National Stress Awareness Day is upon us and it&rsquo;s a good reminder to take time for ourselves, to breathe, and to <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-stay-mindful" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">practice mindfulness</a> so we can better relieve stress in our everyday lives.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Stress is unfortunately something that we all feel and have felt throughout all portions of life. According to the Mental Health Foundation, 74% of people have felt so stressed in the last year that they felt they were unable to cope. And while small amounts of stress can motivate us to work harder, complete our tasks and meet our goals, too much stress can cause negative effects like changes to your mood, your body, your relationships, and your overall quality of life.&nbsp;

<h2>Get Outside</h2>
Countless studies have shown that being outside in nature can have a tremendous impact on your mental health. There is a strong connection between time spent outdoors and reduced negative emotions. One of those emotions and feelings is stress. Research Gate, which connects science to the rest of the world, conducted a study and found that &ldquo;stress is relieved within minutes of exposure to nature as measured by muscle tension, blood pressure, and brain activity. Time in green spaces significantly reduces your cortisol, which is a stress hormone.&rdquo; They also found that nature boosts endorphin levels and dopamine production which promotes happiness. Basically- if you are feeling stressed or down, try spending 10-15 minutes a day outside when possible and see how your mood is changed.
<h2>Brain Dump</h2>
Brain dumps are essentially exactly what it sounds like. It&rsquo;s a time when you just let everything you&rsquo;re thinking - words, feelings, emotions - out onto paper. When you get your thoughts on paper you can increase your self-awareness and understand what&rsquo;s causing the current feelings you&rsquo;re having, which in turn can decrease stress. It&rsquo;s a great exercise to boost focus and stay organized which can help in managing your stress levels.

<h2>Use BlockSite&nbsp;</h2>
If you feel stressed due to outside distractions taking your focus away <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh">try our free extension</a>. For instance, if you know you should be focusing on a specific task or assignment, yet you drift to your phone more than once to check social media, or text your friends back, or watch a video on YouTube, you could be adding to your overall stress levels. <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-do-nothing-and-resist-digital-distractions">You know that you shouldn&rsquo;t be checking these things</a> but we&rsquo;re human, and these platforms can often feel extremely tempting to check. With BlockSite in your corner, you can select the day and hour of when you&rsquo;d like these distractions blocked from your access.
<h2>Do Something Creative</h2>
Creativity has been known to reduce anxiety, depression, and stress. A creative act can help focus the mind and produce calming effects on the brain and body. And the creative act you choose doesn&rsquo;t necessarily have to be something artistic, sometimes the word &lsquo;creative&rsquo; can be intimidating. You can listen to your favorite music, write, draw or doodle, garden, sew, etc.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2>Talk To Someone - Friend, Colleague, Family, Therapist</h2>
When we share our feelings, our concerns, and our stressors with people we trust and feel comfortable with we can actually relieve the stress we feel because we&rsquo;re &lsquo;lightening the load&rsquo; so to say. Speaking out loud with someone can help you organize your thoughts and identify your feelings and they might be able to offer additional support. A study done by <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/">Carnegie Mellon University</a> found that those who use their family and friends as a stress buffer to discuss their problems with have stronger, more positive coping mechanisms when it comes to dealing with stress.&nbsp;
Remember to take it easy not only on National Stress Awareness Day but in general. You owe it to yourself. Try the above stress management tips and see what feels most right and more importantly, what works for you.&nbsp;

National Stress Awareness Day is upon us and it’s a good reminder to take time for ourselves, to breathe, and to practice mindfulness

Stress Management Tips for Stress Awareness Day - BlockSite

Stress Management Tips for Stress Awareness Day

As we celebrated all types of teachers around the world for World Teacher Day on October 5, we asked ourselves, how can we show up and help teachers in a concrete way? We want to serve as a resource for teachers around the globe when they&rsquo;re looking for solutions on how to <a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity">maintain productivity</a> and focus in their classroom, for their students, and even for their day-to-day busy lives. We&rsquo;ve gathered some of the top tips the internet and experienced educators had to offer when it comes to keeping a productive classroom and setting students up for success.

<h2>Setting Expectations&nbsp;</h2>
Setting and managing expectations is a helpful skill to learn and navigate through all walks of life that can start in the classroom and be extremely beneficial when carried over into the workplace. It creates the opportunity for your students to define and visualize their goals for the upcoming semester or school year. It also provides you, as the teacher, with ample opportunity to offer assistance in both big and small ways - like encouraging, resources to find solutions if they run into difficulties, and the ability to measure their progress in demonstrable ways that can <a href="https://evernote.com/blog/teachers-guide-set-students-high-school-success/">boost their self-confidence</a>. When students know their expectations from the very beginning, they are more likely to work towards that goal as there are no lingering questions about what&rsquo;s - well - expected of them.&nbsp;
<h2>A Little Freedom Goes A Long Way&nbsp;</h2>
When students feel they have the freedom of choice in the classroom, it creates a culture of trust and autonomy. Freedom in the classroom can look like letting students sit wherever they want, next to whomever they choose or choosing how they want to complete an assignment. Maybe instead of submitting a 4-page essay on the research, they&rsquo;ve done, they&rsquo;d like to create and present a slideshow for the class, or present it in another medium to showcase what they&rsquo;ve learned.&nbsp;
Students - young children and young adults - can at times crave independence and want their actions to be trusted. At the end of the day, if you think the choices they are making are hindering their performance, you always have the authority to adjust the situation and move things around. It can be extremely positive to let your students have the benefit of the doubt and rectify a mistake rather than treat them as irresponsible or unable to make the right choices from the beginning.

<h2>Create A Question-Friendly Space</h2>
I&rsquo;m sure we&rsquo;re all familiar with the expression &ldquo;there is no such thing as a dumb question&rdquo; - yet no matter how much that expression can be repeated, students often still feel intimated to ask questions within the classroom. Maybe they themselves are worried about coming off as &ldquo;dumb&rdquo; in front of their peers or being ridiculed for asking a question they feel everyone else already knows the answers to. Maybe they feel their question isn&rsquo;t worthwhile. Fear is a big driver when it comes to students speaking up in a classroom. As a teacher and educator, you can tackle this fear in a few ways - one way is by showing your own curiosity and asking questions in your classroom. If there&rsquo;s something you don&rsquo;t know the answer to, admit that to them, and show them in real-time the ways in which you use critical thinking yourself to find answers. Ask them to share their own opinion, to think about what they think the answer might be, to create a discussion between classmates on the solution, etc.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Encouraging curiosity will make a huge impact on the level of engagement within your classroom and how comfortable a student feels when it&rsquo;s time to ask questions and raise discussions.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2>Leveraging BlockSite</h2>
Sometimes students, like the rest of us, need an extra push to increase their productivity and reach their academic goals. Staying productive and focused can feel like even more of a challenge with <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-do-nothing-and-resist-digital-distractions">today&rsquo;s constant distractions</a> that provide instant gratification. From texts to social media, to messaging platforms, apps, and more, it is something we all must now navigate through life. Consider using BlockSite&rsquo;s Chrome Extension or Mobile App when providing a solution to students that want to lock in their focus time. Our site and app list blocking feature remove the distractions of pop-up notifications and the ability to go to or check blocked sites and apps for a time period that you determine ahead of time. Whether it&rsquo;s just 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour. Let&rsquo;s say you want to have a distraction-free silent study once a week. Creating this session will let students know that once a week, they will have the space and time in your classroom to chip away at their upcoming assignments. You can help them increase their productivity during these sessions by taking &lsquo;silent study&rsquo; a step further and utilizing BlockSite to remove the temptation of wanting to respond to a text, check Instagram, or scroll through their apps. BlockSite can be in both your corner and your student's corner, <a href="https://api.blocksite.co/download">with the click of a button or the tap of an app</a>.
Implementing these tips and strategies can empower your students to work at their highest, most confident level. When you build up their confidence, encourage curiosity, and provide your support you&rsquo;re helping your students achieve what they&rsquo;re capable of and you&rsquo;re setting them up for continued, future success.

As we celebrated all types of teachers around the world we asked ourselves, how can we show up and help teachers in a concrete way?

How to Keep a Productive Classroom - BlockSite

Top Tips for Teachers in Keeping a Productive Classroom

We are officially in the second month of the school year and we thought it&rsquo;s the perfect time to dive into back-to-school tips as you get back into your school routine. Whether you are a new or returning student in your college career, high school, or are a parent and want to help set your child up for success, our back-to-school guide is offering tips on how to start this school year on the right foot, how to be more productive, and how to reach your academic goals.

<h2>Establish your routine</h2>
After the summer months of going to bed late, sleeping in, and spending all day outside, with family, with friends, establishing a routine might not sound that exciting. But re-establishing a daily routine is crucial in ensuring you&rsquo;re set up for success so you can meet your goals, find time for your hobbies, and feel focused as you tackle your daily and weekly assignments. Of course, your daily routine and day-to-day might change from time to time, and it&rsquo;s important to stay flexible, but having a structure set in place will help you feel organized and focused as you move through it.&nbsp;
If you aren&rsquo;t sure how to create an easy-to-follow daily routine, here are a few general tips:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set a designated time to wake up and have breakfast</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Follow your class schedule and attend every class</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Try to not overload yourself with commitments- social commitments included</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set time aside in the evening to work on assignments, projects, etc.&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Choose days of the week for social outings</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set a time frame for the ideal hour you would like to be in bed by</li>
</ol>
<h2>Find &amp; create a comfortable workplace&nbsp;</h2>
Cluttered desks, overcrowded tables, loud background noises, uncomfortable chairs, and dim lighting- are all components that can lead to a distracted session of studying or completing assignments. When it&rsquo;s time for you to get in the focus zone, you want to create an organized atmosphere so you can focus without the temptation of paying attention to what&rsquo;s happening in the world around you. In fact, studies have found that when you lose your focus, it takes up to 23 minutes to refocus yourself.&nbsp;
 Try to create, or find, an <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/6-ways-to-stay-focused-and-motivated-when-studying">organized environment</a> that will help you concentrate and where you&rsquo;ll feel comfortable spending a few hours at a time.&nbsp;

<h2>Create a digital distraction-free zone</h2>
It seems that no matter what we&rsquo;re doing, who we&rsquo;re with, or where we are, <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-do-nothing-and-resist-digital-distractions">our cell phones are calling on us to check them.</a> And our phones, and the apps within them, were designed to make us feel exactly that. Social media notifications, email pings, push messages- they&rsquo;re made to make us feel instant gratification as long as we continue to check them. It&rsquo;s what we call the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy">attention economy</a>. It can be very challenging to not pay attention to the devices we&rsquo;ve incorporated into the daily parts of our lives, so it&rsquo;s helpful to have a few things set in place and on your side to overcome that need of wanting to check. One is BlockSite. With BlockSite, you can literally choose the time of the day you want your distractions blocked from interrupting you.&nbsp;
For instance, let&rsquo;s say you carve out 2-4 pm every day to study, review notes, or begin your weekly assignments. You can use BlockSite to schedule those exact hours as hours you want your biggest distractions blocked. Whether it&rsquo;s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Discord, Twitch, or Reddit - you can build your list to include whatever you need. Check out our <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?UTM_source=website&amp;UTM_medium=blog&amp;UTM_Campaign=backtoschool&amp;UTM_Content=post">Chrome extension for free</a> and see how blocking your distractions improves your focus and thus, <a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">your productivity</a>.&nbsp;
<h2>Organize and review your notes&nbsp;</h2>
After you finish class, try not to pack your things and immediately forget about all of the notes you just wrote. Try to set time aside each day, or week, to review your notes so you can have some one-on-one time with the information you learned. You&rsquo;ll be able to fill in any gaps you might have missed, or fix the parts that don&rsquo;t make sense. Highlight what you found interesting, or something your teacher/professor emphasized. Interacting with your notes will help you remember what you learned and will set you up for success later in the semester. In addition, when you review your notes, you&rsquo;ll be able to keep track of anything else mentioned in class like upcoming assignments, exams, important deadlines, etc.&nbsp;
We hope you found this helpful! Here&rsquo;s to a productive, helpful, and fun upcoming school year and semester from everyone here at BlockSite.

We are officially in the second month of the school year and we thought it’s the perfect time to dive into back-to-school tips as you get back into your school

4 Back to School Tips with BlockSite - BlockSite

4 Back to School Tips with BlockSite 

Incentives. What are incentives? By definition, an incentive is anything that persuades someone to change their behavior to reach the desired outcome. But how can incentives work to our benefit and become the source of our motivations? How do we learn what motivates us to meet and accomplish our goals at work, school, or personal lives? We&rsquo;re diving into all of that and more.&nbsp;
If you&rsquo;re looking for an additional sidekick to help you accomplish your goals and increase your focus, check out our <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh">Chrome Extension</a>. We do the heavy lifting for you by blocking out your distractions so you can concentrate on what matters.&nbsp;

<h2>So what is the incentive motivation?</h2>
The incentive motivation theory suggests that we become more motivated when we believe that whatever it is we&rsquo;re doing will result in a reward and will actively avoid actions that lead to punishment. When you apply the incentive motivation to work, or at school, you can start to see and understand how it plays out naturally in our day-to-day lives as well.&nbsp;
For instance, an employee or student might work harder on a project in order to earn positive feedback or good grades, or, they might be motivated by simply not wanting to receive negative feedback or poor grades. Their motivation is connected to their desire to receive a reward or avoid punishment.&nbsp;
You can probably think of situations you&rsquo;ve experienced in your own personal life where your behavior was ultimately influenced by the promise of a reward or avoidance of punishment. Maybe you spent extra hours studying for finals to get that A+, or pushed yourself in the gym to hit a new personal record, or took on additional tasks at work to receive recognition from your manager. These actions are all technically influenced by an incentive to gain something positive in return for the efforts you put in.&nbsp;
Think about your childhood even. Were you ever told to eat your vegetables so you could grow up big and strong? Did it work? Not the big and strong part but the eating of the vegetables for the promise of the desired outcome.&nbsp;
More recently, in relation to COVID-19, we saw an example of incentive motivation playing out when companies and organizations rewarded those who received their Covid vaccine. Multiple organizations were offering prizes, meal vouchers, admission, and entry to certain places and restaurants to those that received their vaccine shot. And it worked as there are almost 5 billion people vaccinated. What&rsquo;s important to call out here is the fact that these incentives were strictly social-driven. That&rsquo;s why understanding what motivates us is crucial because it can look very different across any situation- professionally, socially, and educationally.&nbsp;

<h2>How to stay motivated at work using incentive motivation?&nbsp;</h2>
Looking for additional ways to <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/avoid-the-summer-slump-how-to-stay-focused-at-work">stay motivated at work</a> doesn&rsquo;t always mean you aren&rsquo;t motivated to perform well. Sometimes you need to find different avenues of inspiration and create a refresh on your day-to-day. Utilizing the incentive motivation as a basis for understanding what motivates and drives you might help in accomplishing just that.&nbsp;
In order to properly use incentive motivation as a driving force at your job, you need to identify your core values in the workplace. Once you have a better understanding of said values, you can use them as incentives to motivate yourself into meeting your professional goals.
In order to identify those values, you need to ask yourself a few questions.&nbsp;
Questions like:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What drives you to perform well at work?&nbsp;</li>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">Is it monetary or non-monetary achievements?&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What&rsquo;s your favorite part about your job?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What do you look forward to throughout your workday?&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Monetary incentives are straightforward- employees will work harder if they have an option to receive a bonus or a raise. It&rsquo;s not only psychologically rewarding but provides a feeling of security as well. Non-monetary incentives can look like many things. Job security, promotions, team or manager recognition, or the desire for professional development and growth. These incentives are different in the way that they motivate, but they still motivate.&nbsp;&nbsp;
When you recognize for instance what you look forward to throughout your workday, you can use it as an incentive to work through a task and reward yourself with what you answered.&nbsp;
<h2>How to stay motivated at school using incentive motivations?&nbsp;</h2>
Just like in the workplace, if you are a student, you need to understand and identify what your core values are in your educational career. You can start with questions like:&nbsp;
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What motivates you to perform well in your studies?</li>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">Is it recognition from your family? From your professors? From your peers? Is it the feeling of seeing your grades come back and feeling proud of yourself?</li>
</ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What&rsquo;s your favorite part about being a student?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Which aspects of student life make you happy?&nbsp;</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What assignments do you look forward to?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Which classes make you excited and which ones don&rsquo;t?&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
There are a ton of different motivating incentives to explore when you are a student. And the earlier you do it, the earlier you can understand what will help you perform at your highest level, and lead you to a rewarding and successful educational experience. You might find yourself motivated to complete an assignment by the promise of being able to hangout with your friends afterward or the reward of getting a good grade. Maybe you get excited by sharing your achievements with your family and friends. Perhaps you reward yourself by going to a party after completing a difficult assignment.&nbsp;
At the end of the day, we are all humans, and we will always have different types of motivators for different types of situations, throughout different periods of our lives. When you are working on something, whether a project, specific task, or new concept/idea, try to think if you are trying to gain an incentive (reward) when you finish or if you&rsquo;re trying to avoid a negative outcome. Understanding the forces behind the way you work and deliver said work will help you understand the best way to motivate yourself, produce quality work, and reach your goals.&nbsp;

Incentives. What are incentives? By definition, an incentive is anything that persuades someone to change their behavior in order to reach a desired outcome

What is incentive motivation and how does it work? - BlockSite

What is incentive motivation and how does it work?

Let&rsquo;s be honest. As you&rsquo;re reading this, what else is happening in the background? Is Netflix or Hulu on? Is there a <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/top-productivity-podcasts">podcast playing</a>? Are you thinking about exiting this page to open any of the many social media apps? Are you thinking of what to order online?&nbsp;&nbsp;
The world - the digital world at least - is quite literally in the palm of our hands and fingertips. With everything in this world comes the feeling of instant gratification. But at the cost of our time. Your social media notification, the email ping, the next TikTok video - all of a sudden you&rsquo;ve lost hours of your day. You could have spent hours catching up with family, and friends, reading a book from your to-read list or completing literally anything else.&nbsp;
To be completely fair, it&rsquo;s not our fault that we find ourselves distracted and engaged with our devices - television, cellphones, tablets, computers, etc. We constantly have something telling us &ldquo;hey, look at me!&rdquo; &ldquo;Hello! Check me out!&rdquo; &ldquo;you have an unread notification!&rdquo;. It casts a sense of urgency on us to constantly be checked in. That&rsquo;s what we call the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy">attention economy</a>.&nbsp;

<h2>Let&rsquo;s define the attention economy&nbsp;</h2>
Anything can be monetized these days, including our attention. And when we spend an average of 7 hours per day online, it makes sense that a ton of marketing and advertising efforts continue to be pushed online, on the places and sites we spend our time. The global digital advertising market in 2022 was valued at $572 billion, where 63% of the overall expenditure was spent on digital media ads across any device with access to an internet connection.
The sites and apps we find ourselves spending so much time on, like Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc, profit from these ads and profit the more hours we spend on their platforms.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Now enter the attention economy. An economy where our attention is the product. And even when we aren&rsquo;t spending our own money on these sites, we provide our attention, which is a very valuable resource. With the fast-paced digital environment that exists today, the competition to hold our attention for longer periods is strong. We&rsquo;ve all been in that situation, where we open Instagram - or whichever app you prefer - scroll for a few minutes, close it, open up another app, scroll for a few minutes, close it, then open Instagram back up again. It can feel like an endless cycle sometimes. But even so, the 7 hours we spend online means something is working, something is keeping us there.
The &lsquo;something&rsquo; that&rsquo;s keeping us there can range from clickbait articles and posts, the infinite scroll mechanism, auto-playing videos, endless notifications and icons, and more. These are all methods to keep us attentive to our devices and their apps. And we already know, that when we&rsquo;re online, we&rsquo;re being tracked, meaning the more we use our devices, the more targeted and personalized recommendations and ads become.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2>Now what?</h2>
It can seem bleak and impossible to avoid. But in actuality, it is possible to resist the attention economy. It will require practice and patience while you remove distractions and learn <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/apr/02/jenny-odell-how-to-do-nothing-attention">how to do nothing</a>, while not feeling like you&rsquo;re missing out on all of the things waiting for you on your device. At times you will naturally reach for your phone but again it&rsquo;s all about practice and patience. Rome wasn&rsquo;t built in a day! And those 7 hours won&rsquo;t be reduced to 1 hour in a day.&nbsp;

<h2>Learning how to do nothing</h2>
<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused">In order to stay focused</a> on your journey of doing nothing, there are a few things you can start out with, see if they resonate with you, and then implement them as part of your daily routine.&nbsp;
<h2>Turn Off Your Devices</h2>
One major power you hold over the attention economy is the power to check out on your time by shutting down and <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-stop-your-phone-addiction">turning off your devices</a>. When you shut off from the digital world you can stay focused on what&rsquo;s happening in your day, in your world. Not in the days and worlds of other people's lives on the internet. Try it for 1-2 hours a day and see how you feel.&nbsp;
<h2>Invest In A Tech-Free Hobby</h2>
If turning off your devices isn&rsquo;t the way you want to start this journey, that&rsquo;s totally fine. Try starting a new hobby that requires your full attention. Like going to a workout class, participating in a pottery workshop, cooking a meal, learning how to make a new dessert, reading a book, and taking a walk everyday. Anything that keeps your hands and minds distracted from your devices.&nbsp;
<h2>Schedule Your Free Time</h2>
Think about the things in your life, in your day-to-day life that requires and deserve your attention. Spending quality time with your family, catching up with your friends, and visiting your favorite coffee shop and barista. Do you want to experience these things in real-time or catch their updates online? Try<a href="https://api.blocksite.co/download"> BlockSite&rsquo;s Schedule feature</a> that helps you block all distractions during the select hours you choose, so you can better focus on what&rsquo;s important to you.
<h2>Block Distracting Websites &amp; Apps&nbsp;&nbsp;</h2>
Take the pressure off of yourself to not visit those distracting websites and apps. We&rsquo;re so used to it, that it&rsquo;s so natural to open a new tab, or app, and visit Facebook or Twitter. Let BlockSite help you with our features designed to navigate these challenges. With BlockSite, you can block any and all websites and apps that you choose and even select when you want to be able to access them again.&nbsp;
Doing nothing in the age of the attention economy can seem like an intimidating task. Luckily, you don&rsquo;t have to go it alone.&nbsp;

Let’s be honest. As you’re reading this, what else is happening in the background? Is Netflix or Hulu on? Is there a podcast playing?

