Top all-time · #3038
F
Focus
Company blog · heyfocus.com/blog · on HN as Jasberproductivitywriting
Focus is the company blog at heyfocus.com, writing about productivity and writing. Since 2014, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 33 times, most often “Focus – Steal back your productivity”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
No feed foundVisit the blog
33mentions?
24HN people?
2014–2026first – last linked?
Too few sampled comments (23) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Product page for Focus, a paid Mac app that blocks distracting websites and apps on a schedule. Commenters mention using it for focus and procrastination, but they judge the app, not any writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 23 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Focus helps you get things done on your Mac. It blocks time-wasting websites and apps so you can work better!
Most-linked posts?
- Focus – Steal back your productivity16 people · 19 mentions · first linked 2014-12-15
- /4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-04-19
What Hacker News says?
Tangent: From Firefox, if I increase the font n https://heyfocus.com/ (for accessibility reasons) the buttons _come apart_ (specifically the right sides overlap the lower center of their button). Even with that font size increase, the text under the buttons is still extremely hard to read!
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on “Leaving the Mac App Store”Submitted Show HN: Steal back your productivity as a story · 42 points
HN discussionTwo years ago I released a Mac app ( https://heyfocus.com/ ) that couldn't be in the MAS due to sandbox restrictions (tried 3 times—frustrating experience). I sat on it for an entire year because I was convinced nobody buys stuff outside of the AppStore anymore. A year ago, the project still had really good traction, so I decided to try to sell it directly as a test (using Paddle.com). Boy, was I wrong! TONS of peop…
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on “Leaving the Mac App Store”Submitted Focus – Steal back your productivity as a story · 41 points
HN discussionFor 1, I use Focus: https://heyfocus.com/ It used to be much cheaper, but it really helps to stop the surfing urges for a time. Well, not stop them so much as force me to realize when I have them.
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on “Internet addiction and the habit of book reading”Submitted How writers scientifically increase productivity as a story · 2 points
HN discussionDon't understand the negativity. What Ryan and Product Hunt did was incredible. So many people wanted to create an alternative to Hacker News and Reddit for product people. Everyone else failed but they figured it out. That's awesome. Product Hunt personally helped me in my goal of becoming a independent app maker by showcasing my app https://www.producthunt.com/posts/focus . As of tomorrow I'm full-time indie (YES!…
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on “AngelList acquires Product Hunt”Submitted Focus: A Mac app to block distracting websites like Facebook and Reddit as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI use HeyFocus: https://heyfocus.com/ I bought it when it was a 1 time $20 purchase. You can define what times you want to block (Monday - Friday from 9am-5pm, for example). You can also lock preferences for when the Focus is active so you can’t change it. There’s also options for adding breaks. It’s worked well for me. I know a little about myself and I need something like this to force me from being distracted. Wh…
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on “I'm an addict”Submitted How to Stop Mindless Internet Browsing as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm thinking about it but it's not a priority since there are many apps that do it already. Free StayFocusd, WasteNoTime for browsers and also the Focus[1] native app (paid). [1] https://heyfocus.com/
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on “Show HN: Automatic private time tracking for OS X”I'm just over a year into it. I'm going to write this up in more detail at some point but broadly my strategy has been: 1) Keep a smartphone without a SIM in it at home on wifi for banking / 2FA / etc 2) Move everything social off it. I was never a FB user, but I'm into Twitter and news - so those two got canned, as did Instagram 3) Take work email off it. If you can't, turn off all notifications. If people want you…
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on “Retail stores use Bluetooth beacons to track customers”tips for doing so: https://heyfocus.com/ <-- Focus, lets you block sites. Start out just blocking everything from 9AM to 9PM stay logged out of websites. Every time you want to use a site you should have to log in https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/history-autod... <-- this website will let you block things from your history. This prevents the "type n -> press down -> press enter to get to hacker news".…
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on “I cured my tech fatigue by ditching feeds”I write Raycast[0] scripts to automate small, common tasks I do daily, for example: - Connect my AirPods to my Mac - Count the characters in some text - Create a new text expansion shortcut with Espanso[1] - Start/stop a Focus[2] session - etc. Because they're in Raycast, they're super accessible to me — I simply hit CMD + Space, type the first word of what I need and hit Enter. Loving it! [0]: https://raycast.com […
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on “Ask HN: Tools you have made for yourself?”The best of this kind of apps I've found is Focus for Mac[1]. It works at the OS level, allows you to block apps and sites, and doesn't get disabled if you restart the computer. A downside is that it's not free. [1] https://heyfocus.com/
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on “Show HN: I made a Chrome extension that helps battle impulsive procrastination”I tried out RescueTime in the past (~2010-12 or so) but I was never comfortable sending my tracking data to a remote server. I since found Qbserve[0] which is a similar product, but it keeps all your data local. If I find myself distracted on any given day, then I turn on focus.app [1] to kill those distractions. It's not as elegant of a solution as what RescueTime offers, but all my data stays on my machine which i…
