No distractions

One of the biggest distractions that stops us from being efficient at work or school is the smartphone, yes?

Well, not the device per se, but the time-wasting apps that we have installed on the smartphones that we tend to use when there really isn’t any time to be wasted.

That is where apps for blocking distraction come in handy. They are designed to tell you to get back to work when you think about slacking off.

AntiSocial (Free on Android)

As the name suggests, this app wants you to be anti-social on social media.

It recognises social media apps like

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and even messaging apps such as Google Hangouts and FB Messenger on your device, and gives you the option to block them for a set duration.

You can set exactly how many minutes or hours you want to spend daily on an app before it’s blocked for the entire day.

You can also choose to schedule the blocks, say 8am to 8pm on weekdays, and from 9am to 9pm on the weekends, and you can modify the schedule as you wish.

There is also a timer option where you can choose to lock yourself out of the social media apps for a set time.

A reminder that “access to this app is blocked” will be shown on the screen every time you try to access a locked app.

The AntiSocial app will also display how much time you spend in total on social media as well as your most used apps.

Stay focused (Free on Android)

This is a useful app to have if you want to know precisely how much time you spend on your phone in a day, and it even tells you just how many times you “unlock” your phone daily. And it tracks the usage of apps, so you can see exactly which ones are distracting you the most.

Once you have identified the apps that you wish to spend less time on, you have the option to “lock” them based on certain criteria.

You can, for instance, set the maximum time you want to spend on an app like YouTube and it will automatically lock you out once you hit the limit. And you won’t be able to access YouTube until the next day.

You can also choose to lock yourself out of an app at specific intervals or for an entire day, week, month or more. Or you can set a limit to the number of times you can access the app.

Every time you try to access a blocked app, you will be greeted with a message (which you can set yourself ) to remind you to stay focused on work.