How to do nothing and resist digital distractions - BlockSite

How to do nothing and resist digital distractions

If you&rsquo;re one of the 139.84 million people in the world that are affected by ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), you can understand how challenging it can be to avoid distractions,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">stay focused</a>, and work efficiently. We&rsquo;ve put together a list of helpful tips and strategies that highlight ways in which you can manage your symptoms,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">drive productivity</a>&nbsp;and perform at your highest level. Our sources come from medical researchers and magazines like Medical News Today, WebMD, Advanced Psychiatry Associates, and more, but don&rsquo;t serve as a whole truth. If you think you have ADHD you should consult with a medical professional. With that being said, let&rsquo;s dive right in.&nbsp;

<h2>What is ADHD?&nbsp;</h2>
According to the CDC, ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood that often lasts into adulthood. Someone with neurodevelopmental disorders can experience difficulties with language and speech, behavior, memory, learning, and motor skills. Dealing with these symptoms in adulthood can cause difficulty at work or school, at home, or in relationships, and can become more prevalent as the demands of adulthood increase, like paying bills on time, concentrating at work, and delivering tasks on time.
There are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/facts.html">three types of ADHD</a>:
<ol>
<li>Predominantly Inattentive Presentation
<ul>
<li>Inattentive Presentation&nbsp;makes it harder for an individual to organize or finish a task, pay attention to details, or follow instructions/conversations. They are easily distracted and can often forget the details of their daily routines.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation
<ul>
<li>Hyperactive-Impulsive Presentation&nbsp;presents itself more physically than inattentive presentation. It causes more fidgeting, talking, and the inability to sit for long. This person might feel restless and have trouble with impulsivity.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Combined Presentation&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Symptoms of the above two types are equally present in the person</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<h2>Helpful Tips &amp; Tricks&nbsp;</h2>
One of the biggest trademarks of ADHD is lack of attention and being easily distracted, making the ability to stay organized one of the greatest challenges adults with ADHD face. Being aware of this challenge yet feeling like not much can change can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed and in some cases anxiety.&nbsp;

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Fortunately, there are ways to break down whatever it is you might be working on into smaller steps to stay on top of your work and stay organized.&nbsp;
Use a calendar or planner&nbsp;to schedule and organize your tasks, activities, and appointments. Not only will this help in remembering deadlines and important events, but it will also serve as a solution for organizing your day-to-day duties. Make it a habit to check it each morning so you can assess and prioritize your tasks for the day. If you go with an electronic calendar on your phone, computer, or a specific app, you can set up automatic reminders to ensure nothing will slip your mind.&nbsp;
Break it down when you can. Do you have a big task or project coming up that feels impossible or overwhelming to complete? Or maybe you aren&rsquo;t sure where to start. Try breaking it down into smaller, more manageable tasks that are easier to approach. Create a checklist of what steps need to be accomplished in order to reach your end goal. Once you have your initial checklist, putting the items in chronological order of what needs to be done when can be really helpful so that you have a physical step-by-step guide. For example, if you have a project that says &lsquo;Complete Research Paper&rsquo; or even &lsquo;Clean the entire kitchen&rsquo; try adding subtasks like &lsquo;gather research materials and books&rsquo; or &lsquo;put all dirty dishes in the sink&rsquo;. And let&rsquo;s be honest, crossing items off a checklist is always a great feeling!&nbsp;
Listen to music&nbsp;or use a white noise machine.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.additudemag.com/music-therapy-for-adhd-how-rhythm-builds-focus/">Research has shown</a>&nbsp;that listening to music builds better focus, self-control, and even social skills in people with ADHD. Music and its rhythm is a structure, and structure is soothing to an ADHD brain that&rsquo;s struggling to stay on a &lsquo;linear path&rsquo;. Keep in mind, however, that songs with lyrics could possibly have a distracting effect. Create a playlist that&rsquo;s a nice mix of some of your favorite songs sprinkled together with some classical music and instrumental pieces.&nbsp;
Keep things visual and colorful. A common symptom of ADHD is forgetfulness. If something is out of sight, it&rsquo;s also out of mind for someone with ADHD. Keeping visual cues or color coding files, folders, and notes can help you keep what&rsquo;s important at the top of your mind and hard to miss.
Minimize Distractions,<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en&amp;UTM_Campaign=ADHD_blog">&nbsp;use BlockSite.</a>&nbsp;You don&rsquo;t have to go it alone or tackle these hurdles alone when you use BlockSite. Our features are built to minimize your distractions, increase your focus, and help you achieve your goals in a way that&rsquo;s comfortable for you. Choose the websites and apps you want to be blocked and for how long you want them blocked. With tools like Scheduling Mode and Work Mode, you can set specific times of the day to complete tasks while your distractions like YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, etc. are blocked.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Living with ADHD is no easy feat. However, there are tools and strategies you can implement to help in order to make it that much easier. The good news is that not all of the strategies are limited to what you&rsquo;ve read in this article. If you find that you are having a hard time staying focused and that the internet and your phone are one of your larger distractions, consider trying BlockSite for free today.
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If you’re one of the 139.84 million people in the world that are affected by ADHD, you can understand how challenging it can be to avoid distractions

How to deal with ADHD as an adult

When you think about&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">staying focused</a>&nbsp;at work or while studying, listening to a podcast might not be the first solution that comes to mind. However, when you are listening to a podcast while completing other tasks &ndash; whether assignments, work tasks, house chores, gardening, or errands &ndash; you are already accomplishing two things at once, thus&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">improving your productivity</a>.&nbsp;
When you think of the different methods people use to concentrate, listening to a podcast doesn&rsquo;t seem so farfetched. For instance,&nbsp;Accountemps&nbsp;conducted a survey in 2018 to assess music in the workplace. 85% of survey respondents said they listen to music while working, and 39% of the total respondents said music helps them be more productive. And yes, while music doesn&rsquo;t have much to do with podcasts, it&rsquo;s not implausible to consider that listening to podcasts can have the same effect. Do we recommend true crime podcasts that leave you hanging on every word? No! We recommend podcasts you can leave on in the background that will deter you from getting distracted by blocking out outside noises, as well as those that offer helpful tips and strategies to be your most productive and focused self. &nbsp;

<h2>Tiny Desk Concerts&nbsp;</h2>
 
Okay, this one is actually a music-based podcast and it&rsquo;s probably one of the most popular podcasts to listen to while you work. Tiny Desk features singers covering their music live in acoustic, or calmed down versions of their songs. The artists speak softly about their work, why they chose to perform them, and then immediately start performing. If you think of one of your favorite performers it&rsquo;s likely they&rsquo;ve made an appearance on this podcast.&nbsp;
 
Here&rsquo;s one of the most listened to Tiny Desk episodes with artist Anderson Paak
 
<iframe width="560" height="314" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ferZnZ0_rSM" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
<h2>The White Noise Podcast</h2>
Just as the title suggests, The White Noise Podcast is exactly that, white noise. It&rsquo;s the perfect option to block out distractions like a noisy library or chatty colleagues. Each episode offers a different type of white noise at different levels of intensity. You might be surprised by their library of sounds that range from nature sounds to loud cities, but anyone might just do the trick.&nbsp;
<h2>The Affirmation Pod</h2>
Affirmations offer a way to drive encouragement, motivation, and positivity. The Affirmation Pod with Josie Ong puts out various episodes based on your needs. Whether you are looking to be inspired, feel more motivated, or have a confidence boost before a big presentation or meeting, this podcast is a great place to start.&nbsp;
<h2>Beyond The To-Do List</h2>
This podcast is hosted by Social Media Manager turned productivity expert, Erik Fisher. Fisher uses each episode to discuss practical personal and professional productivity tips and how when implemented and practiced, you can live &lsquo;a more meaningful life&rsquo;. His topics include mastering prioritization, achieving mindfulness at work and at home, and more.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2>The 5am Miracle</h2>
We&rsquo;ll never push our readers to wake up at 5 AM but Jeff Saunders, host of The 5 AM Miracle podcast might just convince you. As a self-proclaimed &lsquo;productivity junkie&rsquo;, Jeff aims to help his listeners build and identify goals, create simple schedules, implement powerful daily habits, highlight the best productivity strategies for you, and more. If you&rsquo;re looking for a way to improve your productivity through daily action should definitely be on your list.&nbsp;
<h2>How I Built This with Guy Raz</h2>
On NPR&rsquo;s How I Built This podcast with host Guy Raz, you are bound to feel motivated. He invites people from all walks of life, from NASA to successful startups; he focuses on the journeys of his guests to enable them to apply what they learn to their own lives and work. This is a great podcast to listen to while you work to energize you, provide inspiration, and provide new ideas on how to best accomplish your goals.&nbsp;
<h2>StartUp</h2>
Want to get your entrepreneurial spirit going? Listen to the Startup podcast. This podcast is almost similar to a documentary podcast, sharing the ways in which businesses were started and how they eventually found success. The stories are captivating but not in the sense that they will take you away from your work to listen to every single detail. It provides a great source of inspiration and can help you think of out-of-the-box solutions for your current role.&nbsp;
<h2>Defeat The Drama At Work</h2>
Each episode of Defeat The Drama At Work focuses on creative ways you can keep yourself, and others focused and motivated at work. This is a perfect listen if you are in a leadership role or work across a variety of different teams. You&rsquo;ll get tips on how to problem-solve efficiently and how to ensure that everyone is producing and delivering high-quality work.&nbsp;&nbsp;
People need help with their productivity from all different sources. Podcasts are becoming a go-to for achieving new methods of blocking out outside distractions, increasing focus, and expanding one&rsquo;s mind. Do you have any podcasts you listen to that help with your productivity and focus? We would love to hear from and add them to the list. Looking for new ways to improve your productivity?&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;utm_campaign=extension&amp;utm_content=podcast" data-type="URL" data-id="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;utm_campaign=extension&amp;utm_content=podcast" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Try BlockSite on Google Chrome today</a>.

When you think about staying focused at work or while studying, listening to a podcast might not be the first solution that comes to mind

Top Productivity Podcasts

Ahh, summer is almost here. Beach days, barbecues, bonfires, air conditioning, and oh yeah &ndash; work. While the summer months can bring about some of our favorite seasonally-focused activities, it also brings noticeable changes in the workplace and the way we work. For instance,&nbsp;<a href="https://officepulse.captivate.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Captivate-Summer-Hours-Release-Final.pdf">studies have shown</a>&nbsp;that when the summer season arrives, productivity in the workplace plummets by 20%, and distractions skyrocket by 45%. So that drowsy 3 pm feeling at work can actually feel even drowsier and slower throughout the summer.&nbsp;
Whether it&rsquo;s the heat or the desire to be outdoors, don&rsquo;t let the summer stop you from meeting your tasks and goals. We&rsquo;re offering some of our top tips on how you can stay focused, productive, and motivated at work even when you would rather be on vacation.&nbsp;

<h2>How to stay focused at work</h2>
While there are a lot of ways you can manage your time and track your productivity, there are also a few things your employer can do to help increase motivation and in turn, overall productivity. For example, simply adjusting the temperature of the air conditioner can have a huge impact on workplace performance during the summer. A survey found that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.andrews-sykes.com/info/office-temperature-infographic-20/">50% of offices are considered to be too hot</a>&nbsp;and that employees spend almost 8.5 minutes per day adjusting the office temperature. Understanding what type of temperature helps your employees feel comfortable can be the difference between a good work day and a great work day.&nbsp;
As we all learned during the pandemic, flexibility in the workplace is key. The introduction of Summer Fridays in the workplace in the 60s, which provides employees the opportunity to work half-days or take Fridays off, boost not only productivity but morale as well &ndash; which can often be just as important as positive morale impacts everyone in the workplace including their performance. In fact, 66% of employees who have summer Fridays feel they&rsquo;re more productive throughout the week and summer months &ndash; not less.&nbsp;&nbsp;
It would definitely be worthwhile talking through the above with your team lead, manager, or your HR department to see what can be done to allow for a more flexible work environment. It will benefit not only you as the employee but the work you and your team/department produce in order to meet company goals.&nbsp;

So, with that being said, let&rsquo;s dive into some common practices on how you can stay focused and productive at work during the summer.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>Set Goals In order to stay focused on your goals, you need to first set them. Having a clear outline and understanding of what it is you want to achieve on this day, throughout this week, month or quarter will be helpful in prioritizing tasks and delivering quality work. Setting a goal can look like creating a timeline for when you want to finish a certain task, blocking a timeout on your calendar where you dedicate that time for more critical tasks or creating and managing a to-do list. The most important part is being able to pinpoint what you want to accomplish and when you want to accomplish it so that you can stay on track.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Block Distractions It might seem too simple to be effective, but<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-focus-in-a-world-of-distractions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;blocking out distractions</a>&nbsp;can be one of the most beneficial methods of working productively. Try putting your phone in a separate area or out of eyesight so you don&rsquo;t get tempted to check your messages. Mute notifications on your computer so each ping doesn&rsquo;t take you away from your focus. If you&rsquo;ve tried those methods before and didn&rsquo;t find them to be successful, try using&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BlockSite&rsquo;s Chrome Extension</a>, where you can take all of your biggest digital distractions &ndash; like Facebook, Twitter, news sites, and more, and block them during your working hours. That way you&rsquo;re eliminating the option to even do a &lsquo;quick check&rsquo;, which can sometimes turn into an hour of scrolling. Hey, it can happen to the best of us!</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Organize Your Space A cluttered workspace or station might not seem like something that can have an effect on the way that you work, but trust us (and&nbsp;<a href="https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-case-for-finally-cleaning-your-desk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Harvard Business Review</a>), it does. According to HBR, cluttered spaces can have negative effects on our stress, and anxiety levels, as well as on our ability to focus. To keep your work area tidy, whether you work from home, at an office, or in a hybrid model, consider using trays or cabinets to house paperwork and documents, and label each section so you know what lives where. Set a time once a week, or once every two weeks, to clean out your desk from old papers, and receipts, and completely wipe down the desk area.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Interval Work If you find yourself overwhelmed with the tasks of a day or week, try working in intervals. Set timers for specific tasks- whether it&rsquo;s writing content or answering emails, spending 30 minutes to an hour helps you work hard for a certain amount of time which helps in pacing yourself for the remainder of the day and week and helps manage expectations and delivery.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Reward Yourself A little motivation goes a long way. Reward yourself when you finish a task. You don&rsquo;t only have to reward yourself when the entire project is completed. Maybe you needed to create an outline for an onboarding document, or needed to work with multiple people&rsquo;s schedules to deliver a presentation, or want to answer 10 emails&ndash; it doesn&rsquo;t matter the size of the task, you can always find a way to reward yourself- big or small. Take yourself out for your favorite pastry or order your favorite meal. Allow yourself a Netflix binge after work as you check off each item and watch as your to-do list becomes a done list.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Utilize Your Vacation Days Sometimes the best way to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">increase your focus and productivity</a>&nbsp;at work is to utilize your well-earned vacation days. Sometimes you just need a &ldquo;reset&rdquo; for your mind and a break from the daily tasks of your work. Taking a vacation can not only improve your mood but help you see things more clearly when you return back to the office and help you feel recharged. And let&rsquo;s not forget, everyone deserves a vacation!</li>
</ul>
All in all, we will never fully have an environment free of distractions. We are human. Sometimes we want to look out the window, talk with our colleagues, or go out for a coffee, and there&rsquo;s no harm in that. But now you are better equipped to manage the distraction that can really harm your performance at work. Try these tips out and discover what works for you so you can accomplish your goals more efficiently and enjoy that summer sun.

Ahh summer is almost here. Beach days, barbecues, bonfires, air conditioning, and oh yeah – work. 

Avoid the summer slump & stay focused at work - BlockSite

Avoid the summer slump - how to stay focused at work

Does it surprise you that over 4 billion people use social media on a daily basis? And that the average person has over 7.6 social media accounts to their name? Whether we&rsquo;re interacting with family or friends near or far, our favorite brands, looking for inspiration, or just a way to pass the time, social media has become a part of our daily lives and interactions. While social media can be fun, there have been recent reports that have dived into the effects it has on people across all ages and genders, and that on average, users feel envious and anxious by not being able to keep up with their colorful feeds and the accounts they follow.&nbsp;
A popular way to limit social media consumption is through a social media detox. A social media detox is exactly what it sounds like. It&rsquo;s taking active steps to limit the amount of time one spends on social media, whether they want to scroll less and be more in the &lsquo;now&rsquo;, or simply take a break from the &lsquo;perfect world&rsquo; curated posts and grids, it&rsquo;s a common and healthy practice that has seen success. According to a recent study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2021.0324">social media break of just a week can reduce anxiety and depression</a>. The same study found that even short breaks from social media can positively impact a person&rsquo;s overall well-being, life satisfaction, and emotions. However, it&rsquo;s unreasonable to expect to just be able to go cold turkey. There are ways you can take a social media break without feeling like you&rsquo;re missing out on what&rsquo;s happening in the App. In a way that&rsquo;s comfortable for you, that lets you enjoy the perks of social media while taking care of your mental health and wellbeing at the same time.&nbsp;

<h2>What are the most popular social media sites worldwide?</h2>
According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/">Statista</a>, it&rsquo;s estimated that in 2022 social media sites will reach almost 4 billion users and that number will only keep growing. Right now, Facebook is leading in terms of total users as they just officially surpassed 1 billion registered accounts and almost 3 billion monthly active users.&nbsp;
Following just behind Facebook, is everyone&rsquo;s favorite video platform, YouTube, with an average of 122+ million daily active users, 2.2 billion monthly active users, and almost 1 billion hours of content. And in third place, falling back under the Facebook / Meta umbrella is Instagram with 2 billion monthly active users. Out of the 3, Instagram is the most visually-focused platform and has proven to be one of the more problematic platforms because of its endless scrolling feature where you&rsquo;ll never truly see the end of your feed, and the way it produces social media envy, worsening the mental health of its users, specifically&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/feature-minimize-instagram-effects#:~:text=Studies%20have%20linked%20Instagram%20to,them%20to%20keep%20on%20scrolling.">teenage girls</a>.&nbsp;
With that being said, Social Media can serve as a fun place, an engaging community, and an experience when used in moderation.&nbsp;
<h2>Benefits of a social media detox</h2>
There could be a number of reasons why you want to take a break from social media. Maybe you simply want to be on your phone less to enjoy in-person interactions more. Perhaps you want to limit distractions from your day-to-day tasks or just need a break from the stressors of the online world. Here are some benefits you can see and feel after just a week of a social media break.&nbsp;
Improved Focus &amp; Increased Productivity When we minimize the&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-focus-in-a-world-of-distractions/">digital distractions</a>&nbsp;in our lives it&rsquo;s no surprise that we&rsquo;ll see an increase in our overall focus and productivity. Endless scrolling, the urge to check notifications, and story views are time-consuming and take away from the focus of our core responsibilities whether at home, socially, or at work. Better Sleep Yep, your social media habits before bed could be impacting the way you sleep and therefore, impacting your following days. It&rsquo;s been proven that disconnecting from your devices just a few hours before going to sleep can greatly improve the quality of your sleep. One study found that using social media before bed could lead to<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352721817302371?via%3Dihub">&nbsp;anxiety, insomnia, and shorter sleep durations</a>. You can read more about the&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-a-digital-detox/">benefits of a digital detox here</a>.

<h2>Our tips to limit your social media use</h2>
Create Boundaries A good place to start with your social media break is setting achievable boundaries on when you want to check your accounts, where you want to check them &ndash; at home, during your commute &ndash; and how long you&rsquo;ll check each account. Setting a boundary could look like putting your phone away during meals, or muting notifications when you&rsquo;ll be spending time with people you care about. If the self-control aspect proves to be a bit challenging, which is completely normal, you can utilize&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/blocksite-block-websites/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en&amp;">BlockSite&rsquo;s scheduling feature</a>&nbsp;which will enable you to set the times of day you want to be off your phone. For example, if you decided that 30 minutes before bed you don&rsquo;t want to look at Instagram, you can set that schedule in your BlockSite account. You don&rsquo;t have to go through a social media detox alone, with BlockSite we&rsquo;ll help you set your boundaries and make sure they aren&rsquo;t being ignored.&nbsp; &nbsp;
Develop New Hobbies
With a social media detox, you might find yourself with more free time in your day. So how can you fill that time where you would usually be scrolling? You can start with taking yourself out for a 30-minute walk 1 to 2 times a week. In fact, just being outside for 30 minutes each day is beneficial in more ways than one. It helps in lowering blood pressure, reducing stress, improving your mood and so much more. Don&rsquo;t feel like walking? Learn one new recipe each week and share it with your friends and family. Working with your senses is always exciting, engaging, and teaches you something new.&nbsp;
Reward yourself!&nbsp;
It truly is not easy to take a break from social media. The platforms are designed to keep us there for as long as possible. It&rsquo;s important to remember not to be hard on yourself and to make sure you&rsquo;re rewarding yourself for the wins, no matter how small or big. When you reward yourself you&rsquo;re not only celebrating your achievements but you&rsquo;re creating something for you to look forward to throughout this process. Rewards can range from buying yourself a pastry from your favorite coffee shop, watching or renting your favorite movie, or taking yourself out for a nice meal. Whatever you decide, it should be something that brings you joy. With BlockSite, you can actually track your progress by monitoring how much time you spend on each app or website.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s important to keep in mind that limiting the time you spend on social media is not a sprint, but more of a marathon. As you get used to a schedule and days without so much social media intake and consumption, it will start to feel more natural to not check each App multiple times throughout the day.&nbsp; Take your time, enjoy being in the moment, and use BlockSite to help guide you.

Does it surprise you that over 4 billion people use social media on a daily basis? And that the average person has over 7.6 social media accounts to their name?

How to limit your time on social media - BlockSite

How to limit the amount of time spent on social media

After the last 2.5 years of re-learning how to manage our time, goals, and tasks from home, it looks like our schedules are seemingly returning to the way they once were. The return of in-person classes is exciting. Being able to return back to your college campus with your peers and friends, participating by physically raising your hand rather than using Zoom&rsquo;s feature, is something we definitely won&rsquo;t be taking for granted. So whether you&rsquo;re looking to build new study habits, learn new study skills, or improve your grades for this upcoming semester,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BlockSite</a>&rsquo;s got you covered. Here are 6 ways you can stay focused and motivated during your study sessions in college. Let&rsquo;s dive right in.

<div class="wp-block-group">
<div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<h2>Staying Focused</h2>
</div>
</div>
<ol>
<li>Create a study checklist
<ul>
<li>Crossing or checking off tasks from a&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/guest-post-how-to-get-better-at-managing-your-time-every-day-by-carl-pullein/">to-</a><a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/guest-post-how-to-get-better-at-managing-your-time-every-day-by-carl-pullein/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">do&nbsp;</a><a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/guest-post-how-to-get-better-at-managing-your-time-every-day-by-carl-pullein/">list</a>&nbsp;has got to be the original form of ASMR. There&rsquo;s nothing like working hard on something and being able to finally and officially say you completed that task, that project, that assignment. In creating a study checklist, not only will it help you organize and prioritize your work, but it also serves as a great way to track your progress to avoid feeling overwhelmed or underprepared. You can focus on your goals that you want to achieve in each study session and not have to worry about whether you missed something or not. Your lists can cover all sorts of materials needed to create the ultimate study session from checking out the right books, organizing and collecting class notes, and general to-dos.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Set aside&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-focus-in-a-world-of-distractions/">online&nbsp;</a><a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-focus-in-a-world-of-distractions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">distractions</a>
<ul>
<li>For a successful study session you need to remove any sources of distractions. Distractions like social media, messaging friends,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-block-youtube/">browsing&nbsp;</a><a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-block-youtube/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube&nbsp;</a><a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-block-youtube/">and more</a>. And while some might find it enough to turn off their phone or put it in a separate room, that solution doesn&rsquo;t always fit everyone&rsquo;s needs. Even though your phone might be physically far away from you, what about the work you&rsquo;re doing on your computer? You basically have access to everything on your computer that you have access to on your phone. And because we are BlockSite, we know how tempting it can be to just want to take a quick glance at what&rsquo;s happening on TikTok. Or the sudden need to find a YouTube video from 5 years ago that you just remembered. So we recommend temporarily blocking access to specific websites to eliminate the temptation of wanting to visit them, which will only enhance your focus throughout your study session. You can read all about how to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-temporarily-block-websites-for-studying/">temporarily&nbsp;</a><a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-temporarily-block-websites-for-studying/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">block&nbsp;</a><a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-temporarily-block-websites-for-studying/">websites while you study here</a>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Have a specific study time and environment
<ul>
<li>A cluttered desk, a loud background, an uncomfortable chair, these are all aspects that can affect your concentration and in turn, the impact from your study session. When you know it&rsquo;s time to study, and you want to create that positive, focused atmosphere, choose an organized and quiet spot whether at home or in the library so that you can spread out and get to crossing off your checklist. Pro-tip: Make your study environment one that makes you feel comfortable. Organized and quiet doesn&rsquo;t have to mean cold and not creative. Spruce up your desk with your favorite pens, a blanket, and even snacks. Leave small notes to remind yourself of your goals and what you&rsquo;re working towards as motivation.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>

<div class="wp-block-group">
<div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<h2>Staying Motivated</h2>
</div>
</div>
<ol>
<li>Create study goals and rewards
<ul>
<li>We all love to be rewarded, especially when performing tasks that seem less desirable than what we really want to be doing in that moment. When you&rsquo;re studying, after you&rsquo;ve mapped out your checklist and goals for each study session, it&rsquo;s important to also pre-plan rewards to give you that sometimes needed extra push of motivation. For example, let&rsquo;s say that you want to complete chapters three and four of your business textbook. When you complete the reading and questions, reward yourself by taking yourself out for a coffee, by eating your favorite snack, or enjoying an episode of your favorite TV show. But make sure to write it down within your list! So that you don&rsquo;t forget the fun and rewarding part of studying. This study tip will keep you motivated through the incentive of having something to look forward to, which can often be our biggest drivers.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>Consider building a study group
<ul>
<li>Never underestimate the power of group work and organization. And no, we aren&rsquo;t talking about group projects. Study groups can be the perfect environment for staying both focused and motivated to complete your work. When you&rsquo;re studying as part of a group you all have the same end-goal- to comprehend the materials you&rsquo;re reading in order to perform at your best level. It makes you more accountable to show up and get the work done. And as an added benefit, not only are you surrounded by a positive environment of learning, but you&rsquo;re able to discuss concepts, study materials, and ask questions to your group. Talking through these types of questions, and hearing it explained from different perspectives, can actually be really beneficial in understanding the material. &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Divide and conquer the bigger assignments&nbsp;
<ul>
<li>We totally understand that the workload of college students can often feel overwhelming. And when work feels overwhelming, it can become challenging to prioritize and organize what needs to be done, and ultimately do the work. If you have a huge final exam coming up, or a research presentation, set a plan to accomplish a little bit of that project and studying each day. Focusing on one thing at a time, rather than diving in to finish everything at once can help keep you from panicking or procrastinating. You&rsquo;re making it easier on yourself by dividing the big assignments into smaller, manageable pieces that don&rsquo;t look, or feel, as overwhelming.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
As a friendly reminder to any college student reading this,&nbsp;<a href="https://summer.harvard.edu/blog/why-you-should-make-a-good-nights-sleep-a-priority/">sleep is&nbsp;</a><a href="https://summer.harvard.edu/blog/why-you-should-make-a-good-nights-sleep-a-priority/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">your&nbsp;</a><a href="https://summer.harvard.edu/blog/why-you-should-make-a-good-nights-sleep-a-priority/">friend</a>&nbsp;and will help you in more ways than you know! Pulling an all nighter in the library won&rsquo;t make you feel better &ndash; even if you&rsquo;ve finished your assignment &ndash; because you will be exhausted, and you won&rsquo;t be able to perform at the same level as you could on a full night&rsquo;s rest.&nbsp;
Staying focused and motivated while studying is something that everyone has experienced, and struggled with, at least once throughout their collegiate careers. And it&rsquo;s even something that professionals face on their own daily tasks. Being proactive now in how you manage assignments, will set you up for the future. With the right time management, motivation, and assistance, you&rsquo;ll be able to meet your goals and become the student you&rsquo;ve always wanted to be.

After the last 2.5 years of re-learning how to manage our time, goals, and tasks from home, it looks like our schedules are seemingly returning to the past

6 ways to stay focused and motivated when studying - BlockSite

6 ways to stay focused and motivated when studying

<h2 class="elementor-element elementor-element-c63f151 elementor-widget elementor-widget-theme-post-excerpt" data-id="c63f151" data-element_type="widget" data-widget_type="theme-post-excerpt.default">We all often buy things we don&rsquo;t need just because the items are on sale, but what if we told you that you could spend $11.11 and avoid everything else?</h2>
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We all know the drill by now, we&rsquo;re only a few weeks away from the start of the holiday shopping season which is marked by the day after Thanksgiving&hellip;Black Friday. Quickly following Black Friday comes Cyber Monday &ndash; the online shopping version of Black Friday and before all of that, you&rsquo;ve got Singles Day. Got it? Good. In other words, it&rsquo;s sale madness all weekend long and you can start to expect to see ads from stores all over the US and the rest of the world marking &lsquo;presales&rsquo; and getting you all excited for the bargains you&rsquo;ll be able to grab. Problem is, we all often buy things we don&rsquo;t need just because the items are on sale, but what if we told you that you could spend $11.11 and avoid everything else?
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<h2>How do you shop on Black Friday?</h2>
We&rsquo;re sure you&rsquo;ve probably heard horror stories of&nbsp;<a href="http://blackfridaydeathcount.com/">people getting trampled</a>, battered, and bruised during this mad dash to snag deeply discounted doorbuster items. After all, waking up at the crack of dawn and fighting a stranger at your local Best Buy is what Black Friday is all about, right? Well, that&rsquo;s not as true as it used to be. Online shopping has grown year over year &mdash; especially as free shipping has become the standard &mdash; online Black Friday shopping has grown right along with it.
Although there are still quite a few retailers offering special in-store discounts, the majority of the sales will also be available online this year. This shift to an e-commerce model is great for anyone who enjoys browsing great deals in their pajamas, but it also creates an overwhelming scope of savings to sift through. More importantly, you&rsquo;ll most likely find yourself browsing website after website, of things you don&rsquo;t really need but rather want to buy, just because the item is on sale.
But! What if we told you we could help you avoid doing this and all you&rsquo;d need to do is spend $11.11 and remember which sites take up most of your time and which sites you would like to avoid during the sales period, it would be worth it right?
So here&rsquo;s how to&hellip;.

