 minutes (please say it's not just me).

Unfortunately, there is the option to pause it, and I have been caught out multiple times when I haven't unpaused it and go back to old habits. I should probably get round to setting a password up to stop this being so easy...

Other Fun Tips

A great tool I have downloaded is Quiet Facebook (I'm pretty certain this is it but don't come for me if you get a virus instead). This is a plugin for Safari which blocks your Facebook feed, meaning you can access it for messenger, but won't get caught in a mindless scroll. There is a similar plugin for Chrome, which gives you a motivational quote instead for your feed 😇

My other piece of advice for reducing your social media use is to spring clean. I mentioned this on my InstaStory the other day and honestly, the amount of social profiles I have either never seen or don't care about is ridiculous. In 20-30 mins, I got rid of around 500 profiles! I'm doing a similar thing for YouTube, in that if someone comes up on my feed and I can't remember the last time I watched them, I unsubscribe. I used to feel really guilty about this, but people's number's fluctuate all the time and they don't get notified if you unsubscribe, so they won't come after you, don't worry 😊 This means, you reduce the amount of content you are seeing and also the amount of time you mindlessly scroll through stuff you don't care about to get to something you do!



Let's be honest though: the best (and simplest) thing you can do when you really need to work, is turn off your phone and put it in another room!



What is the best thing you do to beat procrastination?

June xx



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