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on “Launch HN: RescueTime (YC W08) – Redesigned for wellness, balance, remote work”Author mentions SelfControl [1], which is great, but a bit rough. I'd recommend Focus [2] instead -- much nicer experience, and I believe it's made by a fellow HNer. [1] http://selfcontrolapp.com/ [2] http://heyfocus.com/
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on “Working from home”Focus is another one I really like on the Mac - it replaces websites with a different quotation each time: https://heyfocus.com/ On Windows, I add websites to the hosts file as others have suggested: HN and Google News are the main ones, I gave up FB long ago. Doing this still doesn't get you back on track coding / focusing, but it helps. The idea is to break your habit of visiting distracting sites - where these ap…
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on “Ask HN: I lost my ability to focus for hours on coding. How to regain?”SEEKING WORK - REMOTE I build beautiful iOS and Mac apps (among other things). Here's my latest: http://www.heyfocus.com/ I open sourced it at https://github.com/bradjasper/focus I wrote a case study on it at http://bradjasper.com/focus.html Another recent open-source project I made was a way to find patterns from SubtlePatterns that did really well here on HN: http://bradjasper.com/subtle-patterns-bookmarklet/ Here…
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on “Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (February 2014)”Get Focus - https://heyfocus.com
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on “Tell HN: My best productivity hack”As a developer, I find it hardest to focus when I don't really have anything clear to focus on. On the other hand, if I have clearly specced small tasks that need to be done, it's quite easy to focus on those, even when there are distractions. If I hit a roadblock or realize I have to re-plan something, that's the moment when I usually lose focus. Also, I'm not good at focusing in the design / planning stage, if the…
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on “Losing focus: Why tech is getting in the way of work”SEEKING WORK - Remote, NC, travel ok - You have a brilliant idea for a new app - You find a developer just as passionate about the idea as you - You immediately start working on sketches, wireframes and building a prototype - A few months go by...things aren't going so well. The project is late, over budget, and critical features have been cut At this point things usually go from bad to worse. Maybe you decide to st…
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on “Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (April 2014)”Different issue ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20172172 ), but my heuristics might work for you as well. I'm not a therapist, so take it with a pinch of salt. 1) Edit the host file to block nsfw websites on your computer: https://github.com/4skinSkywalker/anti-porn-hosts-file . Note that the host file blocks whole websites (e.g. reddit.com), not specific pages (reddit.com/r/news/). 2) Download a web/app bloc…
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on “Ask HN: I am addicted to Porn. Help me quit”1.) command + option + d to hide the dock 2.) Camouflage App to hide desktop elements: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/camouflage/id445264274?mt=12 3.) https://selfcontrolapp.com/ - to block sides like Facebook system wide for some time! 4.) https://heyfocus.com/ to play the complete game :)
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on “Ask HN: How to make my macOS less distracting?”I use Focus[1] in hardcore mode, scheduled from 22:00-12:55 and 13:00-19:00. I really suggest reading Deep Work by Cal Newport. For my phone - I deleted all of my social apps (apart from Instagram, Swarm etc) and keep it in another room or in my bag as much as possible. [1] http://heyfocus.com
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on “Ask HN: How do you manage Facebook/Whats App/Twitter/Email/Etc addiction?”The piece also mentions this, but Hacker News has a "No Procrastination" feature you can enable in your profile. You can set the maximum number of minutes you're allowed to visit Hacker News for, and the minimum number of minutes you need to be away before the site will let you return. There's other software that can help too, to block you from websites for a period of time. Years ago my favourite was Concentrate on…
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on “Hacker News addiction and taking simple mundane breaks in life”I just finished reinstalling my Mac, so I've been working on a list of all the native apps that I reinstalled. Apologies for the giant comment, but I hope it helps: Mac Specific Utilities * Alfred (best reason to own a Mac) https://www.alfredapp.com/ * Bartender 3 (for tweaking the menu bar) https://www.macbartender.com/ * Coconut Battery (battery menu-bar monitor) https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/ * F…
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on “Ask HN: Suggestions for native Mac apps?”Same issue. Now I use an website/application blocker . I set up a schedule 8:30~19:00 so that I can't access distractions during my workday, even If I wanted to! My tool of choice is focus https://heyfocus.com/?utm_source=focus_about I'm not affiliated to the developer, I just really like the app. I locked down the settings so that there's no way to undo the block while it's running: the lack of options is oddly fre…
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on “Ask HN: How do I make using a computer distraction free?”Just https://heyfocus.com which I must have installed through Setapp, as I don't remember paying for it. It has a scripting capability so in theory I might be able to do something to prevent it from triggering when I'm active in a form.
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on “Automatic emergency braking should become mandatory, feds say”A similar Mac version of this is HeyFocus - https://heyfocus.com It is paid but it really gets the job done. I don't really use it these days (kinda built up the habit). I remember setting the quotes to just one phrase -- "Get the F*K back to Work" or something like that or was it like "You ought to be Working" (as seen in the ceiling of Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man.
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on “Pomodoro Timer”