<h2>Curb Overspending on Black Friday</h2>
In order to make the above happen, you&rsquo;re going to need to spend that $11.11 to help curb your overspending once and for all &ndash; on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>.&nbsp;
By buying an annual subscription on&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">BlockSite Extension</a>&nbsp;premium over the holiday sales, you&rsquo;ll gain access to all of the usual features available plus, uninstall protection, redirects and lots more.
BlockSite will enable you to increase your productivity, stay focused and avoid spending money on unnecessary things. You&rsquo;ll have more time to focus on things that really matter over the holiday season and you&rsquo;ll save money. We often find ourselves browsing shopping sites for hours upon hours and end up&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/1500-2/">wasting time on the Internet</a>&nbsp;with no real purpose or intention when we could have been spending time doing other things that actually help to improve our lives.&nbsp;

<h2>Take advantage of Black Friday</h2>
This year, we urge you to take total advantage of Black Friday and be thankful for the things that really matter this Thanksgiving. Spending time with family, focusing on mindfulness and taking a bit of a digital detox will help center you and help you understand that we often fall victim to trends that urge us to spend money, instead of getting into the holiday spirit for the more important things in life!
Make sure you follow us on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/BlockSite.co/">Facebook</a>&nbsp;and let us know how BlockSite helped you spend less during the sales!&nbsp;&nbsp;

We all often buy things we don’t need just because the items are on sale, but what if we told you that you could spend $11.11 and avoid everything else?

How to spend only $11.11 on online shopping during the holidays

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People who suffer from what&rsquo;s known as a shopping addiction also suffer from what is known as &lsquo;compulsive spending.&rsquo; The warning signs for shopping addictions often vary however usually it comes down to a couple of key points:
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<ul>
<li>Shopping due to a result of &lsquo;emotions.&rsquo; This can be anything from feelings (angry, sad, happy, etc.) or emotional distress and chaos in your life.</li>
<li>Buying items on credit cards that you wouldn&rsquo;t buy with cash as it feels reckless</li>
<li>Lying to others about what you bought and how much you spend</li>
<li>Juggling accounts to keep on top of your spending and debts.</li>
</ul>
Many shopping addicts will suffer from all or some of these symptoms at some stage and the book Mind over Money explains that;
&ldquo;Over spenders&hellip;have confused and confusing relationships with money, On the one hand, they&rsquo;re convinced that money and the things it can buy will make them happy; yet they&rsquo;re often broke because they can&rsquo;t control their spending.&rdquo;
Additionally,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-intelligent-divorce/201407/the-shopaholic#:~:text=Compulsive%20shoppers%20have%20been%20shown,eating%20and%20impulse%20control%20disorders.">Psychology Today&nbsp;</a>explains that the psychological aspect of shopping addictions causes a wide range of issues. Often, compulsive shoppers have been shown to have significantly higher rates of;
<ul>
<li>Depression</li>
<li>Anxiety</li>
<li>Substance abuse</li>
<li>Binge eating&nbsp;</li>
<li>Impulse control disorders</li>
</ul>
With this in mind, we&rsquo;re here to help give you the tools in order to develop habits that will help you do the right thing, even when the right thing is difficult when it comes to a shopping addiction.
</div>
</div>

<h2>Top 8 tips to get over a shopping addiction</h2>
<ol>
<li>Unsubscribe and Unfollow</li>
</ol>
One of the best ways to keep yourself from spending is to avoid situations that tempt you to spend in the first place. A lot of us, spend hours a day on digital devices and therefore are subscribed to many store emails offering us deals and discounts. So, if your weakness is online shopping, the first step would be to start unsubscribing from these emails and blocking these sites on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;&ndash; which you can then sync across all your devices.&nbsp;
By unsubscribing from all retailer emails, you&rsquo;ll avoid the urge to impulse spend and temptation will become a thing of the past. Additionally, if you like social media, especially Instagram &ndash; you may want to think about unfollowing &lsquo;influencers&rsquo; that push you to spend through what they promote.&nbsp;
2.&nbsp;Track Your Money
Are you sure you&rsquo;re aware of how much you&rsquo;re actually spending? Most people don&rsquo;t keep track on a day-to-day basis of their spending and often lose track of how much they&rsquo;re buying, and spending and whether or not they actually need it. As an idea, you may want to start tracking every single dollar you spend. You&rsquo;ll be able to notice your spending habits and patterns and where you fall short, what you&rsquo;re spending most of your money on, and how you can save. When you are able to visualize your spending patterns, you can act on them.
Try Wally to help you with this. Wally is an integrated expense tracker app that provides insights into your spending habits using artificial intelligence and other trendy technologies. Wally has a big focus on expenses and presents feedback and useful information on your spending, but it also has a social feature for shared expenses. Perfect!
3.&nbsp;Cash Not Credit
As we mentioned, more often than not, we often don&rsquo;t realize how much we&rsquo;re spending because we&rsquo;re using credit cards. Credit cards often fuel our &lsquo;addiction&rsquo; as it seems unrealistic and we make excuses that we&rsquo;ll work out a way to pay for our goods and make it work &lsquo;until the end of the month&hellip;&rsquo; If you&rsquo;re a shopping addict, you&rsquo;ll be better off without the credit cards, well at least until you&rsquo;ve learned better spending habits.&nbsp;
Once you&rsquo;ve cut up your cards and totally got rid of them, start carrying cash only. It&rsquo;s inconvenient and that&rsquo;s the point. If you&rsquo;re addicted to shopping, the goal is to break the habit, and to do this, you need to make sacrifices. Using cash only and spending cash is a great way to constantly remind yourself that you&rsquo;re spending real money. Additionally, you could also withdraw a certain amount each week and spend only that amount to make sure you are aware of how much you&rsquo;re spending and when.
4.&nbsp;Set Goals
You could also try setting yourself some financial goals. It can be anything from &lsquo;save $1,000 for emergency fund&rsquo; to &lsquo;save for a luxury vacation.&rsquo; By setting goals, cutting back on spending money will seem easier as you will have a reason to save. The goal here is to create a clear path between saving money and getting to do the things you love as well. Implementing this habit will also keep you&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">focused</a>&nbsp;on something other than your addiction, naturally helping to lessen the urge to buy things. Win, win.
5.&nbsp;Change Your Environment
Our environment plays a huge role in our lives. Whether it&rsquo;s our friends, co-workers, workplace, or where we live &ndash; the environment can influence our behavior.&nbsp;
And even though we can&rsquo;t always choose our ideal environment, we do have the power to control some aspects of our surroundings. For example, if you have a shopping addiction, it doesn&rsquo;t make sense for you to browse the mall or browse fashion sites online if you&rsquo;re trying to kick the habit so you need to make sure you don&rsquo;t put yourself in places that make it difficult.&nbsp;
Once you start understanding the root cause of your shopping habits and what drives you to shop &ndash; which could also be related to your&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">time management</a>,&nbsp; you&rsquo;ll start learning how to overcome your addiction. For example, a lot of people find certain environments such as the workplace stressful, which in turn drives them to buy things online in order to calm down. Our environment plays a huge role in our behavior and we must use it to our advantage by knowing where we should be and where we shouldn&rsquo;t go for addiction&rsquo;s sake.&nbsp;
6.&nbsp;Invest in YOU
As with any addiction, you need to find a healthier alternative to fill the need. The goal here is not to swap an addiction for something else that can become addictive but rather trade in a negative and destructive addiction for one that is positive and healthy, or at the very least neutral. In this case, figure out what&rsquo;s more important to you than shopping. What do you value most in life? Your family? Your friends? Whatever it is, you must link how continuing to shop will destroy what you value most. If you value the love from your family and friends, it&rsquo;s easy to see how you will ruin these relationships if you keep borrowing and spending.&nbsp;
7.&nbsp;Get Help
Sometimes, we can&rsquo;t deal with our issues alone and there really is no shame in asking for help if you&rsquo;re finding it hard to curb your addiction. Talk to a friend or family member about your problem and get their advice.
If that&rsquo;s not enough, you may want to seek professional help &ndash; just make sure you&rsquo;re ready to hear the whole truth and that you&rsquo;re ready to start learning better habits and dealing with your problems.
8.&nbsp;Block the sites&nbsp;
Online shopping makes overcoming a shopping addiction so much harder as everything is just a few clicks away, and while visiting a shopping website may give you a few minutes to unwind after work, you&rsquo;ll end up buying something you don&rsquo;t really need or can&rsquo;t really afford.&nbsp;
There are plenty of other things you can do to pass the time and unwind and while you&rsquo;re doing those things &ndash; you can block the websites that make you spend the most with BlockSite &ndash; no willpower required!
<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite&nbsp;</a>enables you to block websites &ndash; on&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">desktop&nbsp;</a>and&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US">mobile</a>&nbsp;that waste your time, or in this case &ndash; fuel your addiction. Once they&rsquo;re blocked if you try and visit them, you&rsquo;ll be stopped. Couldn&rsquo;t be easier to start overcoming that addiction after all eh?&nbsp;

<h2>Stop your online shopping addiction</h2>
With just a few initial steps you&rsquo;ll be on your way to controlling and stopping your online shopping addiction.&nbsp;Never be afraid to ask for help from family and friends &ndash; it often helps to have someone who keeps you in check and who wants the best for you. Additionally, there are plenty of self-help books and apps like BlockSite that can help curb the addiction. Just remember &ndash; these things take time and to be patient with yourself. It&rsquo;s never easy but it&rsquo;s always worth it. Good luck!&nbsp;

People who suffer from what’s known as a shopping addiction also suffer from what is known as ‘compulsive spending.’

8 Tips to Overcome a Shopping Addiction - BlockSite

8 Tips to Overcome a Shopping Addiction

The majority of us live in a very demanding world where we need to act fast and produce maximum results in short time frames and with a lot of focus.
To do this, our minds try to do several things at once to maximize our time. However, as we keep saying at BlockSite&nbsp; &ndash; this isn&rsquo;t productive. In fact, it creates really bad results as the number of stimuli in our brains increases and this makes us lose focus and concentration.
So&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">how do we focus in a world of distractions?</a>&nbsp;In this blog post, we&rsquo;ll outline what causes us to lose focus, how we can prevent these distractions, and give you a 2-week challenge to make sure you start avoiding distractions quickly and easily.
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/QnzJf7JgQLWosV60zgcJ" alt="wp-image-full-width" />
<h2>Our Attention Span</h2>
For many of us, it doesn&rsquo;t come naturally to pay attention to one thing for a long period of time. Thanks to technology, lots of information is available to us all at the same time which means, avoiding distractions is harder than ever before. This also means that our attention spans really suffer.
A&nbsp;<a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/11/wandering-mind-not-a-happy-mind/">Harvard study</a>&nbsp;found that people spend 47% of their waking hours zoned out or distracted. Along with that, the majority of us pay attention for a maximum of 40 seconds before our brains switch to something else. This percentage lowers to 35% when we have applications or phones open with notifications coming through. Crazy right?&nbsp;

However, the majority of us think that the problem is with the actual distractions. The phone notifications, the TV, a colleague wanting to have a coffee, and so on but this isn&rsquo;t entirely true. The deeper problem, or maybe the root cause of our dwindling attention spans is that our brains are over stimulated.&nbsp;
We have all come to crave distraction and guess what? Our brains love it. Our brains actually reward us (good old dopamine) for our hyper-stimulated state of mind.
So how can we control this? What can we do to pay attention for longer and stop being SO distracted all the time?
Fortunately, with a bit of thought and strategy, we can rebuild our attention spans and&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">generate increased productivity</a>&nbsp;and effectiveness in our day-to-day lives.
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<h2>Get More Ideas &amp; Plans</h2>
Today, most of us can&rsquo;t go more than a few minutes, let alone a few hours without checking our digital devices. Some of us are also somewhat&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-stop-your-phone-addiction/">addicted to our phones</a>. Our digital devices are often the main cause of distraction in our lives and by just learning how to remove them (not entirely!) from our lives, our attention spans have room to improve.
How? We hear you ask. Well, for example, by removing our phones for say an hour a day from our lives, we have time to focus on other things. By doing this, you&rsquo;ll notice that your focus is much more controlled &ndash; therefore creating longer attention spans on specific tasks. You&rsquo;ll also notice that by doing this &ndash; you have more ideas. Ideas that you usually wouldn&rsquo;t have time to think of due to distractions.

However, this is not the only reason. Once you remove these devices from your life, your mind is also far less stimulated. This too results in an increase of your attention span and gives your mind a chance to &lsquo;wander.&rsquo; When our minds wander, we often think of our best &lsquo;ideas.&rsquo; Think about it. When was the last time a great idea struck you? Was it in the shower this morning? Was it while you were lying on the couch staring into space? Either way, you&rsquo;ll notice it&rsquo;s when you weren&rsquo;t actually focused on something specific.&nbsp;
When we let our attention &lsquo;rest&rsquo; &ndash; our minds go to 3 main places;
<ul>
<li>The past</li>
<li>The present</li>
<li>The future</li>
</ul>
The present is the most productive place to let your mind wander and come up with new ideas. However, the future takes up most of the &lsquo;wandering mind&rsquo; time. This is why you&rsquo;ll often notice when you&rsquo;re taking a shower &ndash; you start planning out your whole day in your head.
So whatever it is for you, that lets your mind &lsquo;rest&rsquo; and &lsquo;wander&rsquo; make sure you start doing it today. Your best ideas come from that place and it will really help your focus and attention span.
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/FUUve7zR9G6sorJ6mTwV" alt="wp-image-full-width" />
<h2>We Need More Space</h2>
You might not realise it, in fact, you may think the total opposite but we actually don&rsquo;t need more time in the day. We are already doing too much. Our minds are in overdrive with tasks we need to get done, appointments we must make, and just our daily routines that are full of &lsquo;hustle.&rsquo;
What we all need is more space. More space will enable us to make room to improve our attention spans and focus through letting our minds wander more. Being free from distractions and over stimulation through setting limits and boundaries when using our digital devices. But how can we do this?&nbsp;
<h2>The 2 Week Challenge</h2>
This 2 week challenge only consists of 3 things you need to do that will enable you to make your mind a bit less stimulated and allow you to notice what happens to your focus and attention during this time.
1. Limit Screen Time
Whether you&rsquo;re working on a computer or reading your Facebook newsfeed, you need to start limiting your screen time. Not permanently, but setting small goals that will enable you to let your mind wander.&nbsp;
Use BlockSite to help you set specific time frames throughout the day when you can browse websites and apps and when they need to be blocked. This way, you&rsquo;ll be able to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">stay focused</a>&nbsp;and have some free time online.&nbsp;
To begin with, set yourself a limit of an hour a day of screen time (not including your work) and go from there.&nbsp;
2. Disconnected Sunday
Or any day that suits you, but chooses one day a week where you totally disconnect from the digital world and start reconnecting with the real world, the physical world. Go out into the big wide world and do something. What&rsquo;s your favorite activity when you&rsquo;re not online? Where is the best place to eat? Go and do those things without being &lsquo;online.&rsquo;
Additionally, every evening also makes sure that you give your digital devices a bedtime. For example, disconnect from the online world from 8pm until 8am the following day.
3. Go Offline
Yes, you read that right. Do something every single day that doesn&rsquo;t involve staring at your screen. This can be anything from simply lying on the couch thinking about life to reading about something new, or maybe even something that doesn&rsquo;t interest you that much.
It opens the mind and lets your mind wander to new places. It reduces brain stimulation and enables your attention to &lsquo;rest.&rsquo; This is the time your brain will come up with all those grand ideas and plans.
At the end of the 2-week challenge be sure to answer the following questions;
<ul>
<li>How many new ideas do you have?</li>
<li>How did your focus change?</li>
<li>How many plans did you make?</li>
</ul>
The results will probably surprise you and make you realise that this type of&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-a-digital-detox/">digital detox</a>&nbsp;is something that you can incorporate into your daily life. You&rsquo;ll probably even want to.
Good Luck!

The majority of us live in a very demanding world where we need to act fast and produce maximum results in short time frames and with a lot of focus.

How to Focus in a World of Distractions - BlockSite

How to Focus in a World of Distractions

Ever feel like you&rsquo;re under pressure to get things done but have so little time to do them in? We&rsquo;ve all been there, and even for the most organized people, this situation can often feel very overwhelming and almost like you&rsquo;re drowning. Why? Because we all have deadlines to meet, tasks to take care of, and are worried about not getting enough done.
There&rsquo;s some good news though &ndash; there&rsquo;s an answer to this problem and it revolves around prioritizing.

<h2>Why is it important to prioritize?</h2>
Prioritizing tasks is important in order to make sure you get everything done. Prioritization enables you to make sure you pay attention to tasks that are urgent and get them done first, before moving on to lower priority tasks.&nbsp;
By ignoring the need to prioritize tasks, you may find yourself stressed out with how to get everything done and when. Not to mention, you&rsquo;ll be less productive and less organized.
So how does this work? Well, a lot of us start our day with a basic list of tasks and to-dos. These lists are usually combined with the daily tasks we need to get done and our workloads.&nbsp;
However, throughout the day our plans and priorities often change, due to new assignments cropping up, last-minute changes, urgent meetings, and the like. This means your priorities change and tasks may need shifting around. However, what happens if you feel like everything is important and can&rsquo;t prioritize?&nbsp;
<h2>When everything is important paradox</h2>
One of the hardest struggles we all face in our day-to-day lives is the struggle of prioritizing. With everything from mounting tasks at work, to our personal lives and everything in between, it&rsquo;s often hard deciding what deserves top priority.
However, by mastering this &ndash; you&rsquo;ll change your life. We&rsquo;re not kidding. Knowing how to prioritize will make you much more productive,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">keep you focused</a>&nbsp;and reduce stress. Not to mention you&rsquo;ll be much better at conducting a good work/life balance.
Additionally, once you sit down and arrange your priorities, you&rsquo;ll find that a lot of the things that you thought were super urgent aren&rsquo;t and that you have time to focus on other things. The actual process of prioritizing your work, however, seems simple &ndash; when in fact it&rsquo;s not THAT simple in practice. You&rsquo;re going to need a clear system to make sure you have a &lsquo;to-do&rsquo; list that is totally under control.
So, how can you make the most of your day and get things done?
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/3uspk90yRfeFZAtqiQDn" alt="wp-image-full-width" />
<h2>Getting Things Done</h2>
Getting things done is down to prioritizing and prioritizing is down to good habits. You need a good schedule in place to make sure you can&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">improve your productivity</a>&nbsp;and get things done. By doing this you&rsquo;ll be able to understand what you want to accomplish and how to prioritize your tasks depending on time and resources.
By consistently prioritizing, you&rsquo;ll be able to make each day productive and stay focused on your goals. In order to do this, you need to break down your tasks into smaller &lsquo;bite-sized&rsquo; tasks.

For example, If your task is to &lsquo;write a book&rsquo; &ndash; the task itself doesn&rsquo;t really explain everything that goes into writing a book and makes it seem like an endless task. However, if you were to break it down into;
<ol>
<li>Write Introduction to the book</li>
<li>Write the first chapter of the book&nbsp;</li>
<li>Choose illustrations for the book</li>
</ol>
You&rsquo;ll be able to check these smaller tasks off your list, feel a sense of accomplishment, and be more productive.
With this in mind, it&rsquo;s also important to understand &lsquo;task dependencies&rsquo; in order to get things done as this has an impact on your schedule.&nbsp;
Start by writing down, in order the tasks that are dependent on other tasks, the tasks that are most important, and those that will take up most of your time. Once that&rsquo;s done, you&rsquo;ll be able to put your prioritization in place.&nbsp;
Getting things done means first sorting out the non-actionable tasks into 3 categories
<ol>
<li>Trash &ndash; The tasks that don&rsquo;t matter</li>
<li>Reference &ndash; The tasks with valuable information but need no action</li>
<li>Maybe &ndash; The tasks that don&rsquo;t need to be finished immediately and can be put into a &lsquo;backlog&rsquo;</li>
</ol>
Then you&rsquo;ll need to sort out your actionable tasks;
<ol>
<li>Immediately&nbsp; &ndash; The tasks that are quick to complete&nbsp;</li>
<li>Waiting for &ndash; The tasks that are assigned to others</li>
<li>Next-Action &ndash; The tasks that have multiple steps</li>
<li>Calendar &ndash; The tasks with deadlines that need adding to a calendar&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
Once you have this method in place, you&rsquo;ll have a clear view of how and when to go about certain tasks,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-stay-mindful/">making your life much less stressful</a>&nbsp;and much more productive.
<h2>Eat that Frog Method</h2>
If the &lsquo;Getting Things Done&rsquo; method doesn&rsquo;t quite work for you, you can try the &lsquo;Eat That Frog&rsquo; method. This method requires strategic planning as it stems from the Mark Twain's saying;
&ldquo;If it&rsquo;s your job to eat a frog, it&rsquo;s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it&rsquo;s your job to eat two frogs, it&rsquo;s best to eat the biggest one first.&rsquo;
But what did Mark Twain mean by this? Well, what it means in simple terms is that you should complete your most important tasks first. How? By identifying your task objectives and working from there. For example, if you have an important but difficult task, do it first thing, and then once that&rsquo;s done, go on to complete the other, smaller tasks. Why? Because the big Frog is the most important task on your list.
<h2>ABCDE Method</h2>
There is also another method you can put in place to prioritize your tasks, and it&rsquo;s similar to a &lsquo;task alphabet&rsquo; and it&rsquo;s titled to suit. The &lsquo;ABCDE Method&rsquo; enables you to prioritize tasks in order of highest priority.
For example, task A &ndash; is the most important, and task E &ndash; is the least. Then in between, you can sort other tasks out in order of priority. The easiest way to do this is to go through your list and give each of your tasks a letter from A to E. For every task that needs to be an A, follow it with a number so that the number dictates when you do it. Repeat this process until all of your tasks have letters and numbers.
This method is effective as it gives multiple layers of prioritization to your tasks and defines their true importance &ndash; making your schedule a lot clearer.&nbsp;
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<h2>Most important vs most productive</h2>
Once you&rsquo;ve chosen a method that you feel best suits you, it&rsquo;s time to determine the most important tasks on your list vs the most productive ones.
This all boils down to efficiency. It&rsquo;s about getting everything you set out to do, done in less time and to the best of your ability. So when thinking about the most important vs the most productive it&rsquo;s important to remember how you can be most efficient in the process.
By definition, efficiency is optimizing tasks. You&rsquo;re immediately more efficient if you find a way to do something twice as fast as it takes another person to do it once. Whereas effectiveness is about doing the right tasks regardless of the time it takes you to do them.
Therefore, depending on your goals you need to make sure you are getting the most important tasks done first, in the most productive way.
For example, if you have an important task with a deadline (this also includes &lsquo;urgency&rsquo; which is another thing to remember when prioritizing) vs a bunch of small tasks that you can get done quickly &ndash; do the bigger, more important task first and then move onto the smaller ones. Separating importance from urgency is a key factor in successful prioritization.
As you can see, when you understand how to prioritize you&rsquo;ll often find that you don&rsquo;t actually have as much to do as you thought. Instead, you&rsquo;ve scheduled and prioritized and made your tasks much easier to accomplish &ndash; with very little effort. Make sure you learn to prioritize and do it at the start of your day to set the tone. By doing this, you&rsquo;ll inspire yourself to keep moving forward through your to-do list.
Good Luck!

Ever feel like you’re under pressure to get things done but have so little time to do them in? We’ve all been there

How to prioritize when you have too much to do - BlockSite

How to prioritize when you have too much to do

Picture this. You&rsquo;re at a restaurant with friends, you&rsquo;re excited to see them and catch up as it&rsquo;s been a while. You sit down, order, and start chatting. Suddenly your phone pings. You check it, answer the message and go back to talking to your friends. You then notice a friend staring at her screen. And another. And another. You notice that while &lsquo;catching up&rsquo; everyone is looking at their phones. It could be anything from work emails, to Instagram story replies, to a news bulletin. However, the truth of it is, whatever the notification &ndash; it can wait, the problem? We think it can&rsquo;t. Why? Because we&rsquo;re addicted to our mobile devices.

On average, every person in the US uses their phone for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/360320#:~:text=That%20said%2C%20people%20spend%20a,on%20average%203.07%20hours%20daily.">over 3 hours a day.</a>&nbsp;This has also resulted in an ever growing trend regarding the effects of mobile devices on our mental health. There is everything from TV shows and books to apps and brand new industries that are trying to help us cut out, limit or reduce the amount of time we spend staring at our screens. Call them whatever you like. But the bottom line? They all address the same issue. The need to help us help ourselves.
We seem to have no limits on the amount of technology that consumes our lives. However, we can start putting limits on this. We can have control over our device use and habits. How? Read on to find out&hellip;
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<h2>How does a digital detox help?</h2>
A digital detox is a period of time where one refrains from using digital devices such as phones, tablets, and computers. By &lsquo;detoxing&rsquo; from these devices, you are able to focus on real interactions without any distractions.
You may want to have a digital detox for a number of reasons, as its benefits are endless. Maybe you want to live &lsquo;real life&rsquo; rather than being &lsquo;online&rsquo; all the time? Maybe you want to remove negativity from social media from your life? Or maybe you&rsquo;re starting to feel a bit addicted to your devices and you feel like you could do with a break.
Whatever the reason, a digital detox will help you feel more in control of your time, life and surroundings. You&rsquo;ll be able to remove the &lsquo;attachment&rsquo; that a lot of us have become accustomed to and be more engaged with what&rsquo;s really happening around you. Additionally, a digital detox has a positive impact on your brain.
<h2>What really happens to your brain during a digital detox?</h2>
When we&rsquo;re constantly using digital devices, it&rsquo;s difficult to live in the present moment. We tend to let everyday life pass us by without even realizing it. When was the last time you noticed the sound of the birds chirping while walking to work? : Probably a long time ago as you were too busy checking your phone the whole way.
Additionally, we seem to have forgotten that hashtags and viral videos are not real forms of communication. Real forms of communication are sharing your perspectives with someone, deep conversations, and communication through face-to-face interactions. However, while we&rsquo;re constantly consumed by our digital devices, this rarely happens.
So what would happen if you &lsquo;unplugged&rsquo; from your devices for a while? Well, as research has shown, you&rsquo;ll likely find yourself doing real things you really like to do. Going to the gym, running errands, and spending time with friends and family. You&rsquo;ll notice that you&rsquo;ll have time to refresh relationships, improve your career, make changes in your life for the better and try other hobbies that you rarely get round to because of your Netflix and Instagram obsession.&nbsp;

You&rsquo;ll also benefit from memory enhancement as you&rsquo;ll be much more present in live interactions. Not to mention that you&rsquo;ll reduce your anxiety. We&rsquo;ve all experienced tech-driven anxiety and FOMO due to what we see online which isn&rsquo;t healthy and can often lead to unnecessary stress.
By unplugging, your brain is able to put things into perspective and focus on what&rsquo;s really important. There are countless cases and studies that demonstrate nothing but positives when it comes to taking a tech break. Unplug for a while and start seeing positive changes in your life &ndash; by unplugging you&rsquo;ll be able to recharge your brain.
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<h2>How do you detox your phone?</h2>
If you feel it&rsquo;s time to take back control of the way you spend your time, look no further! In 5 easy steps, we&rsquo;ll have you detoxing from your phone.
1. Turn off notifications
First things first, don&rsquo;t give yourself a reason to constantly check your phone. The easiest way to start this process is by turning off unnecessary notification alerts. Go to your settings and switch off notifications for apps and sites that distract you.
2. Block apps and sites
Whether it&rsquo;s reading your newsfeed on Facebook or watching stories on Instagram, a true phone detox involves removing these time-wasting apps and sites from your device. It&rsquo;s time to block them. Well, at least for a little while. Go through your mobile and your website search history and see which sites you think to waste too much of your time. Once you have an idea, add them to your BlockSite block list.
With BlockSite you can remove all distracting websites and apps from your life by blocking them when you need to detox or&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">just stay focused</a>. You can even set a timer to make sure you keep on track throughout the day and have break time where you can check out these sites.
3. Schedule your day
By&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-achieve-more-in-less-time-with-blocksites-scheduling/">scheduling your day&nbsp;</a>and aiming to get certain tasks done, you&rsquo;ll be able to make sure you &lsquo;detox&rsquo; from your tech devices much more easily. Make a plan from morning to night of things you need to get done and the timings for them. That way you won&rsquo;t have time to waste checking your phone as you&rsquo;ll be on a strict schedule.&nbsp;
By scheduling your day, you&rsquo;ll create a sense of mindfulness and find that you have a lot of extra time throughout the day when you aren&rsquo;t browsing the web. Reward yourself, and your schedule for being less &lsquo;digitally dependent&rsquo; with something &lsquo;offline,&rsquo; you could try cooking a meal, reading a book, or going for a run- you&rsquo;ve earned it!
4. Go solo screen
We&rsquo;ve all done the &lsquo;multiscreen&rsquo; thing. Sat on the sofa, in front of the TV with our phones in our hands looking at posts online. However, it&rsquo;s time to be mindful of this. Watching a good movie? Great, enjoy it and put your phone away. It&rsquo;s no fun half-watching something and being distracted. Give your undivided attention to one thing at a time and stop being dependent on your devices &ndash; we promise you&rsquo;ll reap the benefits!
5. Develop healthy habits
A phone detox is mainly about learning to use your phone only when you really need to rather than being totally dependent on it 24/7. By being aware of your digital usage, you can start developing healthy digital habits and just general, healthy habits.
Why not&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-stop-your-phone-addiction/">use this time to be super productive offline</a>? For example, if you&rsquo;ve finished your day&rsquo;s work and are used to checking your phone on your commute home, find a good book to read instead and start your post-work unwind early on in the evening.&nbsp;
<h2>How do you detox from social media?</h2>
Social media has become a central part of our everyday lives. Whether we&rsquo;re mindlessly watching stories on Instagram or checking our Facebook feeds &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-overcome-your-addiction-to-social-media/">we&rsquo;re spending too much time on these sites</a>&nbsp;and our productivity is paying the price.&nbsp;
Too much time spent on social media sites can prevent us from focusing on the things that really matter such as our relationships, careers, and goals. Therefore, if you find yourself constantly checking your social profiles, it may be time to detox from social media.
How? Don&rsquo;t worry &ndash; we&rsquo;ve got a few simple steps that will get you started.
1. Give your tech devices a bedtime.
Yes, you read that right. Late-night activity on your mobile device can have a negative effect on your sleeping patterns. Set a time that you are committed to putting your phone away for the night. This should be at least one hour before your own bedtime. This will also give you an opportunity to catch up on some reading or get an extra hour&rsquo;s sleep, and who wouldn&rsquo;t want that?!
2. Morning rituals
Avoid using your tech devices first thing in the morning by using a real alarm clock instead of the one on your mobile. This way, you won&rsquo;t check your phone, or social media profiles first thing in the morning, instead you&rsquo;ll&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-stay-mindful/">start your day being more mindful of your surroundings</a>. Instead of scrolling first thing, go outside and watch the sunrise, go for a run or just enjoy a hot cup of coffee.
3. Block your social media apps.
We&rsquo;ve already mentioned it, but we think it&rsquo;s important to mention it again as it can be really daunting giving up social media and going &lsquo;cold turkey&rsquo; so it&rsquo;s important you know that you don&rsquo;t have to do it alone.&nbsp;
Improve your productivity and give yourself an easier time when detoxing from social media by blocking the apps with BlockSite. This will also help you break the cycle of aimless scrolling like when you&rsquo;re waiting in line for an appointment or taking a break from work &ndash; there are other things to do, not just checking what everyone else is doing 😉
4. Replace social media with activities
It&rsquo;s been reported that the average internet user spends approximately<a href="https://techjury.net/blog/time-spent-on-social-media/#gref">&nbsp;2 hours 24 minutes</a>&nbsp;on social media sites alone EVERY DAY. Imagine all the new activities you could take up in that time?!
Enjoy sports? Take up a new gym class. Want to learn to play an instrument? You can with the extra time! Start learning to enjoy life offline, especially if you spend most of your day at work in front of computers and need to reduce your screen time.&nbsp;
5. Track your progress
Most of our mobile devices, especially iPhone and Android devices now track the time we spend looking at our screens. You&rsquo;ll often get a notification of how much time you&rsquo;ve spent on your device at the end of each week. Once you&rsquo;ve implemented your digital detox, check the statistics and recognize the progress you&rsquo;ve made. This will help motivate you to carry on with your detox and keep you focused on the removal of social media from your life.
Additionally, BlockSite Unlimited users also have access to useful insights that can tell you more about your browsing trends and the amount of time BlockSite has helped you save by blocking distracting apps and sites. For more information&nbsp;<a href="https://user.blocksite.co/purchase">click here</a>.
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<h2>What is too much phone use?</h2>
Now that we understand how to digital detox our phones and from social media, the question is &ndash; how much time is too much to be spending on our phones? Turns out, there&rsquo;s no simple answer.
Smartphone addiction isn&rsquo;t exactly a medical diagnosis. Although we know it can cause problems such as anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and eye issues &ndash; it&rsquo;s still not a classified addiction.
At this stage, research indicates that there are no specific time-limit recommendations, though some researchers are working on a smartphone addiction scale; one was proposed in a&nbsp;<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0056936">2013 study</a>&nbsp;in the journal&nbsp;PLOS One. one simple guideline they found was that problematic smartphone use negatively interferes with your life.&nbsp;
Some research suggests Facebook, Instagram, and even online gaming make us feel more isolated and less connected. The more we try to fill that hole by tapping away at our phones, the more we crave social interaction.&nbsp;
One way to assess whether you&rsquo;re &lsquo;addicted&rsquo; to your smartphone is to note how you feel when you&rsquo;re cut off from it. For example, during a digital detox. Are you irritable or anxious? Do you feel isolated from friends or unsafe? Do you have trouble concentrating on work, school, or other important responsibilities?
While smartphones may not be truly addictive in a medical sense, learning how to use them in a more mindful, healthy manner won&rsquo;t hurt.&nbsp;
Knowing how much time you spend using these devices is the first step to identifying whether or not you have a problem. Block distracting sites or track your usage to start working this out and then go from there. A digital detox is the first step in freeing yourself from any form of addiction and becoming more mindful of your ways.
Good Luck!

Picture this. You’re at a restaurant with friends, you’re excited to see them and catch up as it’s been a while. You sit down, order and start chatting.

Everything you need to know about a digital detox

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">If you want to set yourself up for the best chance of success this year, start by using our tips to make better resolutions you can actually stick to.</div>
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2020 was hard, to say the least, and while we&rsquo;re all hoping for a better 2021, it&rsquo;s important to be realistic in the world we currently live in. However, With a brand new year comes to brand new goals and in 2021 &hellip; it&rsquo;s time to put those New Year resolutions into practice.&nbsp;
Yes, we know every year we make them and don&rsquo;t keep them. That&rsquo;s why usually the gym crowds surge in January and are empty by February and why we never do lose the weight we promised we would. Sometimes, it almost feels like resolutions are made to be broken but here at BlockSite, we think differently.
We believe that&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">resolutions are good, productive ways to set goals&nbsp;</a>and intentions for the new year and make positive changes, which is especially important after the challenging year we have all just experienced.
Sometimes the problem lies in the unrealistic resolutions we make. We need to start doing a better job of making resolutions that are attainable, otherwise, it&rsquo;s almost like setting yourself up for failure.
Therefore, if you want to set yourself up for the best chance of success, start by using the tips below to make better resolutions you can actually stick to.
<h2>How do you create a New Year&rsquo;s Resolution?</h2>
If you&rsquo;re looking to make a change in your life, you need to be realistic and think if it&rsquo;s actually doable before throwing yourself into it. For example, if you want to run a marathon but you&rsquo;re currently not working out and get out of breath while walking upstairs &ndash; running a marathon may be out of the question for the new year or bound to fail. However, you can resolve to walk every day in this instance and once you have that down, you can graduate to running in short bursts, then constant running, and then running the marathon the following year.
Additionally, when making a resolution, make sure it&rsquo;s something concrete so you know exactly what change you&rsquo;re planning on making. If you&rsquo;re successful with the first change, you can make another change after a month or so. By making small changes one after the other, you still have the chance to be a whole new you by the end of the year.
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<h2>Setting New Year&rsquo;s Resolutions</h2>
With this in mind, here are some tips on the best ways to set up New Year&rsquo;s Resolutions.
<h2>Be Specific</h2>
Maybe you want to become more mindful in 2020? It&rsquo;s a great goal, but how are you going to do it? With what? Without some parameters, your best intentions can get lost in the process. The more detailed you can be the better. For example, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m going to start practicing mindfulness using a new app for 15 minutes a day.&rsquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">The easier it is to stay focused on what you have to do to succeed.</a>
Maybe you want to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/how-to-overcome-your-addiction-to-social-media/">quit your social media addiction</a>? It&rsquo;s not realistic to think going cold turkey will last, you need to set your limits and slowly come away from the sites that you waste time on. One option would be to use&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&rsquo;s schedule feature to help block websites that you need a temporary break from in order to get yourself back on track. You can start blocking for a few minutes a day and work your way up to improve.
Setting small, specific goals also keeps you encouraged along the way as each time you achieve one, you have reason to celebrate your progress.&nbsp;
<h2>Go Public</h2>
We&rsquo;re much more likely to achieve our resolutions when we make them public. Sharing our goals with family and friends holds us accountable, so it&rsquo;s harder to back out. Tell your best friend about your New Year&rsquo;s resolution and check in with her regularly to chat about it and make sure you&rsquo;re on track.
<h2>Celebrate Your Wins</h2>
If your focus is predominantly on the endgame, it&rsquo;s easy to feel discouraged when your progress slows. This is why it is really important to recognize and reward the smaller successes along the way. Rather than waiting until you&rsquo;ve completely changed and become mindful, more example &ndash; celebrate the fact that you feel calmer from within. Or rather than waiting until you&rsquo;ve dropped all the 10lbs you wanted to shed, celebrate each pound lost along the way. By celebrating the small wins and not only the big ones, you&rsquo;ll motivate yourself and stay focused along the way.&nbsp;
<h2>Believe in Yourself</h2>
Lastly, but probably most importantly, you need to believe in yourself. Just as Henry Ford said, `Whether you think you can or you think you can&rsquo;t, you&rsquo;re right.&rsquo; People say they want to make a resolution, but they don&rsquo;t actually believe they can accomplish it. You need to believe wholeheartedly that you can achieve anything and everything you want, and then &ndash; you will.&nbsp;
<h2>How to stick to your New Year&rsquo;s Resolution</h2>
Once you&rsquo;ve placed these tips into action, it&rsquo;s time to make them stick. Making your resolution stick needs some planning and thought. For example,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">being more productive, means making better use of your time&nbsp;</a>and staying focused on your goals. Use your sense of accomplishment for starting your New Year&rsquo;s resolution to further fuel your healthy habits so that you can keep feeling good and proud of how you&rsquo;ve bettered yourself.

If you want to set yourself up for the best chance of success this year, start by using our tips to make better resolutions you can actually stick to

How to Make and Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions - BlockSite

How to Make and Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

<h2>BlockSite 2020 Infographic: Year in Review</h2>
Here at BlockSite we&rsquo;ve rounded up 2020 to show you important insights on how you managed to save time, be more productive, and avoid distractions by blocking websites and apps throughout the year.
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BlockSite 2020 Infographic: Year in Review

Infographic: 2020 year in review

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">What is the best way to balance your professional and personal life? We&rsquo;ve rounded up our 6 top tips to make sure you continue to enjoy both as much as possible</div>
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2020 hasn&rsquo;t been an easy year for anyone to say the least. A year where the world was hit with a pandemic that saw us forced to change how we work, and how we play&hellip;
The adjustments we all had to make brought with them challenging collisions between our personal lives and professional lives. We needed to adapt to new ways of working, communicating, learning, shopping, and the rest. This also meant that creating a work/life balance became even harder than usual.&nbsp;
How do we take a zoom meeting for work at the same time that we need to pick the kids up from school? How do we study for exams while the whole house is at home making noise? How do we switch off at the end of the work/school day and do something &lsquo;just for fun' when there isn&rsquo;t much to do? We&rsquo;re sure each and every one of you asked yourselves a variation of one of those questions at least once or twice throughout the past year.
So what is the best way to balance your professional and personal life? We&rsquo;ve rounded up our 6 top tips to make sure you continue to enjoy both as much as possible
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<h2>1. Schedule your Time</h2>
When working from home it&rsquo;s often difficult to schedule time for work and time for personal things. The days seem to roll into each other and before you know it you&rsquo;re working in the middle of the night and wasting time on other tasks during the day. Therefore, it&rsquo;s important to schedule your time and plan your days.
By setting work hours during the day, break times, and time for personal issues, you&rsquo;ll be able to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">keep focused</a>&nbsp;and productive every day. Planning ahead often helps with juggling these elements especially when there&rsquo;s a lot going on and helps to keep you on a logical schedule.
Additionally, investing in time tracking and productivity tools is also beneficial. There are lots of tools you can use to make sure you&rsquo;re getting your tasks done each day. For example,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite&rsquo;</a>s focus mode feature enables you to control your schedule via the Pomodoro technique. You can break down your tasks into intervals and then take short breaks. With work mode, you can also set times when to block websites and when to browse freely, meaning you don&rsquo;t need any willpower, as&nbsp;<a href="http://getblocksite.co/download">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;does all the work for you
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<h2>2. Nurture your Network</h2>
We all need people to help us from time to time. In business and in our personal lives it&rsquo;s important to nurture our networks. What do we mean by this? Well, for example, if you have children at home during these unprecedented times &ndash; it&rsquo;s just as important to make your work colleagues aware of this, and your schedule surrounding them as it is to ask for help from family and friends in keeping them occupied.
Another example, while working from home is making sure that you keep your &lsquo;working relationships&rsquo; alive. This can often be difficult when you&rsquo;re not in front of your colleagues and need to hold meetings online, but make sure you keep in touch and in the &lsquo;loop&rsquo; with the business world even from home. This way, you&rsquo;ll be able to make sure you&rsquo;re keeping on top of your work and staying in the know with those important to your career.&nbsp;
<h2>3. Organize your Environment</h2>
To keep focused throughout the day, it&rsquo;s important to make sure you have a good &lsquo;work environment.&rsquo; To be honest, one of the main benefits of working from home is that you&rsquo;re able to choose your own workspace however, while the sofa might be a comfy place to start, it&rsquo;s important to find a dedicated spot in your home that you associate with your job and are able to leave when your &lsquo;job&rsquo;s is done for the day.&nbsp;
If it&rsquo;s an option, the best place is a room that you don&rsquo;t use for &lsquo;personal&rsquo; hours of the day. It might be a good idea to set up a home office where you can close the door and remove all distractions. It&rsquo;s also important to make sure you have everything you need to get your work done before you begin as this will make working from home easy, comfortable, and efficient.&nbsp;
Additionally, in terms of organizing your environment, it&rsquo;s also important to make sure you keep your house and home and not entirely an office. Make sure you have spaces in your home that aren&rsquo;t for work but rather for chilling out and taking time for yourself. This will help you stay balanced throughout the day.

<h2>4. Practice Self Care</h2>
Remember that puzzle you wanted to finish? That run you wanted to go on to clear your head? Or that book you wanted to read? &ndash; It&rsquo;s important that you make time for all those things too. By practicing self-care, you&rsquo;ll be able to keep things in perspective and take some time out, even while you&rsquo;re at home. Self-care is important as it allows us that &lsquo;me time&rsquo; we all cherish and let&rsquo;s face it, could all do with at least once a day. It is also the smartest personal and professional investment you can make.&nbsp;
Why? We hear you ask, well because as Inc Magazine reported &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t continually cultivate self-awareness, dance with your own fears, and push yourself out of your comfort zone, you won&rsquo;t grow. And if you don&rsquo;t evolve as a person and a business owner, you&rsquo;ll eventually hit a wall you can&rsquo;t breakthrough.&rdquo;
Therefore, it&rsquo;s important to pay attention to every facet of your mind and body in order to be the best version of yourself! How can you do this? There is a different kind of nourishment for every part of you. For example;
<ul>
<li>The body is nourished with healthy food 🥗</li>
<li>The heart is nourished with joy, compassion, and love ❤️</li>
<li>The mind is nourished with knowledge 📚</li>
<li>The spirit is nourished with equanimity and self-awareness🧘🏻&zwj;♂️</li>
</ul>
Decide what element of self-care you&rsquo;re most drawn to and make sure you take time out of your day to take care of number 1.&nbsp;
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<h2>5. Use Technology</h2>
To maintain your&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">productivity,</a>&nbsp;you should be aware of the technology you can use to help you. With millions of people working from home, we have all found ways to stay social through creative and virtual options. With everything from trivia nights to birthday parties, conference calls, and board meetings &ndash; Zoom has been there to help.
It&rsquo;s no shock, therefore, that daily downloads of the Zoom app have increased 30x year over year and the app has been the top free app for iPhones in the United States since March 18, according to Bernstein Research and Apptopia. Zoom said daily users spiked to 200 million in March, up from 10 million in December.&nbsp;
Additionally, services such as BlockSite have also been on hand to help you with proper time management and scheduling your day. Such services have allowed us all to stay productive, focused and in the zone &ndash; wherever we may be working from.&nbsp;
However, this is all great for our professional lives but how does it benefit our personal lives? Well, by being able to socialize while social distancing through online platforms &ndash; we can still do the majority of the things we love and see the people who mean the most to us.
Make sure you stay up to date on the latest technology platforms that can help you both personally and professionally during these times.
<h2>6. Know your Strengths and Weaknesses</h2>
Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses gives you a better understanding of yourself and how you function. It also helps you to grow more and gives people around you the chance to understand what you&rsquo;re good at, and where you might need help.
For example, your biggest personal strength would be something that comes easily for you. Maybe you&rsquo;re good with numbers, maybe you&rsquo;re a great cook or maybe you are great at writing. Whatever it may be, make sure you&rsquo;re aware of your strengths and use them to your advantage.
However, it is equally important to be aware of your weaknesses in order to grow and improve in these areas. Maybe you could improve at keeping in touch with people, maybe you need to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">improve your time management&nbsp;</a>or maybe you need to improve your number skills. Whatever it may be make sure you communicate these areas to family, friends, and colleagues to help solve these issues and better them.&nbsp;
Regarding strengths and weaknesses, it&rsquo;s important to communicate. You&rsquo;ll help others around you get to know you better and you&rsquo;ll be able to get to know yourself better in the process.&nbsp;
If something is difficult or confusing for you, it is important to express this feeling. One way to communicate this is by using a feeling and need statement. For example, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m feeling confused and I need your help&rsquo;. This will help start a conversation that will help to begin problem-solving and trying to develop strategies.&nbsp;
If something is easy or you feel really confident in doing it, it is also important to communicate using a feeling need statement as well for example, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m feeling motivated and I need to keep going with this.&rsquo; This will also help start a conversation to highlight strengths and areas of interest.
<h2>Keep positive&nbsp;</h2>
Overall, It&rsquo;s important to keep positive during these challenging times and remember to be realistic in the process. Not everything is going to be smooth sailing and not everything will be really hard. Learn to balance the good with the bad, the professional with the personal and you&rsquo;ll be on the road to success in no time!
Good Luck!

What is the best way to balance your professional and personal life? We’ve rounded up our 6 top tips to make sure you continue to enjoy both as much as possible

How to balance work & life while working from home - BlockSite

How to balance work & life while working from home

Here at BlockSite we&rsquo;re all about making sure you have the most productive days whether you&rsquo;re studying or working. It&rsquo;s been&nbsp;<a href="https://wearesocial.com/blog/2019/01/digital-2019-global-internet-use-accelerates#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20the%20world's%20internet,42%20minutes%20online%20each%20day.">reported</a>&nbsp;that the average internet user spends approximately, 6.5 hours a day online, which is a lot of time to get great work done, so long as it&rsquo;s spent on the right websites. However, what if you struggle to stay focused while working and/or studying, and find yourself wasting time on websites that reduce your productivity?&nbsp;
A recent report stated that on average, we spend 144 minutes a day on social media networks, which judging by our own research &ndash; are the ultimate time and focus thieves. Social media networks are also the category of most blocked sites on BlockSite.
How do you block such websites? Well, you can read more about that&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-block-a-website/">here</a>, but today we&rsquo;re going to let you in on some of our best BlockSite practices and what we know so far about how BlockSite can help you.
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We&rsquo;ve done our research and based on feedback provided by our users, on average 90% of BlockSite users have 8 websites on their block list. From this, it appears that there are a small number of sites that our users block to remove distractions. By blocking this small amount of websites, BlockSite&rsquo;s highly focused users are able to improve their productivity on a daily basis.
The majority of these sites are social media and adult content sites, that are designed to keep you on the platforms for as long as possible. However, our users reported that by blocking such sites, even temporarily when they really needed to get in the zone, they saved on average 1.2 hours a day! Think about how much more you could get done with all that time saved!!&nbsp;

Additionally, BlockSite users have on average 6 keywords in their blocking list. Blocking by keyword, enables our users to block thousands of websites that contain a word that often steals their focus. In a few clicks, all websites containing the keyword are removed, and their productivity is elevated.
BlockSite users also have on average 3 apps in their blocking list, that they choose to block during the time they need to work and study. Think of the apps you visit the most and could do with a break from, and we&rsquo;re sure that if you add them to your block list, you&rsquo;ll notice an immediate improvement in your focus, productivity, and use of time.
&nbsp;Now, we&rsquo;re sure you&rsquo;re wondering which sites these are right? So here&rsquo;s the deal.
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<h2>The Top 10 Most Blocked Sites on BlockSite</h2>
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1. YouTube
The most blocked website on BlockSite is YouTube. The majority of our users seem to block the online video-sharing platform to help keep them focused and stop wasting time online. Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a task, getting distracted by a YouTube video, then 3 hours later watching countless videos that add no value to your life? Yep, we thought so because we&rsquo;ve been there too. Therefore, it&rsquo;s time to add YouTube to your block list.
2. Facebook
Second, on the list is Facebook. The social network platform that has you scrolling and liking for hours on end when you&rsquo;re supposed to be working or studying is one of the ultimate time thieves. It&rsquo;s nothing new that social media networks are designed to keep us engaged and on their platforms for long periods of time, and as a result account for a lot of the distractions that we encounter on a daily basis. Make sure you add Facebook to your block list today to control your screen time and&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-overcome-your-addiction-to-social-media/">overcome your social media addiction</a>.&nbsp;
3. Instagram
While it&rsquo;s always fun to view aspirational pictures and see what your friends have uploaded to their stories on Instagram, it&rsquo;s not the most productive use of your time. Especially when you need to get tasks done and keep yourself focused. Instagram is the third most blocked website on BlockSite and users have saved over 1.2 hours each and every day just by blocking such websites! What are you waiting for? Time to take back control of your time and add it to your block list.
4. Twitter
Everyone wants to stay in the know and keep up to date on the latest developments from their favorite news outlets, celebrities, and other accounts that interest them however, Twitter comes in fourth place on our list of most blocked websites due to it often having a negative impact on our productivity. While a tweet may only take a few seconds to read and write, all those tweets added up may take up a considerable amount of the time you have in a given day. Add Twitter to your block list while you&rsquo;re working to make sure you only use it when you take a break.&nbsp;
5. PornHub
The world&rsquo;s leading free porn site is fifth on the list of BlockSite&rsquo;s most blocked sites, and for good reason. Many people use BlockSite to help them deal with their addictions, whether it be to adult content, gambling, gaming, or anything in between so it comes as no surprise that PornHub is on this list. Control your addiction and make sure that you have all the&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/tips-and-tools-to-block-inappropriate-content-for-children-online/">tips and tools to block inappropriate content for children online</a>&nbsp;with BlockSite.&nbsp;
6. Reddit
We all want to be heard and who doesn&rsquo;t love a good discussion, there&rsquo;s a time and a place to talk and there are times when you need to keep your focus in check. Many of our users have added Reddit to their block list as a way to control how much they use the network. Being involved in communities on the platform based on your interests can often use up too much of your time and not enhance your productivity. Set your work mode on BlockSite so that when you take breaks, you can get involved in a topic of choice 😉
7. Xvideos
Xvideos is another free adult content site that takes up too much valuable time. Learn how to control your adult content viewing by also adding such sites to your block list to make sure that when desire kicks in, you need no self-control &ndash; just BlockSite to help you. Find out how you can quit watching adult content&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/5-ways-you-can-quit-watching-adult-content/">here</a>.&nbsp;
8. Roblox
In eighth place on our most blocked websites is Roblox. Roblox is an online gaming platform and game creation system that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. So, if you find yourself playing or creating games when you should be studying, learn how you can&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-temporarily-block-websites-for-studying/">temporarily block websites</a>&nbsp;with BlockSite.&nbsp;
9. Netflix
With Netflix making movies &amp; TV shows available online, AND with the ability to stream content right to your smart TV, game console, PC, Mac, mobile, tablet, and more, it&rsquo;s no wonder that they&rsquo;re number eight on the most blocked list. In short, there&rsquo;s time to work and there&rsquo;s time to&hellip;well, Netflix and chill &ndash; and if you find it hard to control the urge to watch the next episode of your favorite show while you should be working, studying, or getting important tasks done, add them to your block list.
10. TikTok
Recently found yourself dancing in your living room to the latest TikTok craze? The majority of us have and with the video platform giant only growing and growing, it&rsquo;s becoming even harder to avoid getting involved. TikTok is the ultimate destination to create mobile videos that capture and present your creativity however, it might not be the most productive use of your time. As another social media outlet, it&rsquo;s important to control your usage of this platform to make sure you don&rsquo;t get lost in, well dance, instead of improving your time management and productivity.&nbsp;
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<h2>Control your time&nbsp;</h2>
Overall, it appears that the majority of blocked sites on BlockSite are social media outlets, with a slight exception of gaming and adult content sites. Why? Well, in comparison to other websites, social networks always have something new and they change quickly. With updates from businesses and friends and family alike all you need to do is refresh to get new content instantly, which is what also makes them so addicting.&nbsp;
To make it easy to block websites on BlockSite, we have a range of features that you can use to remove distracting websites. In just a few simple clicks, you&rsquo;ll become a lot more productive. And if you want even more focus and productivity in your life, get BlockSite Unlimited and you&rsquo;ll be able to block by category &ndash; saving you time and giving you the ability to block in bulk as well as a range of other cool features that will help you become the best version of yourself &ndash; there&rsquo;s also a free trial on our premium offering.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">Click here</a>&nbsp;to get started today.

It’s been reported that the average internet user spends approximately, 6.5 hours a day online, which is a lot of time to get great work done

Top 10 Blocked Sites on BlockSite - BlockSite

Top 10 Blocked Sites on BlockSite

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">We recently asked Jill Duffy, who is a contributing editor at PCmag.com some productivity questions to gain an experts view.</div>
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Here at BlockSite we recently asked Jill Duffy, who is a contributing editor at PCmag.com some productivity questions to gain an experts view. Jill covers productivity apps and software, as well as technologies for health and fitness. She writes the Get Organized column on PCmag.com, with tips on how to lead a better digital life.&nbsp;Read on to find out more and download&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite&nbsp;</a>today to make the most out of your productivity!
<h2>Hi Jill! Thanks for joining us for this Q&amp;A session! Could you please give us an introduction and your experience in the productivity field?</h2>
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My name is Jill Duffy, I&rsquo;m a contributing editor at PCmag.com and I write about technology and productivity. I&rsquo;ve been covering this space since 2011 where I mostly write reviews for productivity software for both personal and business productivity, and I write advice articles about productivity as well, based on research that I do regarding how to be more productive, and curb distractions.
My articles are based on products that have been peer-reviewed and gone through some process of verification as I don&rsquo;t like to rely on sources of information that don&rsquo;t meet those standards because there&rsquo;s usually some bias involved in them.&nbsp;
<h2>What are your top 3 tips for personal productivity?</h2>
I don&rsquo;t think I have the top 3 tips, I think it really varies by an individual based on what they want to accomplish. One of the things people tend to overlook when they talk about productivity is the idea of having a goal.
If you don&rsquo;t have a goal there&rsquo;s no reason to be more productive. You need to think about whether you&rsquo;re trying to be more productive in order to reclaim some more free time &ndash; that would be productivity based on time, where you&rsquo;d be doing the same amount of work that you already do, just in less time.&nbsp;
Or your productivity goal might be to produce more than you&rsquo;re currently producing. Then, you need to focus on why you want to do that and what the end goal would be. So rather than focusing on tips, I would say that you should think of your goal and work from there.
<h2>How can people make their work day more productive?&nbsp;</h2>
It depends on the goal. If your goal is to finish your work sooner, the way you&rsquo;ll go about being more productive will be different from if your goal is to get more done.&nbsp;
Once you have a goal in mind, you can start thinking about what is the best use of your time. It becomes more about time management and planning &ndash; think about what is your goal, what you need to do to achieve it, and the best use of your time. Then work from there depending on your strengths.&nbsp;

For example, if you know you&rsquo;re a person who&rsquo;s really good at sitting down and focusing for a long stretch of time, think about what you can do to give yourself that time. Or, if you&rsquo;re someone who is really good at getting a little bit done in spaced-out time frames, think about how you can make use of those small spaces of time when you have them. How can you give yourself signals throughout the day to get things done?
It&rsquo;s important to first think about the goal and then how to manage your time and how to work with your strengths to get things done in order to become more productive.
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<h2>What are the easiest ways to stay focused and stop procrastinating?</h2>
There are a few things that the majority of people find helpful. For example, one is called time blocking.&nbsp;
The idea with time blocking is that you write out your daily calendar in increments of 15 minutes and for everything you want to accomplish, especially for tasks that require a lot of focus, you write down a block of time when you work on a specific task.&nbsp;
This helps people focus because it is a planning method, deciding in advance that from 10 am &ndash; 12:30 pm you will work on something, makes you think ahead of time about how best to use your time. It also gives you a very clear understanding that you don&rsquo;t have to focus all day long. Sometimes we sit down to do a task that requires focus and we don&rsquo;t think about how long it&rsquo;s going to take or when we&rsquo;ll be done. If you decide ahead of time that you&rsquo;re going to work on a task for say, an hour and a half and then take a break, you have an end in sight, and that helps shake some of the anxiety out of having to sit down and complete the task.
Another trick that people like to use is similar to time blocking but it&rsquo;s called the&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/improve-your-digital-habits/">Pomodoro Method</a>. You set a timer for 25 minutes of work. At the end of the 25 minutes, you take a short break with a timer set, for around 5 minutes, and then repeat the process 4 times. At the end of the process, you take a longer break of half an hour to an hour.&nbsp;
The idea with this method is that you decide ahead of time that you&rsquo;re not going to focus for an indefinite amount of time, you&rsquo;re focused for 25 minutes which is much more doable than not having an end in sight.&nbsp;
<h2>What are your tips for prioritizing tasks?</h2>
In my own life, I spend a few minutes every morning checking my to-do list and figuring out how many things on that list are important to accomplish today and what can wait until tomorrow.
I try to keep my to-do list to about 3-5 things per day as I find that more than that, is ambitious and won&rsquo;t happen. I even write down things like remembering to take medication as I find that being able to check it off a list is helpful even if it&rsquo;s not time-consuming, and having some security that I&rsquo;ve done it by checking off that box helps too.
I also remind myself to journal every day even though I&rsquo;ve been doing it a long time and don&rsquo;t need to. I do this to remind me of what&rsquo;s important and what must be completed due to deadlines and to prioritize. If you look at your to-do list every day and take it down to what you can actually do, then reorganize what&rsquo;s left to do into other days of the week and repeat this process every day, that&rsquo;s a good strategy to stay on top of the most important stuff.&nbsp;
<h2>How do you recommend getting the best work/life balance?&nbsp;</h2>
This is based on a person-by-person basis. There are people who are naturally good at it and people who are naturally bad at it. if you&rsquo;re bad at it and want to be better, an idea may be to have another person make you accountable.&nbsp;
For example, say you&rsquo;re currently working from home due to COVID-19 and have a really hard time shutting off your work day at 5 pm, ask someone to send you a text to tell you to log off.&nbsp; Or, you can schedule a call or video with a friend or family member when you want to finish your workday so that you have a commitment that reminds you to shut down work for the day.
It also helps to have habits. For example, make it a habit to take a full hour off for your lunch break every day which will help if you&rsquo;re at home. Or if you find it difficult to delay the start of your day to a good time and instead start answering emails as soon as you wake up, think if there&rsquo;s something that you can do, such as removing devices from rooms, to make it harder for you to do. Putting hurdles in the way often helps with balance.&nbsp;

We recently asked Jill Duffy, who is a contributing editor at PCmag.com some productivity questions to gain an experts view

Guest Post: Q&A with Productivity Expert Jill Duffy

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Right now, you have an endless amount of options for where you can direct your attention. You can focus on the text message you just received, the comfort of the seat you are sitting in, your sore calves from yesterday&rsquo;s long overdue jog, the smell of coffee from the break room, or, hopefully, this article.</div>
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Right now, you have an endless amount of options for where you can direct your attention. You can focus on the text message you just received, the comfort of the seat you are sitting in, your sore calves from yesterday&rsquo;s long overdue jog, the smell of coffee from the break room, or, hopefully, this article.
Here&rsquo;s what you can&rsquo;t do: focus on any two of them at once. None of us are efficient at &ldquo;switch tasking&rdquo;&mdash;moving back and forth from one sphere of attention to another. There&rsquo;s a reorienting penalty every time we switch spheres, causing a 40% drop in our efficiency.
The first key to attention management, then, is to reduce your &ldquo;switch tasking.&rdquo; The longer you can remain focused upon one sphere (until your goals within this sphere are accomplished and you are ready to move to another) the better.
This is easier said than done, and the reason for the difficulty is that your brain has two different systems of attention that compete with one another.&nbsp;Your brain has something in common with a minivan carrying a family across the country on a road trip. That&rsquo;s right, your brain is like a family of five that&rsquo;s packed up its bags and piled into a van to make the long trek to the Grand Canyon. Just as this van flies down the highway so your brain flies through events all day long. And just as there are two conflicting groups of people in the mini-van &mdash; those having fun in the backseat, and those doing the driving in the front seat &mdash; so there are two conflicting kinds of attention living in your brain: the system that wants to sit in the back and be stimulated by new and novel things, and the system that sits in the front and wants to accomplish goals.
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<h2>SYSTEM OF ATTENTION #1: KIDS IN THE BACKSEAT</h2>
Our brain&rsquo;s first system of attention is centered on enjoyment, like kids in the backseat of a van. The sole task of kids on a road trip is to avoid boredom, so they look out the window for fascinating cars or funny looking animals, they play with toys and video game devices, and they poke and bother each other &mdash; all in the name of finding entertainment. Similarly, a major system of your brain is wired to seek new and novel stimulus, with a particular focus on finding pleasure and avoiding pain. Neuroscientists often call this &ldquo;bottom-up&rdquo; attention. As we go through life, this system of attention is always looking out for things that will excite us that we want to go towards, while also watching out for things that cause us pain that we naturally flee. Your immediate needs are driven by this system.
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<h2>SYSTEM OF ATTENTION #2: THE PARENT IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT</h2>
Our brain&rsquo;s second system of attention is centered on tasks, or the desire to accomplish goals, like a parent in the driver's seat trying to get everyone safely and soundly to the destination. The goal of the driver is completely different from that of the kids. Everything the parent who&rsquo;s driving the car sees &mdash; everything that comes across their line of sight &mdash; is either a threat or an aid to their goal, and they have to work hard to push away the threats in order to focus. Similarly, a major system of your brain is wired for executive functions. Neuroscientists call it our &ldquo;top-down system&rdquo;, or &ldquo;executive control,&rdquo; because it allows us to make active decisions about where we will focus. You can choose to file your taxes, or at least fill out the extension. You can will yourself to wash your car and change its oil. You have the power to take control of your attention so you can finally put that scrapbook together of the Disney vacation your family took 6 months ago. Your future self loves it when this system of your attention wins.
Our lives see positive results when we aren&rsquo;t switching tasks too often. Our lives also see positive results when the parent in the driver seat of our attention takes control and hushes down the crazy kids in the backseat of our attention. But, to help this part of our focusing system to win the battle, we need to understand the four factors that are always influencing the arena of attention.
I call these crucial factors the Four E&rsquo;s.
<h2>ENERGY:</h2>
The top-down system requires far more mental energy. The frontal lobe is the area of the brain that Mom or Dad uses to drive. It runs on glucose, which is a valuable and depleting resource as the day goes along. The more of it we have, the easier it is to focus. Understanding the role of glucose in your ability to focus has dramatic consequences on how you shape your work. (Oh, we did pack snacks and will take breaks on this trip, too. Your brain appreciates it.)
Pro-Tip:&nbsp;Here&rsquo;s one practical way to use your energy more effectively: Complete your most mentally exhausting tasks early in the day. Don&rsquo;t spend your morning responding to emails. Spend your morning pumping out that hefty proposal, while leaving the inconsequential emails for the afternoon.
<h2>EXPERIENCE:</h2>
Your brain constantly changes based on your prior experiences. Scientists call this neuroplasticity. Let&rsquo;s use a 16-year-old for example. They &ldquo;know everything&rdquo; in the world. (Just ask them!) Yet, they can&rsquo;t merge into oncoming traffic without causing everyone else to scream in sheer terror. 16-year-olds simply don&rsquo;t have the experience to effectively interpret the thousands of pieces of data coming at them. It&rsquo;s all new and novel. On the other hand, the more active focus you give to a particular sphere, the broader you will be able to focus within that sphere. Distracted work, unfortunately, leads to a need for more distractions required by your brain to keep you from feeling bored. Your experiences shape your focus.
Pro-Tip:&nbsp;The great news? We can actually train our brains to improve focus. But, it takes training. For instance, practicing mindfulness for just ten minutes a day has shown to dramatically increase one&rsquo;s ability to have sustained focus. Visualize your day: what do you hope to achieve? At the end of the day, ask yourself: What did I do today? Who did it help? Why does it matter?

<h2>ENVIRONMENT:</h2>
We are wired for distraction &mdash; our sensory system always wants to be stimulated. This makes perfect sense for survival. If you are in the jungle, the earlier you hear/see/smell the lion who views you as potential lunch, the better your chance of avoiding such an unfortunate fate. However, we no longer typically come into contact with various species that can end our lives. Our brain has not been so quick to adapt. Thus, we are easily distracted, so we must find other ways to dull our search for environmental distractions. The best way to limit those distractions is to ensure our environment doesn&rsquo;t contain them. In other words, keep your eyes on the road ahead. There&rsquo;s a reason why the windshield is larger than the rearview mirror.
Pro-Tip:&nbsp;In today&rsquo;s world, the most important &lsquo;environment&rsquo; to control is your virtual environment. Email is a cesspool of distraction, always offering a new potential reward from the next inbox notification. Make your calendar your &ldquo;home screen&rdquo; rather than your email inbox. Then, your focus is on what matters&hellip; not the tyranny of the urgent.
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<h2>EMOTION:</h2>
Emotions drive attention. If you don&rsquo;t care about a subject, you won&rsquo;t focus on it. This makes work quite difficult, particularly in a world where seventy percent of the workforce is not actively engaged in their job. Why do you find yourself checking Facebook when you should be finishing the project? Because your family is on Facebook. Your friends are on Facebook. The classmate from senior-level English (who you didn&rsquo;t even talk to then) is on Facebook &ndash; and they are skiing in Europe! Suddenly you care about it, and you can&rsquo;t help but watch it. Moral of the story: To successfully direct our attention, we must find ways to actively engage our emotions in our work. (Also, don&rsquo;t make your Parents angry in the front seat. It distracts from driving!)
Pro-Tip:&nbsp;Just get started down the road. Your emotional state doesn&rsquo;t have to determine your behavior. The best way to finish something you don&rsquo;t want to do is to start. Your feelings are fair-weather friends. Once you start something unpleasant, they&rsquo;ll fall in line.
<h2>FINAL DESTINATION &mdash; FOCUS!</h2>
Attention is a powerful resource. Unfortunately, it&rsquo;s one that we cannot easily control directly. The good news is that by understanding and leveraging the four factors that dictate how well we allocate our attention, we can exercise the control that will make us excel at work, at home, and at everything in between. It&rsquo;s time to put focus in the front seat. All aboard!
Pro-Tip:&nbsp;Let good tech help you drive your focus to what matters.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;is a perfect example. It&rsquo;s a desktop extension and mobile app that helps users stay focused and improve their productivity by easily allowing them to block any distracting websites and apps.
<h3>ABOUT CURT</h3>
<a href="https://www.curtsteinhorst.com/">Curt Steinhorst</a>&nbsp;loves attention. More precisely, he loves the science of attention. He is the author of the Amazon bestselling book,&nbsp;<a href="https://focuswise.com/cihya/">Can I Have Your Attention?</a>, and is a regular&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtsteinhorst/#6c8542437ca0">Forbes contributor</a>&nbsp;on Leadership Strategy. He coaches founders and CEOs of multibillion-dollar brands on how to capture and keep the attention of their internal and external audiences. The consultancy he founded,&nbsp;<a href="https://focuswise.com/">Focuswise</a>, helps organizations develop focused and productive cultures. Clients include Southwest Airlines, JPMorgan, Allstate, Marriott, the Naval Academy, and even Taylor Swift&rsquo;s record label.

Right now, you have an endless amount of options for where you can direct your attention. You can focus on the text message you just received

Guest Post: How To Put Your Focus In The Driver Seat by Curt Steinhorst

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Managing your time and planning can be enjoyable and motivating and will improve your overall feeling of fulfillment and purpose. How can you do that?</div>
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It&rsquo;s the day of your interview. You have this one chance to impress the interviewers and allow yourself to get the job you have dreamed of. You&rsquo;ve prepared yourself, and now, in just a few hours, you will be sitting face to face with the people who will be making a life-changing decision for you.&nbsp;
When you woke up in the morning, you had a plan. Your clothes were ready, you showered, dressed, and ate breakfast. You planned out everything you would do to the minutest detail. You are ready.&nbsp;
You arrive at the place where the interview will take place ten minutes early. You anticipated any potential traffic jams and possible delays, and now you are ready.
How did you do that? How did you prepare yourself and have everything ready, so you arrived at the interview room door ten minutes early? You planned, and you managed your time.&nbsp;
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Yet for most of us, doing that every day is an anathema. We hate planning, we hate managing our time, but when we have to prepare for something important, we carefully manage our time. It&rsquo;s the same when we prepare to go on vacation. The day before we meticulously plan out the time we will leave to go to the airport. We check and double-check to see if our vacation clothes are all packed and that our passports and cards are in our carry-on bags. We leave nothing to chance.
Sadly, for most of us, that is where our planning stops. We don&rsquo;t manage our time very well. We allow ourselves to be easily distracted, and we skip doing important things like our daily exercise and taking some time each day to plan the day and how we will spend our time.&nbsp;
But it does not have to be complicated or unpleasant. Managing your time and planning can be enjoyable and motivating and will improve your overall feeling of fulfillment and purpose. How can you do that?
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<h2>Use your calendar</h2>
Your calendar is your most potent weapon in the fight again procrastination and drift. Adopting the policy of &lsquo;what goes on your calendar gets done&rsquo; does not mean you micromanage your time. What it means is you schedule out blocks of time to do your essential work. For me, that means finding three to four hours a day when I can block time out for doing my important work and getting in some exercise.&nbsp;
I look for gaps between meetings (and classes&mdash;I teach English classes to business executives in South Korea). I then block an hour or two for writing or course development.&nbsp;

It is during these time blocks that I turn off all notifications and use<a href="https://blocksite.co/">&nbsp;BlockSite</a>&nbsp;to prevent me from being tempted to look at my Twitter or Facebook feed. I need the internet for research and to look up terminology, so it is not practical to close down my browser. With an app like BlockSite, I can temporarily block access to procrastination traps like social media and shopping sites.&nbsp;
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<h2>Have a plan for the day</h2>
This is important if you are going to get the work that needs doing done. Like when you have an important interview, or you are going on vacation, you have a plan for the day, making that a daily habit can massively improve your productivity and keep you focused on what you have identified as being important.&nbsp;
You do not have to be too detailed.&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/StMGsath46M" rel="nofollow">Having one or two objectives</a>&mdash;tasks that, no matter what, you will get done that day and up to eight other tasks you have decided are important. Doing this will do wonders for your focus, and your sense of well-being and ensures you are getting the important work done every day.&nbsp;
Having a plan for the day also means you have time to do the things you want to do, rather than always trying to catch up with the work other people want you to do. When you plan it out, you make time work for you rather than the other way round.&nbsp;
<h3>Use a to-do list manager to collect your tasks</h3>
We are inundated with tasks being thrown at us every day. From customer requests, and demands from our bosses and colleagues needing help. If you try to remember all these in your head, you are going to forget something important.&nbsp;
Get into the habit of using a to-do list manager like<a href="https://bit.ly/2XeWu8H" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;Todoist</a>. Apps like Todoist allow you to quickly collect your tasks into a single place and later in the day you can decide when you are going to do them.<a href="https://www.carlpullein.com/blog/a-revolutionary-new-time-management-system-designed-for-the-21st-century/1/5/2020" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;Do they need to do this week</a>, next week, later this month, or next month? A simple decision, but a choice that allows you to manage your commitments with ease and reduce that overwhelming feeling you have forgotten something important.&nbsp;
Doing these three things puts you back in control of your time and your life. Rather than drifting from one day to the next, allowing other people&rsquo;s agendas to control your time, these simple steps will enable you to decide how you will spend your days. They keep you focused on what you have chosen is important, and you quickly find you improve in so many areas. You will be less stressed, have a greater sense of control over your life, and discover you have more time to work on your goals and plans.&nbsp;
Carl is the creator of the<a href="https://www.carlpullein.com/blog/a-revolutionary-new-time-management-system-designed-for-the-21st-century/1/5/2020" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;Time Sector System</a>, a time management method for the twenty-first century and the way we work today. To find out how Carl can help you, visit his website at<a href="https://www.carlpullein.com/" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;www.carlpullein.com</a>&nbsp;or his<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/CarlPulleinGTD?sub_confirmation=1" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;YouTube channel</a>&nbsp;and<a href="https://www.carlpullein.com/podcast" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;Podcast</a>.

Managing your time and planning can be enjoyable and motivating and will improve your overall feeling of fulfillment and purpose. How can you do that?

Guest Post: How To Get Better At Managing Your Time Every Day by Carl Pullein

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Here are 6 easy tips to help you break your phone-checking habits and spend less time staring at screens.</div>
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Let&rsquo;s be straight up about it. The majority of us are really, really, really attached to our phones at this point. If not totally addicted.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/12403/smartphone-addiction/">Statista</a>&nbsp;reported that the average US smartphone owner checks their phone over 47 times A DAY.&nbsp;
&nbsp;We&rsquo;re make sure that they&rsquo;re on the table at dinner, we take them with us to workout, to the bathroom, and everything in between. We&rsquo;ve got our heads inside them talking to people via messaging or social media when there are literally humans physically sitting in front of us that we should be talking to instead.&nbsp;
The use of mobile devices in the world work to simultaneously connect and separate people from one another on a daily basis. You can FaceTime your parents from across the world but at the same time can&rsquo;t get through an hour's meeting without checking your phone for texts, calls, or notifications.&nbsp;
While you may think your relationship with your phone should be one that reflects your own personal needs, feeling the urge to check a digital device every 10 minutes isn&rsquo;t exactly an ideal way of life.
So, if you&rsquo;re like us and are starting to get sick of how often you check your phone, it might be time to consider how to beat the addiction and become more aware of what&rsquo;s going on around you.
Here are 6 easy tips to help you break your phone-checking habits and spend less time staring at screens.
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<h2>Delete Apps</h2>
We all find ourselves in situations where we&rsquo;re bored or lose concentration and start tapping away at our phones. More often than not, there are certain apps we&rsquo;ll go to that are also usually the ones that distract us most. Games, social media apps or shopping apps with their colorful icon on the home screen easily draw our attention, and then we find ourselves down the rabbit hole for hours doing, well not much at all.
So how can we avoid this temptation? Pretty easily actually &ndash; by deleting them. At least move them off the home screen if total deletion sounds too radical. Then the theory of &lsquo;out of sight, out of mind&rsquo; will come into play. By moving all of your most addictive apps to the second page of your screen where it&rsquo;s harder to open them spontaneously, you&rsquo;ll be less inclined to get lost inside them.
You could also try grouping such apps in a folder such as &lsquo;Games&rsquo; or &lsquo;Social Media&rsquo; so they&rsquo;re always that one extra step harder to find and access. Making these apps less accessible will reduce the time you spend using them and in turn, help you use your phone less promoting better&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/improve-your-digital-habits/">digital habits</a>. The BlockSite app can also help with controlling the apps that distract you. With BlockSite you can block the apps that steal your focus and waste most of your time for set time frames when you need to concentrate on other things. Check it out&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en">here</a>.
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<h2>Monitor Usage Patterns</h2>
Apple introduced the Screen Time feature with its iOS 12 release. This feature enables you to see how much time you spend on your phone, what apps you use most, and how often you&rsquo;re using your device overall. The same is available if you use an Android device as phone companies are understanding the importance for people to be aware of what they spend their time doing and how to improve their usage patterns.
Once you have located how to monitor your screen time, you&rsquo;ll be aware of the apps that are taking up too much of your time. You can then set daily limits for them and when you reach your limit, you&rsquo;ll be notified.&nbsp;
While the limit may be easily ignored with a swipe away, it creates an additional barrier between you and the apps you use. You&rsquo;ll also be aware of the time you spend with your phone and might be surprised to find out, that it&rsquo;s a lot more than you think. Start monitoring your usage and set your own limits to start reducing the time you spend on your phone.&nbsp;
For example, if your screen time app lets you know that you spent a total of 5 hours this week on your device, for the following week try and reduce it by an hour and so on until you&rsquo;re barely using it at all. By implementing this you&rsquo;ll move one step closer to being free of your phone addiction.
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<h2>Silence Notifications</h2>
Notifications have become something we&rsquo;re all used to receiving and opening. All the new apps you download to your device will ask you if they can send you notifications and the old ones you already have installed, send them all the time.
You go from happily getting your work done to receive a notification and the next thing you know you&rsquo;re impulse buying new furniture with a discount code you&rsquo;ve just received, proving just how much phone notifications really do have a way of knocking us off track.
However,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">improving your productivity</a>&nbsp;isn&rsquo;t the only benefit of blocking notifications. blocking notifications. Blocking notifications can have long-term health benefits according to research carried out by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2017/08/166869/phone-notifications-off-health-mental-benefits">Carnegie Mellon University and Telefonica</a>.
The research required 30 people to turn off their phone notifications for 24 hours and report back on how they found the experience.
The immediate findings of the study showed that participants were more productive and less distracted after their first notification-free 24 hours. The experiment, however, had far more positive long-term benefits, as it encouraged participants to change their notification settings for good, even up to 2 years later.&nbsp; This reduced their long-term urge of getting distracted and stressed out.
Therefore, If your app has flexible notification options, it&rsquo;s a good idea to play around with them and only allow what is really important to you and not notifications that could take your focus and distract you.&nbsp;

<h2>Remove your Device</h2>
It becomes much easier to beat addiction when it&rsquo;s not easily accessible. Therefore if you physically remove your phone from sight and reach, it becomes much harder to be distracted by it and to reach for it.
While we understand that we all need our phones in case of urgent calls if you want to lessen your need to constantly pick them up, put them out of reach when you can. For example, when you get home from work, leave your phone in your bag and move away from it. You&rsquo;ll feel less of a need to constantly check it and won&rsquo;t walk backward and forwards across your house to get it all the time.
The same trick can help you at work, school, and at family dinners. When there&rsquo;s no phone on the table in front of you, it&rsquo;s much easier to focus on the things you need to do, be it finishing some work or chatting with your loved ones. Start by trying to do this at specific times, like when you get home from work, before bed, and in the morning. Even if it&rsquo;s just for an hour or two at a time, it&rsquo;s a great start and you&rsquo;ll soon find you&rsquo;re reaching for it less.
<h2>Set Time Limits&nbsp;</h2>
Constantly checking your phone throughout the day reduces your productivity, while staring at the screen before bedtime&nbsp;<a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0165331">can affect the quality of sleep</a>. Statista reported that 80% of Americans check their phone within an hour of waking up and going to sleep. 35% do it within the first 5 minutes of waking up&hellip;crazy right?&nbsp;
We all need a good night&rsquo;s sleep to function properly at work, so try setting time limits on when to stop using your phone. For example, if you go to bed at 23:00, stop using your phone at 21:00. This will enable you to literally &lsquo;switch off&rsquo; and become more in control of your phone usage.&nbsp;
Use Screen Time (iOS) or Digital Wellbeing (Android) to schedule certain times away from your phone. For example, between 9 PM and 7 AM, your phone can stop app notifications for you and only allow phone calls. You can also automatically turn on the Do Not Disturb mode every night to make sure nothing interrupts your sleep.
If you want to try and increase your productivity throughout the day too and stop looking at your device, use&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite&nbsp;</a>to block certain apps and websites while you need to focus at work, that way you&rsquo;ll be less inclined to constantly check them, because you won&rsquo;t be able to open them easily.
<h2>Stop the Urge</h2>
Picture this; you&rsquo;re in the middle of a really busy day at work filled with meetings, emails, and pressing deadlines. Suddenly you have a short, unexpected gap in your day. Without even thinking about it, you pull out your phone and dive into an email, Facebook, news, or some other distraction. Sound familiar? We thought so.
This urge is even greater when we&rsquo;re at home. It&rsquo;s what causes us to respond to our child&rsquo;s request to play by saying, &ldquo;Just a minute,&rdquo; as we stare at our phones. It&rsquo;s what makes us interrupt a conversation with a friend or a meal with occasional glances down at our phones.
What we now know from the science and practice of mindfulness is that the best response to this urge is to simply become&nbsp;aware.&nbsp;
When you feel like you must check your phone become aware of the experience, and of the craving. Notice what it feels like and the thoughts that arise when it happens.&nbsp;
This will enable you to make an actual choice as to whether or not you will indulge the urge. Even if you do end up on Facebook or Instagram, this micro-moment of awareness changes everything. It breaks you out of autopilot and gives you back the ability to choose how best to spend your time.
Start becoming more&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/how-to-stay-mindful/">mindful</a>&nbsp;to beat the addiction today.
Overall, there are some easy steps you can start taking today to lessen the attachment to your phone and prevent the addiction from growing. By implementing the steps above, you&rsquo;ll become more aware of how to improve your productivity and mindfulness as well as how to stay in control of your time &ndash; spending it on more important things than staring at your screen.

Here are 6 easy tips to help you break your phone-checking habits and spend less time staring at screens

How to Stop Your Phone Addiction

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<h2 class="elementor-widget-container">How to work from home as a parent and stay productive and focused</h2>
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We get it. Your world has been totally disrupted over the last month (maybe longer, but who&rsquo;s counting?!). Just a few weeks ago you had it made. The cozy office, the cup of coffee, The black lab snuggled at your feet as you typed away, uninterrupted, for all those hours that your kids were at school.
Then came a pandemic, unforeseen circumstances that forced you and your family to stay at home&hellip;but still work. Where there was once help in the form of grandparents, camps, babysitters, and the like that you could usually rely on, you now have to deal with this alone.
From working full-time to parenting, homeschooling, and navigating new tools for video conference calls, it can be a lot to manage. In either case, with busy and demanding children underfoot, how can you make sure to stay calm and keep both life and work carrying on?&nbsp;
It won&rsquo;t, and we&rsquo;re sure it hasn&rsquo;t until this point been smooth or perfect but there are a few strategies you can use to make your new situation a little easier. Here are some of our top tips to help balance your career and children through this difficult time. And yes, it&rsquo;s totally possible 🙂
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<h2>Set a Routine</h2>
To begin, you need to make sure you have a daily routine in place. Try to keep the structure of the day the same as it has typically been. Beyond the benefits of familiarity, maintaining a regular schedule will give you firm guideposts for building your work and childcare schedules.
For example, if your children&rsquo;s normal routine followed something like this;
<ul>
<li>8:00 am &ndash; Breakfast</li>
<li>9:00 am &ndash; School/Nursery&nbsp;</li>
<li>13:00 pm &ndash; Lunch</li>
<li>After School &ndash; A mix of educational and craft activities&nbsp;</li>
<li>17:00 pm &ndash; Dinner</li>
<li>19:00 pm &ndash; Bed</li>
</ul>
We advise that you keep a similar routine in quarantine. Whether or not there&rsquo;s school or a nanny, you should try and keep mealtimes and activity times the same. This way, you&rsquo;ll identify the foundation based on what you already know and it will be familiar to you and your children too.
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<h2>Create a Schedule</h2>
Next, build a schedule for each week that incorporates these routines at a high level but is modified to account for your work blocks and other new responsibilities such as meals, chores and relevant childcare.
In planning your schedule make sure you&rsquo;ve covered:
<ul>
<li>Your children&rsquo;s schedule</li>
<li>Meals</li>
<li>Chores&nbsp; (such as laundry, dishes, tidying, cleaning)</li>
<li>Your work meetings or times it&rsquo;s critical you have someone to cover your work while you handle childcare</li>
</ul>
Arrange all this information and put it into a calendar to start assigning shifts and duties to specific family members. You could use a&nbsp; Google Calendar so that everyone is aligned and it can be updated as you go, and for your own personal needs for work blocking, you can use<a href="https://blocksite.co/how-to-achieve-more-in-less-time-with-blocksites-scheduling/">&nbsp;BlockSite&rsquo;s Scheduling feature</a>&nbsp;to make sure you know when you need to focus on your work and at which times.
Depending on your childcare, community, and quarantine situation, here are three examples of how to make a schedule work:
A partner swap:&nbsp;4-hour shifts where one partner works and the other is in charge of childcare.
Short shifts:&nbsp;30-minute to 2-hour shifts that rotate among parents.
Video shifts:&nbsp;While you&rsquo;ll still need to be paying some attention, it&rsquo;s possible, especially with older kids, to organize virtual playdates or calls with grandparents that will keep them entertained while you&rsquo;re answering emails or finishing an important task for work.&nbsp;
It really will feel like you need to make the most out of every hour in the day and squeeze every ounce of productivity out of every minute but once you have a schedule in place it will feel a lot easier. You may find that you have to work early in the morning or after the children are in bed, but be sure to schedule in breaks and unstructured times to unwind and connect with your partner and kids. It&rsquo;s important you find ways to stop a burnout during this time and unwind too.

<h2>Communicate</h2>
Due to making adjustments to balance your work and life schedules you&rsquo;ll need to openly communicate with your team and with your boss.
Inevitably, they will understand as &lsquo;we&rsquo;re all in this together&rsquo; and it&rsquo;s not a personal situation, rather a global one.&nbsp;
When discussing this with your team and your boss you&rsquo;ll need to let them know when you&rsquo;ll be able to work, and when it will be more challenging. That&rsquo;s why our previous point of creating a schedule is so important. You&rsquo;ll be able to let your team know your availability for calls and collaborations and implement a structure that will not only benefit you, but everyone around you too.
Additionally, you could also put in your revised &lsquo;business hours&rsquo; in your work calendar to let everyone know of your availability and when you are open to Zoom calls and meetings.
However, even with the best-laid plans, your children will interrupt your work. They&rsquo;ll scream just as you unmute during a conference call. They&rsquo;ll bomb your video meetings. Or you may just need to take them outside for 30 minutes so they can burn off some energy when you didn&rsquo;t plan for it. Your coworkers will be more understanding about interruptions if you warn them ahead of time. After all, you aren&rsquo;t trying to cheat the system by working while watching your children, you&rsquo;re making the best of an unprecedented situation, and you&rsquo;ll probably have coworkers going through it with you.
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<h2>Take Breaks</h2>
Scheduling times to take breaks is very important when juggling both home and work life at once. For example, working for a few hours in the morning or evening gives you the opportunity to take breaks during the day and deal with those &lsquo;unforeseen circumstances&rsquo; that come with working from home and having the kids around.
During your &ldquo;break&rdquo; time, you can play with the kids, go over their schoolwork, or get outside. If you give the kids your full attention during breaks, they can look forward to them, and it might just be easier for them to get through your working blocks too.
However, make sure that as the adult in the house, you also have downtime. Parents who work while managing children are always on, and that can take a toll on everyone&rsquo;s patience and energy levels.&nbsp;
So, for example, you might want to take some time out to read a book, work on a craft project, or exercise. In a house with multiple adults, you can trade off&mdash;and try to discuss when and how you&rsquo;ll each take your downtime in advance to avoid arguments. Solo parents might need to wait until the weekend or use early morning or late evening for alone time.
Start by scheduling frequent breaks in your day. Instead of sitting down and working on a task for three hours, break up your day a bit more. Work for 30 or 50 minutes, then take a 10-minute break to hang out with your kids. You can also use&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/improve-your-digital-habits/">BlockSite&rsquo;s Work Mode</a>&nbsp;to help with this. This feature on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>, enables you to schedule breaks and keeps you focused on set time frames.
<h2>Find Entertainment</h2>
With children at home during the Coronavirus period, it&rsquo;s important for those &lsquo;breaks&rsquo; to find entertainment. It&rsquo;s also just as important to find entertainment and/or &lsquo;break time&rsquo; that doesn&rsquo;t require a lot of supervision to give you more work time, or break time of your own.&nbsp;
For example, depending on their age you could choose from the following;
Babies:
<ul>
<li>Naps, swings, bouncy chairs</li>
<li>Shows or videos such as Baby Einstein&nbsp;</li>
<li>Musical songs</li>
</ul>
Toddlers:
<ul>
<li>Favorite shows and/or related online games.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Educational games and apps</li>
</ul>
Older Children:
<ul>
<li>Reading and/or writing stories</li>
<li>Educational, positive, or inspirational shows or movies</li>
<li>School platforms</li>
<li>Online activities with their friends</li>
</ul>
Virtual playdates:&nbsp;Choose Google Hangouts (or Zoom if you prefer) and send invites to your kids&rsquo; friends&rsquo; parents. For the playdate itself, you could have a station set up in your house with a tablet, or laptop ready to go. During the playdate, it can be as simple as the kids catching up and coloring together or one of the parents leading an activity or reading books.&nbsp;
Sports activities for the kids.&nbsp;Register your kids for free online classes and schedule these during the times you need to get some work done. It is also very beneficial for them to get some exercise every day, even if it&rsquo;s just going into the backyard and playing catch, they&rsquo;ll be able to burn off some energy and get some fresh air at the same time.
Activities for you.&nbsp;Staying social, active, and connected is just as important for adults. If you don&rsquo;t already have one, create a book club or a sports/TV show viewing club. Get it into people&rsquo;s calendars and set up a video call so everyone can watch it together. Make sure to still get your workouts in with a run outside, an indoor circuit, or using online options. Even a family walk around the block will do wonders.
<h2>Learn Balance</h2>
It&rsquo;s important to keep positive and remember to be realistic during a time like this. Not everything is going to be smooth sailing and not everything will be really bad. Learn to balance the good with the bad and accept that the bad days are just that &ndash; a bad day and will pass.
Juggling parenting and working on the best of days is hard, let alone when you&rsquo;re all stuck in one place for extended periods of time due to a virus. It&rsquo;s important to balance the &lsquo;juggle&rsquo; and take some time for self-care too.
Remember that book you wanted to read? That relaxing bath you wanted to take? Or that meditation you were looking forward to doing? &ndash; Make time for it and do it. It will help keep things in perspective and give you some balance and personal space &ndash; and we all could do with some of that.
<h2>Give Rewards</h2>
As parents, you also need to remember that this situation takes its toll on children too. They don&rsquo;t get to see their friends or play or learn as they&rsquo;re used to, so you also need to acknowledge and reward good behavior.
If you&rsquo;ve got young children that need a lot of attention before you start a meeting, let them know what&rsquo;s happening and that you can&rsquo;t be interrupted. Help them start a puzzle or coloring project, and let them know that you&rsquo;ll be back shortly.&nbsp;
If your kids do interrupt you, stay calm. You may need to stop what you&rsquo;re doing and deal with the problem. But, once you&rsquo;ve handled the situation, and finished your work, have another discussion with your kids. Explain to them that when they leave you alone, it helps you do a better job, so you need their help so you can do the best work possible.
When your kids don&rsquo;t interrupt you, reward them. Give them lots of praise, thank them for their help, and maybe even give them that special treat they were asking for earlier. Or, spend some extra time with them and read a book or play a game. While older children may not appreciate the gesture as much, they might appreciate extra video game time.
Yes, these rewards sound remarkably similar to bribes. But working from home with kids sometimes means you do what you have to do to maintain harmony and keep the peace. Don&rsquo;t worry, your secrets are safe with us 😉
Overall, this working from home thing is totally doable, with or without children. It&rsquo;s just about planning and finding routines and balance throughout it all to make sure you get your work done, be the best parent you can be, and make time for yourself. Remember, this is only temporary and it will pass.
Good Luck!

How to work from home as a parent and stay productive and focused


How to Work from Home as a Parent

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Explore how you can achieve more in less time and stay productive with BlockSite's scheduling feature .</div>
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The math is simple. A colleague who works 7 hours a day will get less done than someone who works 10 hours a day.&nbsp; Studying three hours a day will get you better grades than the guy or girl who skims through a few chapters before the test. More work means more results, right?&nbsp; So it&rsquo;s got to be totally impossible to be able to achieve more in less time&hellip;right? Wrong. To get more done, you don&rsquo;t necessarily need more time, you need to be productive.&nbsp;
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Working smart beats working hard and in some cases working more can actually have damaging effects on what&rsquo;s accomplished. However, while it is possible &ndash; working less and accomplishing more isn&rsquo;t always easy. It requires you to think creatively and find effective ways of doing things.
Some people are naturally&nbsp;highly efficient, they know how to get things done and increase productivity, they&rsquo;re constantly checking things off their to-do lists, and are extremely busy. The question is, are they accomplishing what matters?
Highly effective&nbsp;people are also highly efficient but they take their efforts to the next level. They focus on accomplishing the tasks that will make the biggest impact on them, their families, and&nbsp;their businesses. Unlike merely efficient people, they get the&nbsp;right&nbsp;things done.
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So, how do you accomplish a lot in little time and stay productive?
To accomplish a lot in little time is really based on your productivity levels. A lot of what you&rsquo;ll read surrounding this issue is pretty basic &ndash; delegate, batch, keep a to-do list and while those are all great ideas, and you should consider doing them, you also need some &lsquo;hacks&rsquo; that will allow you to slay your goals every single day.
It begins by finding out where you are wasting the most time. For example, if you find yourself avoiding the task by surfing the web on random sites you need to find a way to block that behavior and keep you on track and focused. You could try simple willpower, but we&rsquo;ve all been there and that only lasts a day or two. If you really want to stay focused you need to block specific sites with a digital solution such as BlockSite. If you are not sure you want to block them all the time, but only when you need to focus, you can set a schedule as to when you can use them.

By controlling when listed apps and URLs are blocked and when you have access to them, you will be able to free your time and manage it to make sure all the necessary tasks you have to do are achieved.&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;has made scheduling super simple and below you can find how to activate it.
So the question maybe isn&rsquo;t how do you accomplish a lot in little time but maybe&hellip;.
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<h2>How can I be more productive in less time?</h2>
The answer is simple. By scheduling your time for work and time for play with BlockSite. With BlockSite&rsquo;s schedule feature, you can easily schedule by the hour and by days what sites you want to block&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">in order to be more productive</a>.
For example, let&rsquo;s say while you&rsquo;re at work you want to block social media sites. All you need to do is add the specific sites to your block list, choose the days you wish to have the sites blocked on (for example, Monday to Friday), and then the times (while you&rsquo;re at work from 9-5) and let BlockSite do the rest!&nbsp;
By enabling this feature and using it when you feel necessary or when you have a heavy workload, during an exam period, or want to stay away from distracting sites, you&rsquo;ll become more productive in much less time than usual, increase your efficiency and will find yourself thinking &lsquo;how did I manage to get all that done in one day?!&rsquo; &ndash; we promise you, the results will speak for themselves.
<h2>Accomplishing more in life&hellip;</h2>
The simple use of keeping a general schedule around everything you do, including your internet usage will have you accomplishing more in life. As we mentioned in our blog post titled&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/improve-your-digital-habits/">Improve your digital habits with BlockSite&rsquo;s &lsquo;Work Mode&rsquo;</a>&nbsp;we understand how difficult it can be to achieve more in less time with all the digital distractions out there, so a little help in the name of&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en">BlockSite</a>, could be exactly what you need to save the day!
Check out the video in our&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/faq">F</a>AQs&nbsp;to understand further how to use this feature and then download&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;to test it out, it will only improve your life&hellip;we promise.&nbsp;

Explore how you can achieve more in less time and stay productive with BlockSite's scheduling feature

How to achieve more in less time with BlockSite’s ‘Scheduling’

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Learn how to improve your digital habits with BlockSite and discover how you can make technology work for you.</div>
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<h2>What are digital habits?</h2>
At&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;we believe in making technology work for us and not the other way round. We are strong believers in keeping our lives free from distractions and addictions and making sure we always improve our lives.&nbsp;
Most people, when they think of digital addiction, think of the hardcore gaming types that are glued to their computer screens for hours a day. However, today digital addiction is not just that. Most people wouldn&rsquo;t question their digital habits, but do you know how much time you spend on your phone, email, or social media every day? The digital world is changing every single day and we often don&rsquo;t have the time to keep up before the next thing comes out. So how can you make sure your digital habits are kept in check? and how can you stay focused at work? Keep reading to find out!
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<h2>How to Improve Digital Habits?</h2>
It&rsquo;s the same story time and time again. You&rsquo;re right in the middle of doing something productive, be it a work meeting or having a good work session and your phone lights up with a notification quickly shifting your focus to the distraction rather than the task at hand. We&rsquo;ve ALL been there. Apple proudly announced a few years ago that there had been 7.4 TRILLION push notifications pushed through its servers. Today, that number is 100% higher. While there are many tools available to us to help us improve our digital habits and work productivity, there are also things &ndash; like turning off notifications &ndash; that we can physically do ourselves to help stop distractions.
Another idea is not to take &lsquo;distractions&rsquo; to bed with you.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lifehack.org/521175/cell-phone-addiction-america-the-shocking-truth">Did you know that 56% of smartphone users check their phones within an hour of going to sleep?</a>&nbsp;A lot of us think our phones help us fall asleep at night however, our bodies are wired to respond to natural night and our phones make sure we&rsquo;re constantly bombarded with artificial light which revs up the brain, pumping hormones through our bodies to keep us warm, alert and awake&hellip;no wonder why we actually have trouble shutting down at the end of the day, and if you&rsquo;re one of those people keep in mind that research has shown exposure to &lsquo;blue light&rsquo; suppresses the production of melatonin more than any other type of light. Therefore, to sleep and feel better try getting rid of technology at night. That means buying an alarm clock and no devices after 20:00. This will help you to relax and sleep better.
Recent research revealed that 34% of Gen Z, or people born between the mid -1990s and early 2000s, say they&rsquo;re permanently removing social media, and 64% say they&rsquo;re taking a break from it. Reasons included worries about time-wasting (41%), feeling it was too negative (35%), privacy concerns (22%), too much pressure (18%), too much commercialization (18%), and that it makes them feel bad about themselves (17%).
As Gen Z is the rising generation, this study reveals the social media craze may be on its way out.
People are realizing you don&rsquo;t have to be on Instagram or Facebook to connect with people&mdash;and in fact, these platforms may make you feel even more lonely and disconnected than you would without them. Therefore as far as something else you can do to change your digital habits, taking a break from social media should definitely be one of them
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<h2>What is Work Mode?</h2>
However, at BlockSite we also understand how it&rsquo;s difficult to change digital habits just from willpower, which is why we invented BlockSite &ndash; a little help never hurt anyone 😉
As a BlockSite user, you have the easy option of changing up your digital habits in just a few clicks.&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">BlockSite&rsquo;s Work Mode</a>&nbsp;allows you to work for 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break when using the extension and on mobile, you can change the times to whatever suits you best. Maybe you would like to work for an hour and take a 10-minute break? Totally up to you! And it&rsquo;s also really great for anyone who struggles to keep focused for long periods of time!
It&rsquo;s based on the Pomodoro method and helps keeps digital habits in check. You won&rsquo;t be wasting endless hours browsing the web, instead, you&rsquo;ll be able to stay focused and have the occasional break to do whatever your heart desires.&nbsp;
<h2>So how can you use Work Mode?&nbsp;</h2>
You can block time-wasting sites while your Work Mode timer is working. Just build your work mode list and then click on the Work Mode tab from the Android app menu and start your timer, as shown in the image below. It really is THAT easy. You can also constantly edit your lists to suit you and make sure that all the websites that distract you are added to it as you go. We promise you, you&rsquo;ll never be more productive!
Want to work for longer than 25 minutes interruption-free &ndash; simply change the work mode time to what suits your flow.
So what are you waiting for? Download the BlockSite extension and Android app to start improving your digital habits today!
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Click on the Work Mode tab then, Click the + sign and add a site or app to block
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Set the desired time and click the Play button to complete the process

Learn how to improve your digital habits with BlockSite and discover how you can make technology work for you.

Improve your digital habits with BlockSite’s ‘Work Mode’

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">The Internet kills your time faster than anything else. Read on to find out how you can stop wasting time on the internet and remove distractions.</div>
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The Internet kills your time faster than anything else. With a single click, you can start watching a movie, check up on what your friends are doing online, and read your favorite blog. It really is a never-ending place of distraction and what we often miss when thinking about the internet is that excessive website surfing works just like every other addiction. It hacks the reward system in our brain and makes us feel unmotivated to engage in real-world activities &ndash; socializing, exercise, working &ndash; the things that fuel personal growth.
In fact, it&rsquo;s been proven that internet addiction has a strong impact on stress, depression, time management, and anxiety levels. The question is,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">how do you stop wasting time on the internet?</a>&nbsp;Read on to find out how you can do this and remove distractions while online.
<h2>How do I stop getting distracted on the Internet?&nbsp;</h2>
The best, easiest, and most simple way to prevent yourself from wasting time is to &lsquo;time block&rsquo; your access to the sites you waste the most time on.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.blocksite.co/">BlockSite allows you to easily block any distracting websites</a>&nbsp;and stops you from procrastinating, meaning that you control your browsing and have an effective method that stops you from wasting your time.
It&rsquo;s really simple to use. For example, if you&rsquo;re used to going on Instagram or YouTube when you don&rsquo;t want to work, block both those sites on<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">&nbsp;BlockSite</a>&nbsp;by adding them to your block list. Then, every time you try and go on there &ndash; you&rsquo;ll be redirected. What&rsquo;s more? It&rsquo;s also free and available on desktop and mobile (<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en">Android</a>).
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Another option to stop getting distracted is to schedule your time on the internet. We schedule our mealtimes, travel plans, and workouts, so why not schedule your internet time too? Instead of hopping on and offline whenever you fancy, schedule specific times when you&rsquo;ll allow yourself to surf the web.
Trust us, whatever posts interest you will be there in the morning, noon, and night regardless so it&rsquo;s not necessary to see them straight away. Make note of your favorite games, social media pages, and news sites, and schedule a window of time to visit them. Just make sure you stick to this schedule.
While you&rsquo;re at work or school &ndash; stopping your study session or workday in order to play online could indicate you simply need a break. Research has shown regular breaks help us prevent boredom while also helping us retain information over time.
BlockSite has a &lsquo;Work Mode&rsquo; feature that is based on the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique">Pomodoro Method</a>. The method is simple, for every 25 minutes of working, you then take a 5 -minute break to help maximize your potential each day. Going for a walk, eating, and even just browsing your favorite website can help you relax and recoup energy throughout the day, so this is the perfect opportunity to log onto Facebook for a quick fix.
<h2>Going Cold Turkey</h2>
For those of you with SERIOUS willpower, how about going cold turkey? It&rsquo;s probably the hardest of all the options but a &lsquo;digital detox&rsquo; of literally going a week or two without access to the internet could be a great start.&nbsp;
If you feel you are capable of setting a time frame whereby you don&rsquo;t go online at all for the entire period, you&rsquo;ll notice how much more mindful, free and light life really becomes.
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<h2>How to get rid of distractions</h2>
Getting rid of distractions when you have a long &lsquo;to do&rsquo; list can feel like really hard work. Often we find ourselves ready to give up before we start and therefore find something to distract us from the actual tasks at hand.
You can control this issue by setting yourself goals. Let&rsquo;s say you ask yourself every morning: What are the most important things to accomplish today? and give yourself 3 objectives to accomplish every day. Write them down and put the note where you can see it every time you look up from your work. All other tasks should be put on a separate to-do list. You can start those once you&rsquo;ve accomplished the first three.&nbsp;
By limiting the number of daily goals you set yourself, you&rsquo;ll have a clearly defined list of what you need to work on. You&rsquo;ll work with a greater intention on those tasks and your mind will be less likely to stray.
However, you might want to take into consideration that&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">if you&rsquo;re having trouble focusing</a>&nbsp;and are chronically distracted, it may be that you&rsquo;re not engaged enough. Maybe your work isn&rsquo;t challenging enough and although you feel that you&rsquo;re working hard, your mind is essentially fighting boredom and looking to fill itself with something more interesting.
Complex tasks demand more of our attention which also means we have less mental capacity to get distracted. As human beings, we need to be challenged in order to prevent boredom. We recommend assessing your workload and looking at what can be changed or added to make it more challenging and engaging.&nbsp;

<h2>How can I spend less time on the internet?&nbsp;</h2>
A lot of people believe that adults aren&rsquo;t capable of learning new things, that the habits we learn, stay with us forever, but science proves differently. It is possible to totally rewire our brains and create new habits.
Spending less time on the internet is down to just that, it&rsquo;s about creating new, offline habits that aren&rsquo;t as &lsquo;addictive&rsquo; as the Internet. Try spending more time with loved ones, scheduling your &lsquo;online&rsquo; time and using tools and applications that can help you at least at the start of the process.&nbsp;
Training yourself to focus on other things and to avoid wasting time online is tough, so use the tools above to help you get started. Remember, it&rsquo;s all about willpower &ndash; but you can also get a bit of help from BlockSite 😉 Learn how to assert your willpower, add BlockSite into the mix, control your stress and stay challenged and you may just find yourself getting more done than ever before.

The Internet kills your time faster than anything else. Read on to find out how you can stop wasting time on the internet and remove distractions

How to stop wasting time on the Internet

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Businesses often worry about employees spending too much time on social media and online shopping whilst at work, thus affecting their productivity and costing the business money.</div>
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The internet and everything that it provides has become a very necessary tool in many businesses around the world. Often, employees need access to the internet in order to carry out their daily tasks, increase their efficiency, and research relevant topics. However, in a lot of workplaces giving employees unlimited access is currently a point of discussion.
Businesses often worry about employees spending too much time on social media and online shopping whilst at work, thus, affecting their productivity and costing the business money. With Internet access so readily available, it can also put a strain on corporate bandwidth usage and potentially increase a business&rsquo;s risk for malware attacks on their networks.
So how should businesses deal with this dilemma? We&rsquo;re going to look into the top questions that often come up surrounding this topic and provide relevant insight into what can be done to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">maximize employee productivity</a>&nbsp;yet still give employees the ability to work in a nice environment.
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<h2>What websites should be blocked in the workplace?</h2>
There are millions of websites that employees can often get distracted by. Everything from social media to eCommerce sites can take their attention away from work and things they need to get done and sometimes without even realizing it, they&rsquo;ve&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">wasted hours surfing the web on things that should take up their free time</a>.
According to an article by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/06/for-a-workplace-productivity-boost-ban-these-10-websites.html">CNBC</a>&nbsp;people typically spend one hour of their workday on social media, with millennials spending 1.8 hours on such sites. Additionally, website traffic usually peaks between 14:00-18:00 &ndash; again, during working hours and at the expense of the employer.
In order to reduce wandering minds in the workplace, CNBC recommends blocking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, and eBay to name a few. Whilst it won&rsquo;t make the boss popular, it will stop productivity from plummeting and potentially make the business overall much more efficient.
<h2>Does blocking websites increase productivity?</h2>
Blocking websites has a positive impact on employee productivity &ndash; this is something that has been proven time and time again. When a business block websites to &lsquo;time-wasting&rsquo; websites, employees inevitably spend much less time browsing sites that are unrelated to their jobs.
As the survey below shows from<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-website-filtering-affects-workplace-productivity/">&nbsp;ZDNet</a>&nbsp;there is a big difference in the amount of time employees spend on non work related websites per week depending on the business&rsquo; restriction policies.
However, with this in mind, often employees push back on the idea, insisting that these sites offer a source of enjoyment and can be beneficial to morale. Additionally, many managers and employees are fully aware that, even if you block a site, that doesn&rsquo;t mean a worker won&rsquo;t turn to their personal smartphone to access the websites anyway.

<h2>Should companies restrict Internet access?</h2>
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Restricting Internet access can create a repressive work environment, damaging employee confidence and morale. Instead, we believe that a more flexible approach could be considered.
A popular solution to this dilemma is to allow Internet access but block inappropriate sites and block websites on Chrome. This can be a daunting task, however, with&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;websites can be blocked on both&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">desktop</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;utm_source=share&amp;utm_campaign=App">mobile</a>&nbsp;and this makes sure that employees stay focused and productive whilst in the workplace.
The question of how to block websites becomes really easy with BlockSite and in just a couple of clicks, you can have a whole list of blocked websites that would usually distract you from your work.
Employers can also set up the sites they want employees to be redirected to, making sure their internet usage is productive and effective. For example, they can block social media sites, adult content sites, gambling websites and any sites that may be harmful and dangerous.
What&rsquo;s more, there&rsquo;s the option to make BlockSite password protected meaning that settings are locked with a password and you&rsquo;ll get an email when someone tries to uninstall BlockSite.
So if you&rsquo;re looking to improve productivity in the workplace and&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">keep employees focused</a>, download BlockSite today!

Businesses often worry about employees spending too much time on social media and online shopping whilst at work, thus affecting their productivity

Why Block Websites in the Workplace? - BlockSite

Why Block Websites in the Workplace?

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one&rsquo;s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment which one can develop through the practice of mediation</div>
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Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one&rsquo;s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment which one can develop through the practice of mediation. Inspired by Buddhist practices, today Mindfulness is available as a wholly secular practice that emphasizes stress reduction, the cultivation of focus, and the development of tranquility.
The goal of becoming more mindful isn&rsquo;t to stop thinking or to empty the mind. It means becoming more aware of where you are and what you&rsquo;re doing, without becoming overly reactive or overwhelmed by what&rsquo;s going on around you.
More recently, mindfulness is taking hold in the business world, and everywhere from Wall Street to Silicon Valley is adopting its practices for work productivity. But how can we stay Mindful? Here are three concepts to get you started.
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<ol>
<li>Practice the first thing.&nbsp;Practicing mindfulness as soon as you wake up will help set the tone of your nervous system for the rest of the day increasing more &lsquo;mindful moments&rsquo; as the day progresses.</li>
<li>Keep it short.&nbsp;The human brain responds better to bursts of mindfulness so being mindful several times a day is more helpful than a lengthy session or even a weekend retreat. While 20 minutes seems to be optimal, starting at a few minutes a day is good too.</li>
<li>While you&rsquo;re waiting.&nbsp;In our fast-paced lives, waiting can often be very frustrating. Everything from queues to traffic jams can ignite our nervous systems and while it might seem like a nightmare, waiting is actually an opportunity for mindfulness. While you&rsquo;re waiting bring your attention to your breathing. Focus on &lsquo;the flow of the breath in and out of your body, from moment to moment, and allow everything else to just be, even if what&rsquo;s there is impatience or irritation.</li>
</ol>
<h2>How to practice mindfulness</h2>
Mindfulness is a natural quality we all possess and if we take the time to appreciate it, it becomes readily available. Through the practice of mindfulness, we practice the art of creating space for ourselves &ndash; space to think, space to breathe, space to react.
However, while it may sound simple, mindfulness is not always easy.&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">The real work comes in the form of making time</a>&nbsp;for it every day. Here&rsquo;s a short practice to get you started:
<ol>
<li>Take a seat.&nbsp;Find a place to sit that feels calm and quiet to you.</li>
<li>Set a time limit.&nbsp;If you&rsquo;re just beginning, it can help to choose shorter periods of time, such as 5 or 10 minutes.</li>
<li>Notice your body.&nbsp;You can sit in a chair with your feet on the floor, you can sit loosely cross-legged, in lotus posture, you can kneel&mdash;all are fine. Just make sure you are stable and in a position you can stay in for a while.</li>
<li>Feel your breath.&nbsp;Follow the sensation of your breath as it goes out and as it goes in.</li>
<li>Notice when your mind has wandered.&nbsp;Inevitably, your attention will leave the sensations of the breath and wander to other places. When you get around to noticing this&mdash;in a few seconds, a minute, five minutes&mdash;simply return your attention to the breath.</li>
<li>Be kind to your wandering mind.&nbsp;Don&rsquo;t judge yourself or obsess over the</li>
</ol>
That&rsquo;s the basic practice. You go away, you come back, and you try to do it as often as possible for the best results.
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<h2>Be more mindful at work</h2>
Our jobs pay the bills and take up most of our time. Often, our work gives our lives meaning too. However, with this comes to a significant source of stress. Everything from tight deadlines to long days full of difficult conversations. And while you may not think it, mindfulness can really help especially to increase productivity.
In recent years, many companies including enterprises such as Google have started teaching mindfulness in the office. And whether or not your company offers this benefit, there are simple ways to reduce the impact workplace stress can have on your mind and body.
One way mindfulness can help in the workplace is by allowing us to improve our focus. When we constantly change from one task to another, the quality of our work can suffer. By practicing mindfulness &ndash; simply coming back to the present moment over and over again we can train ourselves to become more focused.
Staying focused at work is just another way mindfulness can help as it simply allows us to improve our focus. When we constantly flit from one task to another, the quality of our work can suffer. By practicing mindfulness &mdash; simply coming back to the present moment over and over again &mdash; we can train ourselves to become more focused.
If you feel you need some help to get you started while at work, try downloading&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;utm_source=share&amp;utm_campaign=App">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;and using the &lsquo;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">Work Mode</a>&rsquo; feature. The work mode feature on BlockSite allows you to become really productive by blocking distracting sites while you&rsquo;re in the zone. Based on the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique">Pomodoro method</a>&nbsp;where you work and then take short breaks maximizing your focus and mindfulness all in one!
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<h2>Increase mindfulness</h2>
Today, mindfulness is more important than ever. We live in overstimulated, technology-driven worlds that while often to our benefit can also be overwhelming at times.&nbsp;<a href="https://goamra.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The American Mindfulness Research Association (opens in a new tab)">The American Mindfulness Research Association</a>&nbsp;defines mindfulness as the &ldquo;state, process and practice of remembering to observe moment-to-moment experience with openness and without automatic patterns of previously conditioned thoughts, emotions or behaviors.&rdquo; The practice, which often involves meditation, has been shown to have a range of health benefits from improved sleep to decreased anxiety in multiple studies.
<ol>
<li>Mindfulness doesn&rsquo;t have to take up a lot of time to be beneficial. &nbsp;Start small and take a few minutes at the beginning of each day to reflect, be still and practice gratitude. Try to remember the bigger picture before getting wrapped up in emails and other daily tasks.</li>
<li>Smartphones, apps, computers, and tablets make multitasking too easy. With a lot going on, and a lot to get done in one day, thoughts can jump from A to B to Y to Z, quietly sabotaging productivity and exhausting the mind. When the workday gets overwhelming and stress starts to creep in, focus on only one thing for a little while. Think about things to be grateful for such as your health, friends, family, or anything else. Taking the mini-break will help relieve stress and provide a refresher.</li>
<li>Take time-outs.&nbsp;With constant emails, endless tasks on the to-do list, and fires to put out, taking breaks seems counterintuitive. But working through lunch and forgoing all breaks may do more harm than good. Without breaking, the brain never gets time to rest and refresh, and opportunities to reflect and gain new insight are lost.</li>
<li>Eating too many sugary or fatty foods affects not only the waistline but also emotions and overall feelings of well-being. Eating healthier can power the mind and body to feel better and more at ease. When eating these healthy meals, practice mindfulness. Turn off the TV, close the laptop, stop Netflix and focus on the food. Enjoy the meal, focus on the flavors in each bite and appreciate the food. Think about its journey and where it has been. Appreciate it and give it respect while eating.</li>
<li>Although mindfulness is an introspective activity, the practice affects the ways individuals interact with those around them. Take the time to think about others and do something nice for someone else. Helping and giving to others is perhaps the most refreshing and expansive activity one can engage in.</li>
</ol>
Practicing mindfulness not only benefits the self but also can bring peace to employees, colleagues, and everyone around us. What could be better?

Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment which one can develop through practice

How to stay mindful

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Focus is a lot like using a mental muscle. The more you work on building it up, the stronger it will get. The best ways to help you focus are often down to a number of things.</div>
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Focus is a lot like using a mental muscle. The more you work on building it up, the stronger it will get.&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">The best ways to help you focus</a>&nbsp;are often down to a number of things. Improving your mental focus is totally achievable but it may not be as easy as you think at first. You&rsquo;ll need to make a real effort and change some of your daily habits to make your focus razor-sharp.
So, if you feel like the time has come to improve your focus and need some help in making it happen, read on&hellip;
<h2>Improve mental focus</h2>
First things first. Before worrying about staying focused, you might want to assess how strong your mental focus is right now.
If you are someone with good mental focus you will;
<ul>
<li>Find it easy to stay alert</li>
<li>Be able to set goals and stick to them</li>
<li>Take breaks and go straight back to work</li>
</ul>
If you are someone whose focus needs improving you will;
<ul>
<li>Find yourself zoning out and/or daydreaming</li>
<li>Be easily distracted by your surroundings</li>
<li>Lose track of what you&rsquo;re doing.</li>
<li>Think of how to stay focused at work</li>
</ul>
If you relate more to the first set of statements, your focus is already fairly good and may just need a little more practice to make it great. If you relate more to the second set of statements then you need to work on your mental focus that bit more. It may take some time but adopting good habits and being more mindful of your distraction &lsquo;triggers&rsquo; will help.
Another way to improve mental focus is to learn how to eliminate distractions. Distractions often prevent us from focusing on the task at hand. These distractions could come in the form of background noise, online, or interruptions by peers and colleagues, and while sometimes it&rsquo;s as simple as turning off the radio, it&rsquo;s far more challenging when it comes from people.
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BlockSite is a website blocker and stay-focused app available on&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">desktop</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;utm_source=share&amp;utm_campaign=App">mobile</a>, that empowers users to stop procrastinating and stay focused. Users are able to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">increase productivity by removing distractions</a>&nbsp;from their life and work.
By blocking distracting websites and apps, BlockSite helps you focus on what you need to do instead of being distracted while online. You can read more about it&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">here.&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;
You might also want to start setting aside specific times to be left totally alone. Look for locations where you know you&rsquo;ll be undisturbed whether in the workplace or at school. Private rooms, coffee shops, or libraries are often the best places to start.
While learning to do the above, you should also take into consideration that while multitasking may seem like a great way to get a lot done, it turns out that we&rsquo;re not great at actually getting the stuff done.
Juggling multiple tasks at once can dramatically cut down our productivity levels and makes it much harder for us to go into detail on tasks that are important.
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Think of your focus, like a spotlight. If you shine that spotlight on one particular area, you can see things very clearly. If you were to try to spread that same amount of light across a large dark room, you might instead only glimpse the shadowy outlines. Focus on getting one thing at a time done and then moving on to the next task in order to improve your mental focus.
You could also try practicing mindfulness. This can involve learning how to meditate, but it can also be as simple as trying quick and easy deep breathing exercises such as taking several deep breaths while really focusing on each one. When you feel your mind starts to wander, gently guide it back to focus on your breathing.
<h2>Increase concentration</h2>
Taking care of your well-being will help to increase your concentration. Physical activity, dietary choices, and weight are all factors that can contribute to how well you concentrate and function. For example, if you skip breakfast, it is unlikely that by lunchtime you will be able to perform tasks to the best of your ability due to hunger pangs.
Additionally, research has revealed that individuals who work out and practice sports can perform better on cognitive tasks than those with bad physical health. When compared with a group who led a more sedentary lifestyle, the group who were in good physical condition performed better on tasks testing sustained attention. A study of older adults also specified that exercise improved brain function. All participants who exercised for between 75 minutes and 225 minutes per week showed elevated attention levels and an increased ability to focus.

Research also unearthed a connection between weight loss and improved memory and concentration. Researchers say that factors such as high blood pressure, sleep apnea, and type 2 diabetes, which often result from obesity, might impair the brain. They suggest that as people get back to a healthy weight and the associated problems disappear, their cognitive issues will vanish, too. If you have tried all the above and you are still wrestling with your inability to concentrate, grab yourself a large coffee. Caffeine has been&nbsp;<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00213-012-2917-4">shown&nbsp;</a>to affect the alerting and executive control networks of the brain and has clear beneficial effects on concentration and attention.
Your wellbeing also comes down to &lsquo;me time&rsquo; take some time out here and there from social media, emails, and cell phones to focus on. One way to help you take the much-needed &lsquo;digital detox&rsquo; here and there is again with BlockSite. It&rsquo;s often tough trying to take time away from social media and the online world and takes a lot of willpower but luckily with BlockSite, you don&rsquo;t need any. You just add the sites you want some time out from to a block list and every time you try to reach them, you&rsquo;ll be redirected elsewhere. Find out more about how to overcome your addiction to social media&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/how-to-overcome-your-addiction-to-social-media/">here.</a>
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<h2>Focus while studying</h2>
While studying we often try to focus on the same topic for a long period of time. After a while, you&rsquo;ll often find your focus starts to break down and it becomes difficult to devote mental resources to a task. Ultimately, this means your performance in exams may suffer too.
We&rsquo;re often distracted while studying by our digital devices. Notifications on cell phones, the TV in the background, and the music that we&rsquo;re listening to while studying. All these things take our focus away from the task at hand and don&rsquo;t help us stay concentrated.
Traditional explanations in psychology have suggested that this is due to attentional resources being depleted, but some researchers believe that it has more to do with the brain&rsquo;s tendency to ignore sources of constant stimulation. Researchers have found that even taking short breaks and shifting your attention elsewhere can dramatically improve mental focus.
Additionally,&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;enables you to get in the zone according to the Pomodoro technique. You can break down your work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes long, and then take short breaks in between, creating distraction-free time slots just to concentrate on your work. Simple.
Shift your attention to something unrelated to the task at hand, even if it is only for a few moments. These short moments of respite might mean that you are able to keep your mental focus sharp and your performance high when you really need it.
<h2>Focusing and getting work done</h2>
Building your mental focus is not something that will happen overnight. Even professional athletes require plenty of time and practice in order to strengthen their concentration skills.
However, it&rsquo;s important to recognize the best ways to help you focus and how in the long run it will help you get things done.
If you are struggling to accomplish your goals and find yourself getting sidetracked by unimportant details, it is time to start placing a higher value on your time. By building your mental focus, you will find that you are able to accomplish more and concentrate on the things in life that truly bring you success, joy, and satisfaction.
Good luck!

Focus is a lot like using a mental muscle. The more you work on building it up, the stronger it will get.

The Best Ways to Help You Focus

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">There is the concern related to children and their use of the internet. One of the biggest challenges parents face is how to make sure their children are safe online.</div>
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The Internet has become a wonderful resource for kids. Whether they use it for their homework, playing games, entertainment, or&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/how-to-overcome-your-addiction-to-social-media/">social networking</a>&nbsp;&ndash; they have access to a whole new world that allows them to learn, grow and occupy their time.
However, there is also a concern related to children and their use of the Internet. There are many websites none of us would want our kids to see. One of the biggest challenges parents face is how to make sure their children stay safe online and avoid inappropriate content, and with so many kids now using tablets, smartphones, and PCs, it&rsquo;s becoming harder and harder to know what they&rsquo;re exposed to and how to block adult content.
So, whether you&rsquo;re worried about what kids might see on YouTube, or who they might speak to on Facebook, we have some tips for web content management to keep them safe online.
<h2>How do I stop inappropriate content online?</h2>
A recent study by Oxford University revealed that out of 515 12-to-15-year-old children, 14% had a negative online experience in the past year, 8% had been contacted by strangers, almost 4% had seen someone pretend to impersonate them online and 2% had seen sexual content that made them feel uncomfortable.
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A huge majority (90%) of the children&rsquo;s parents either did not know their Chrome content settings, what parental filters were or they were not using them, and the children of those who were using them were still at risk of viewing the wrong sort of content.
<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;is a powerful extension for your browser (<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">Chrome</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/">Firefox</a>) and app (<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en">Google Play</a>) that helps you block specific sites and apps that you may find inappropriate, distracting, harmful, or time-wasting.
The concept is simple: build a list of specific sites and installed apps you want to block, and schedule certain times when you need to stay focused. You can also sync between desktop and mobile to enhance safety and help protect your children from inappropriate content while using smartphones and tablet devices.
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<h2>How do I protect my child on the Internet?</h2>
Setting strict rules for children regarding their Internet consumption will help with content protection and protect them from consuming inappropriate content online. Installing extensions and apps such as BlockSite, and reminding your children that they should never give out their name, age, or address online is a great start to addressing these issues.
However, in the age of social media, even these precautions may not be enough. Initially, you may want to sit next to your children to watch their browsing habits and teach them how to keep their browsing habits private.
Additionally, take advantage of your browser&rsquo;s parental controls. The majority of internet browsers have an options folder where you can easily set up security safeguards and content filters for language, nudity, sex, and violence. Or, you can just use BlockSite, and set the option designed to block all adult sites in a single click, or add any other websites to your block list, to prevent your children from accessing them.

<h2>How do I Block Inappropriate Sites on Android?</h2>
Studies have recently confirmed that there is a positive correlation between children&rsquo;s exposure to pornography and aggressive behavior. Websites don&rsquo;t enforce strict enough rules to block porn for children, meaning that parents need to take action to protect their children from accessing this content.
Whilst we understand that in this day and age it is difficult to stop a child from using a smartphone, you can take certain measures to block porn or any kind of adult content on their Android smartphones and/or tablets.
The BlockSite&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en">mobile app</a>&nbsp;allows you to block apps and websites. You can also sync between mobile and desktop, to enhance and promote your kids&rsquo; safety everywhere online.
In order to pair your phone with the extension, open the menu, then Settings, then &ldquo;Sync BlockSite.&rdquo; You will then be asked to go to the BlockSite desktop extension and scan the QR code. If you don&rsquo;t have the extension, you&rsquo;ll need to download it from Google Chrome or Firefox.
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<h2>Inappropriate Content on Social Media</h2>
The World Wide Web has provided a new way to share content with wider audiences. We&rsquo;ve been gifted with Facebook&trade;, Instagram&trade;, and Twitter&trade;, to name but a few, to share content and connect with people from all over the world. However, while for the majority of the time this content is full of things we choose to consume, it can often also be inappropriate, offensive or unsuitable for some audiences and age groups.
Such content might include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://blocksite.co/5-ways-you-can-quit-watching-adult-content/">Pornography</a></li>
<li>Violence</li>
<li>Extremist behavior</li>
<li>Racism</li>
</ul>
While some people may deliberately search for inappropriate content, most of us would choose to avoid it but might inadvertently access or view it by typing in an incorrect web address or clicking on the wrong advertisement.
Therefore, for both adults and children, it is important to develop digital literacy skills so that we can assess the value and accuracy of the content we consume. It&rsquo;s also important for children to know what they can do if they see something that offends them.
Social media has become a huge part of young adults&rsquo; social and creative lives and it provides them with many benefits &ndash; but also some risks. Talking about social media use with your children is the best way to help them avoid risks and stay safe online. You could also provide them with guidelines regarding how to use social media responsibly, respectfully and safely.
Banning or blocking social media completely often doesn&rsquo;t work; however, you could limit the time your children spend on it using BlockSite. BlockSite&rsquo;s &lsquo;Work Mode&rsquo; feature allows you to block websites and apps for a specific time frame. You can control what you block and when you have access to it. &nbsp;You can read more about it here.
Overall, the Internet is a great place for children to find entertainment, grow and learn. However, we must ensure that they have specific boundaries, and don&rsquo;t accidentally consume content that may be harmful to them. Parents need to stay digitally aware and at all times make sure they have full control over their children&rsquo;s Internet consumption, to protect them from unwanted situations that may have a bad impact on these young audiences. &nbsp;

There is concern related to children and their use of the internet. One of the biggest challenges parents face is how to make sure their children are safe

Tips and Tools to Block Inappropriate Content for Children Online

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">The good news is that with all the apps and websites online that are designed to take our full attention, there are almost just as many designed to help you keep away and stay productive and act as a website blocker for studying, or even an app blocker for studying.</div>
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We&rsquo;ve all been at the mercy of good old-fashioned procrastination. Ever been dead set on getting your study on for an exam only to find yourself 3 hours later, deep in the YouTube rabbit hole? or maybe you&rsquo;ve noticed that the last story you watched on Instagram was only posted 3 minutes ago? You&rsquo;re not alone. Yep, distractions that cause procrastination and lower our productivity are everywhere.
Websites, apps, and online products surround us online and sometimes the answer isn&rsquo;t just to ignore them but to learn how to fight them.
The good news is that with all the apps and websites online that are designed to take our full attention, there are almost just as many designed to help you keep away and stay productive and act as a website blocker for studying, or even an app blocker for studying.
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<a href="https://blocksite.co/">Website and app blockers</a>&nbsp;are powerful tools in our defense against these focus stealers. But there&rsquo;s a right way to use them if we want to get the most benefit out of them and with students and employers realizing these distractions are becoming more and more of a problem every single day, simple website blockers and apps are getting to be pretty popular, very quickly.
Let&rsquo;s start by looking into <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-block-a-website" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">how you can block websites</a> and apps and start focusing on revising and learning the right materials for your exams.
<h3>How do I Block Access to Certain Websites?</h3>
Blocking access to specific websites is easy once you have BlockSite installed on either&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">Chrome</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blocksite/">Firefox</a>, or your&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;utm_source=home_pg&amp;utm_campaign=Website">Android</a>&nbsp;device. After you have downloaded the extension or app&hellip;or both, set up a list of websites you want to block, add them all to your block list, and you're good to go! No more distractions, you&rsquo;ll be able to&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">avoid temptation and stay focused</a>! You can also set up a schedule of time frames for when to block distracting sites, should you wish to not have them blocked at all times.
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<h3>How do I Temporarily Block a Website?</h3>
You may want to temporarily block websites in order to get in the zone according to the Pomodoro technique.&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/#desktop">The Pomodoro Technique&nbsp;</a>is a&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">time management method</a>&nbsp;developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 19080&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s a technique that uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes long separated by short breaks.
We&rsquo;ve translated this on BlockSite to that you can time your work, take short breaks and block distracting sites so that you stay focused &ndash; no willpower required. Once you&rsquo;re done, you can unblock the sites and go back to browsing the web as you wish.

<h3>Block YouTube for an Hour</h3>
YouTube is one of those sites that you find yourself on wanting to watch something specific. Then 3 hours later, realize you&rsquo;ve wasted half the evening watching tutorials or irrelevant videos that have nothing to do with what you were supposed to be doing. Then the panic sets in. You&rsquo;ve procrastinated and now need to get sh*t done&hellip;
What if you could block YouTube and be reminded when you try and go onto YouTube, that you have better things to do? BlockSite allows for that to happen! You can choose all the sites, including YouTube that you wish to block and keep them that way for as long as you wish.
Imagine what you could get done without all the distractions online! BlockSite can help you stay off of other sites that take our focus such as&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/how-to-overcome-your-addiction-to-social-media/">social media</a>. While we&rsquo;re on the go, and using our mobile devices it&rsquo;s been reported through research by Nielsen that the average person spends over four hours a day on their device. Yep, you read that right. The modern person spends a full quarter of their waking hours on their mobile device.
Moreover, one of the studies showed that half of that time (1 hour, 56 minutes) is spent on the top five social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube.
Let&rsquo;s face it, social media, games, and content discovery apps are distracting &ndash; they&rsquo;re basically procrastination apps and keep you from staying unplugged. BlockSite is the #1 focus app to help you limit these apps and stay focused. Simply list which installed apps you want to block and BlockSite will prevent them from opening!
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<h3>The Best Website Blocker for Studying</h3>
There&rsquo;s a time and a place for everything, and sometimes students need to get focused and study! Schedule which days and times certain apps and sites are available to you while you study for your exams with BlockSite &ndash; the extension and app that empowers you to avoid procrastination and stay focused.
You could also add BlockSite to your mobile device. We all know how hard it can be to be disciplined with your own device, so let BlockSite make it easier for you to limit apps and increase productivity even while you&rsquo;re on the go, totally removing distractions from your life!

The good news is that with all the apps and websites online that are designed to take our full attention, there are almost just as many designed to help you

How to Temporarily Block Websites for Studying - BlockSite

How to Temporarily Block Websites for Studying

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Working from home or working remotely isn&rsquo;t a new concept. There are various career fields that have been doing it for years. However, in most companies - employees are used to using this system as and when they need it, not continuously.</div>
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Working from home or working remotely isn&rsquo;t a new concept. There are various career fields that have been doing it for years. However, in most companies &ndash; employees are used to using this system as and when they need it, not continuously.&nbsp;
On 31st December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) China Office, was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. Today, almost 3 months on, those &lsquo;unknown cases&rsquo; are what we now know as COVID-19 or Coronavirus. Due to the worldwide outbreak of this virus and for the sake of public safety, many companies have adopted smart working and &lsquo;work from home&rsquo; policies to ensure the health and safety of their employees around the world.
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Companies such as Twitter, Google, Amazon, and LinkedIn have asked all, or a portion of their staff to work remotely with no idea as to when they&rsquo;ll be able to go back to their offices. Many people who may have thought working remotely is easy may now be finding out that they were wrong and it&rsquo;s really not as easy as they would have thought. Distractions are everywhere, the construction next door, your significant other or your kids, and of course, the one we all can&rsquo;t resist &ndash; on-demand video!
Most of us have been conditioned to work from an office and learn to focus in certain ways to be as productive as possible. Meetings force us to adhere to certain schedules, office hours dictate our start and end time and a manager&rsquo;s watchful eye keeps our internet surfing to a minimum.
Once on your own, you may find yourself floundering a bit to stay productive. So we&rsquo;ve looked into the best tips to make working remotely from home successful and productive.
<h2>Set a Schedule</h2>
The first of our tips for working remotely is about setting up your daily schedule. It&rsquo;s really important to make sure that you have set working hours, to know when to start your day and when to end it. This includes waking up and getting ready as you would if you were stepping into an office. Even though you are working from home, it is super important to get yourself in the mindset that you are going to work. Make sure you dress as if you were going to work, and yes, that includes putting on shoes. You will be amazed at how such a small thing can make a significant impact.
Additionally, it&rsquo;s important to schedule necessary work breaks and lunch times throughout your working day to keep your focus in check. By doing this, you&rsquo;ll implement sustainable habits that enable you to stay productive and focused on finishing certain tasks by certain times throughout the day, as you would do if you were in the office.&nbsp;
BlockSite&rsquo;s Schedule feature can also help with this. BlockSite&rsquo;s Schedule feature enables you to easily schedule by hour and day what sites you want to block<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">&nbsp;in order to be more productive.</a>
For example, some of the challenges of working remotely may be that the watchful eye of your manager is missing and therefore you can browse the web and surf sites that don&rsquo;t benefit the work you need to complete.&nbsp;
In this case, it would be better to block these types of sites, whether they be social media or e-commerce sites. All you need to do is add the specific sites to your block list, choose the days you wish to have the sites blocked (for example, Monday to Friday), and then the times (while you&rsquo;re at work from 9-5) and let BlockSite do the rest!&nbsp;
By enabling this feature and using it while you&rsquo;re working from home, you&rsquo;ll become more productive in much less time than usual, increase your efficiency, and will find yourself thinking &lsquo;how did I manage to get all that done in one day?!&rsquo; &ndash; we promise you, the results will speak for themselves.

<h2>Create a Workspace&nbsp;</h2>
Some of the benefits of working remotely are that you are able to choose your own workspace, however, during the current situation, this will still need to be in your own home. We recommend trying to find a dedicated and comfortable spot to work that you can associate with your job and leave when you&rsquo;re finished for the day.
If you are able to, the best spot would be a completely different room to any you use during &lsquo;personal&rsquo; hours. Think of setting up a home office where you can close the door and shut out all distractions, then once you&rsquo;re done for the day you can leave that room and use your house as you wish.&nbsp;
Additionally, make sure you have everything you need in place before you even begin working remotely. This includes a strong internet connection, relevant systems you need, and the ability to take calls and video conferences to stay in touch with colleagues throughout this time. This may even mean taking the necessary equipment you need such as a mouse, keyboard, and screens from your office to make working remotely more comfortable and efficient.&nbsp;
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<h2>Stay Connected</h2>
Since this is a new experience for everyone, there are plenty of challenges to working remotely, and staying connected could easily be one of them. To avoid a sense of isolation, it&rsquo;s important that you and your team communicate regularly. Using chat apps like Slack, Zoom, and other video conferencing services will enable you and your teammates to &lsquo;screen share&rsquo; throughout remote meetings and stay on the &lsquo;same page.&rsquo;&nbsp;
This is further reinforced as productivity tools as Slack and Zoom have already seen a significant increase in usage, as also evidenced by an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/stocks-for-work-from-home-trade-during-coronavirus-zm-work-rng.html">uptick in stock prices</a>&nbsp;(ZM +85% in 2020 and +45% in February). It reinforces the fact that these remote-friendly software tools are a critical part of the remote worker&rsquo;s day-to-day, especially when it comes to getting work done and feeling less isolated. Google Drive also enables teams to work well remotely. You can share docs and sheets to get work done in real-time and join a &lsquo;hangout&rsquo; to speak to your colleagues as you go.&nbsp;
Furthermore, better communication while remote can help maintain your relationship with your colleagues, managers, and direct reports. It&rsquo;s also important for managers to encourage employees to share their opinions or concerns about a particular project so they don&rsquo;t feel like they&rsquo;re being dismissed just because they&rsquo;re not in the same room.
<h2>Take Breaks</h2>
While working from home, you have to take responsibility for yourself. Nobody is going to stop you and you may be amazed by how you can go from getting distracted by everything at home to having zero reasons to stop working on or thinking about all your deadlines and priorities. Schedule breaks to get up and get some air. Schedule time to go grab lunch. Most importantly, schedule a stop time. This means you clock out and trust that whatever is waiting for you will wait.&nbsp;
Another way to help yourself with this is by implementing BlockSite&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/improve-your-digital-habits/">Work Mode</a>&nbsp;feature throughout your day. Work Mode allows you to work for 25 minutes and take a 5-minute break when using the extension and on mobile, you can change the times to whatever suits you best. Maybe you would like to work for an hour and take a 10-minute break? You can adjust the work and break times on BlockSite so it&rsquo;s entirely up to you but it&rsquo;s great for anyone who struggles to keep focused for long periods of time or those who need to remember to take a break in between tasks.
BlockSite&rsquo;s Work Mode is based on the Pomodoro method and helps keep you on task and focused. You won&rsquo;t be wasting endless hours browsing the web, instead, you&rsquo;ll be able to stay focused and have the occasional break to take a breather and recharge.&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2>Manage Expectations</h2>
While working from home, you&rsquo;ll need to prioritize tasks and manage expectations between your boss and colleagues, and yourself. Whether this is through planning out the most essential tasks you need to get done daily or speaking with your boss to prioritize this, make sure you stay in touch and know what needs to get done and when.
It may even be worth having a daily check-in whenever possible. This should be one-on-one, and face-to-face via video. It&rsquo;s best that your team see you, and you see them. This will enable you to set the agenda of your priorities and receive the feedback and resources you need.
By managing expectations, you set yourself and your team up for success by clearly stating both the tasks and the reasons behind them, and help others you work with, understand exactly how you will measure success. So make sure you define the scope, deadlines, and deliverables for each task or project your team is working on and focus on outcomes.
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<h2>Conduct Meetings</h2>
It is very common to try and reduce the number of meetings we have every day while we are at the office. When working from home it is important to stay in sync with everyone. Make sure you book a daily sync meeting and all your colleagues attend.&nbsp;
Video meetings are not easy, but there are many tools you can use to make them more enjoyable. It will also help you get dressed and ready to work (which takes care of a point we made earlier). If you use Zoom, you can use their cool function that changes the background of where you are, so while talking to your colleagues you could have a background of a sunset or the beach.
Right about now you are probably saying that you will sometimes need a whiteboard and that isn&rsquo;t possible remotely. Well, it is 🙂 Miro, for example, has developed a whiteboard for remote teams. They make it possible to collaborate easily even when working remotely and make your ideas easier to understand.
<h2>Plan Ahead&nbsp;</h2>
Only you know your schedule and your abilities to implement some of the above tips in your life. However, If you take care of a child or have a schedule that fluctuates often, you know that keeping a routine can be near impossible, which is why we recommend planning ahead and setting out both short and long-term goals. This will also make it easier to balance change and enable your coworkers to understand your availability.&nbsp;
Setting out a plan and even using a productivity tool to help you with this, will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses and how to best structure a week or a month in advance.
Make sure you keep your calendar up to date and plan tasks in terms of their urgency or the amount of time they will take you to complete.&nbsp;
There is no doubt that you will acquire new skills when working from home and if you can&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">stay focused and develop positive habits</a>, you can successfully adapt. It&rsquo;s all about balance.&nbsp;
Overall, working remotely has pros and cons that are forever changing, however in uncertain times and in situations that require all of us to adapt, we hope that people come out of this pandemic even stronger, more focused, and hardworking than before. Everyone should take this as an opportunity to learn how to enable global workforces, regardless of location or work environment to still be productive. When you can&rsquo;t control what&rsquo;s happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what&rsquo;s happening. That&rsquo;s where the power is.
Good Luck!

Working from home or working remotely isn’t a new concept. There are various career fields that have been doing it for years

7 Tips for Working Remotely and Staying Productive

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Around 6 in 10 young adults in the U.S primarily use online streaming to watch TV. The rise of online streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Go has dramatically altered the media habits of Americans, especially young adults. While these services continue to try and heal the issue of illegal downloading and streaming, it is still rife across the globe.</div>
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Kodi &ndash; the neutral, open source media player that can be installed on a wide range of devices such as Amazon&rsquo;s Firestick, Apple TV, and more itself, is not illegal. However, Kodi has gained an unfortunate reputation thanks to the way some people leverage the platform. Various Add-ons and plugins can enable access to premium content, that is on demand without the rights-holder's permission. Not to mention how many just find illegal streaming links online and watch it from their laptops.
In 2017, reports suggested that illegal streaming increased by 1.6% meaning that there were over 300 billion visits to pirate sites 2017. It&rsquo;s probably something most people don&rsquo;t think twice about but visiting streaming sites can lead to more problems than just a slap on the wrist.
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Malware can be a huge issue when streaming online and it&rsquo;s a problem that should not be ignored. FACT recently revealed that criminals behind digital piracy often make the content freely available illegally to &ldquo;bait&rdquo; a large number of visitors. They can then make money by charging other cyber criminals to put malware on a site which can in turn hijack a user&rsquo;s computer.
The FACT report cited one study that looked at US content theft sites and the research found one in every three websites exposed users to malware. This means that users who visited content theft sites were 28 times more likely to get malware from those sites than from legitimate websites or content providers.
In addition, in Europe, the European Union (EU) researchers located 4,000 malicious files in their search, which originated from approximately 100 individually developed pieces of malware, including fake game installers and free programmers to promise to let you access and stream pirated content, but actually give hackers access to your device.
For example, The Pirate Bay is a website that hosts millions of links to files that are free to download. Some of these files are legal but others are illegal copies of TV shows, films, music albums, computer programs, and more. These files are known as Torrents and are transferred through peer-to-peer software in which one user hosts the file and another &lsquo;leeches&rsquo; it directly from their network.
So how can we stay safe and avoid malware issues online? We&rsquo;ve rounded up some of the key points that you should put into place to make sure you are safe online.
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<h2>BlockSite</h2>
The main reason many people download ad blockers and other extensions such as&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;is to hide intrusive ads that cover the web page they&rsquo;re trying to see or make noise. While that&rsquo;s valid, there&rsquo;s another more important reason to download an ad blocker, and that&rsquo;s to improve your cybersecurity. Online advertisements are increasingly being used as a path of attack for hackers, even on legitimate websites, so blocking suspicious ads will reduce your exposure to security threats.
BlockSite also allows you to limit apps and helps you stay focused. The extension which is now also available for Android devices, allows users to limit their app usage and improve their concentration by blocking apps and sites that may enable procrastination.

<h2>Phishing</h2>
Be sure you look closely at a URL from any email for special characters and numbers. In many cases, what looks like a message or URL from your bank, for example, may not actually be from them. If your financial institution, or a site that you have an account with, sends you a &lsquo;password reset&rsquo; email, log in to the bank directly instead of clicking on the link in the email. We have seen phishing become increasingly sophisticated, so this extra step is important to ensure password protection.
<h2>Keep it Current</h2>
Whether you work on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, or any other OS, keep it up to date at all times. OS developers are always issuing security patches that fix and plug security leaks. These patches will help to keep your system secure. Similarly, keep your antivirus software up to date. Viruses and malware are created all the time. Your scanning software is only as good as its database so it too must be updated as much as possible.
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<h2>Password Protected</h2>
Make sure you are protected online with your password choices and only browse from protected pages. Never use the same password twice, especially on private information such as your bank account. Typically, we tend to use the same email address or username for all of our accounts. Those are easy to see and steal. If you use the same password for everything, or on many things, and it is discovered, then it takes only seconds to hack your account. Use a strong password. Use lower case, upper case, numbers, and symbols in your password and keep it easy to remember but difficult to guess. Secure
<h2>Network Secure</h2>
When you&rsquo;re working from your local coffee shop, library, or even at the airport try and avoid using the &lsquo;free&rsquo; open (no password, no encryption) WiFi that is often readily available. Think about it logically, if you can access this network with no issues &ndash; what could a trained malicious individual do? Remember, you need to take all devices into account here. Any unprotected machine is a weakness to the whole network. Try configuring a firewall to limit outside access, and take all devices into account. Any unprotected machine is a weakness for the whole network.
To add fuel to fire, in the first half of 2018 it was reported that there had been a total of 5.99 billion malware attacks. That&rsquo;s more than a 100% increase from the same period in 2017. Make sure you reduce your risk and help stop attacks by taking the necessary prevention methods on your devices before they can execute a spread. This will inevitably make your work life and personal use on mobile and desktop devices a lot safer.

Around 6-10 young adults in the U.S primarily use online streaming to watch TV. The rise of online streaming services has dramatically altered the media habits

5 Ways to Avoid Malware While Streaming Content - BlockSite

5 Ways to Avoid Malware While Streaming Content Online

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Whatever your reasons for reading this article, if you&rsquo;re here, it&rsquo;s probably because you want to know how to stop watching pornography.</div>
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In today&rsquo;s modern world porn is much sought after, and so readily available that the industry has done a complete 180-degree turn since the early days of pornographic content: Now, it can be hard to avoid. While it&rsquo;s unlikely to jump out at you, it&rsquo;s incredibly hard not to find if you spend even a second or two looking for it. That might be all it takes to find yourself staring at thousands upon thousands of hours of videos. The Huffington Post recently reported that&nbsp;pornography websites receive more traffic and visitors every month than&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/internet-porn-stats_n_3187682.html">Netflix, Twitter, and Amazon combined</a>!
And yet, you&rsquo;ve landed on this article. Whatever your reasons for reading this article, if you&rsquo;re here, it&rsquo;s probably because you want to know how to block porn. Maybe you feel that you&rsquo;ve become or are becoming addicted to adult content and want to know how to stay away from porn? Regardless, here are 5 things to try if you want to quit watching porn forever;
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<h2>Read and Learn</h2>
While pop culture has made porn something that is easily accessible and is used as a method of relaxation and stress relief, many people are unaware of the side effects of watching pornography and what it does to us as human beings. A study by researchers at the University of New Orleans in the Psychology department found that watching porn can cause mental health issues in both men and women. These include anxiety, depression, insecurity, and body image issues, to name a few.
Additionally, in 2010 a study showed that people who watch porn are more likely to have increased aggression and violence due to the content they consume.
While these are only a mere few facts on the negatives of watching porn, the Internet is filled with information about what it can do to us and how it affects our everyday activities. It&rsquo;s time to start reading and start educating yourself to understand how porn may have a negative impact on your mental health before continuing to watch such content.
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<h2>Get Focused</h2>
A lot of the time, people find themselves watching porn due to boredom and procrastination. For people with addictive personalities or those who are more inclined to watch porn, boredom can be dangerous. A book titled &lsquo;Everybody Lies&rsquo;&nbsp;by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz examines what we &ldquo;Google&rdquo;, and how our searches betray who we really are and expose how many of us lie about ourselves&mdash;maybe even to ourselves.

One of the most surprising pieces of data he analyzes is what people search for when they are unemployed. The findings revealed that the biggest correlation to the unemployment rate is porn. When the unemployment rate is at its highest, so are porn searches. When the unemployment rate is at its lowest, so are Google searches for porn.
So, what can you do to prevent being bored?&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/focused/">Get focused!</a>&nbsp;You need to find something that genuinely interests you and that will occupy your mind and keep you busy. Something that motivates you to work hard and invest your time into as when we as humans find something we&rsquo;re passionate about, we tend to use our free time to work on that rather than being bored and letting our minds lead us to places it shouldn&rsquo;t go. To prevent you from browsing sites that cause you to procrastinate and waste time, there&rsquo;s also&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>, but more on that later.&nbsp;
<h2>Get Social</h2>
And no, we don&rsquo;t mean social media &ndash; that you can get addicted to as well and need to avoid. You can read more about that&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/how-to-overcome-your-addiction-to-social-media/">here</a>. But we mean, actually be around people. You will occupy your mind with other things and let&rsquo;s face it, you&rsquo;re not going to watch porn with others around.&nbsp;We all know that community is a great way to spend your time. But maybe you&rsquo;ve never thought about how hanging out with friends has the added benefit of helping you stop watching porn.
In 2016, The Daily Mail reported the least and most porn-watching days of the year.
The days that porn sites are the least busy are the top 10 major holidays: Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, Easter, etc. In other words, when you&rsquo;re around other people, you don&rsquo;t look at porn.
However, a warning also comes with this. The top ten busiest days for the porn industry, interestingly enough, are the days immediately following those ten holidays. So keep your guard up and stay around people, go out with friends and invest time in developing real relationships with others.
<h2>Increase Productivity</h2>
Have you ever thought that every single minute of your life is gold? If you do, you&rsquo;ll start treating how you spend your time very differently. Rather than spending hours glued to a screen watching porn that, as we&rsquo;ve clarified has a lot of negative implications why not invest time in yourself and&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">increase productivity</a>. Got some personal goals you want to conquer? Write them down and get started on them. Or maybe you&rsquo;ve got some professional aspirations you&rsquo;d like to achieve? Start by eliminating all distractions and focusing on the task at hand. Write a to-do list at the start of every day and as you go, cross the things you&rsquo;ve accomplished off the list. Trust us, this old-school trick still brings heaps of satisfaction.
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<h2>Control and Block</h2>
However, we understand that some of the above-mentioned possible solutions may not be strong enough &mdash; or maybe you&rsquo;ve tried them already and they simply aren&rsquo;t working out for you. So we have another option for you that quite literally will prevent you from accessing adult content.&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">Download BlockSite</a>&nbsp;and simply block porn websites that distract you &ndash; no willpower necessary.
With BlockSite, you can add the <a href="https://blocksite.co/blog/how-to-block-a-website" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">websites or pages you want to block</a> to a list, in a smart and simple way and get automatically redirected to safer, more positive sites.
Amongst many other features available on BlockSite, you can also block all adult sites with a click of a button &ndash; simply turn on the &ldquo;Block all adult sites&rdquo; toggle and the porn blocker will be activated. It literally couldn&rsquo;t be easier.
So if you want to stay focused and get empowered to be the best version of yourself and stop procrastinating all in one, this is the site blocker for you.

Whatever your reasons for reading this article, if you’re here, it’s probably because you want to know how to stop watching pornography

5 Ways You Can Quit Watching Adult Content

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Three BILLION people. That&rsquo;s around 40% of the world&rsquo;s population and they all use social media. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat... Our world is full of weapons of mass distraction, and on average we spend 2 hours a day liking, tweeting, sharing, and updating on these platforms. That broken-down is around half a million tweets and Snapchat photos shared every minute.</div>
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Three BILLION people. That&rsquo;s around 40% of the world&rsquo;s population and they all use social media. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat&hellip; Our world is full of weapons of mass distraction, and on average we spend 2 hours a day liking, tweeting, sharing, and updating on these platforms. That broken-down is around half a million tweets and Snapchat photos shared every minute.
Some of the brightest minds in the world constantly work to make these platforms as addictive as possible &ndash; bad news for your productivity and sometimes even for your health! But with those statistics, It&rsquo;s no surprise that a lot of people are pretty much&hellip; hooked.
Think you might be one of them? Let&rsquo;s find out!
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<h2>So, You Think You Might be an Addict?</h2>
How do you know you&rsquo;re addicted to social media? It isn&rsquo;t always easy to tell! Like any obsession or addictive habits such as a phone addiction or porn addiction, becoming absorbed doesn&rsquo;t just happen overnight. Here are a few red flags which might suggest you take social media a little too seriously&hellip;
<ol>
<li>You struggle to get things done.&nbsp;Do you find yourself writing to-do lists but struggling to check things off?&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/time-management/">Find yourself procrastinating or maybe just feel like you&rsquo;re falling behind?</a>&nbsp;Could be too much time spent on a social platform.</li>
<li>You scroll without realizing.&nbsp;We&rsquo;ve all been there &ndash; just a quick sneaky peak at Instagram and suddenly you&rsquo;re a few hundred photos down. If your autopilot heads straight to Facebook or any other network, that&rsquo;s probably a warning sign!</li>
<li>The thought of life without social media makes you uncomfortable. If the idea of deleting the Facebook app from your phone seems kind of scary then you might be relying on it a bit too much. Don&rsquo;t worry &ndash; life goes on without it! Beating your addiction doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean going off the grid completely.</li>
<li>You can&rsquo;t sleep. Researchers have found a link between sleep disturbances and social networks. How often people logged on, rather than time spent on social media sites, was a higher predictor of disturbed sleep, suggesting &ldquo;an obsessive &lsquo;checking&rsquo;&rdquo; disorder.</li>
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<h2>Why do we Love Social Media so Much?</h2>
There are countless amount of reasons that these networks are so popular &ndash; they really do make us feel better about ourselves. Like some substance addictions, using these websites and apps releases dopamine in our brains &ndash; a chemical that inspires us to take action because of how we feel when we are rewarded for it.
It&rsquo;s pretty easy to see how social media fits into the equation. We post tweets on Twitter, photos on Instagram, and statuses&rsquo; on Facebook, knowing that we will feel good about the &lsquo;likes&rsquo; that start flooding in. Dopamine is released in our bodies due to reactions, which excites us more than the actual reactions.
Not to mention how we use these platforms to vent about everything from customer service to politics. The downside to this is that our feeds often resemble an endless stream of stress. The anticipation of how other people will react.
Facebook and Twitter are literally designed to ensure that users repeatedly check in. They&rsquo;re engineered to ensure we spend as much time at our computers or on our phones as possible. This means that your social media addiction isn&rsquo;t entirely your fault &ndash; but don&rsquo;t panic. With a little help, you&rsquo;ll be over it in no time!
<h2>Breaking the Addiction</h2>
When you think about it, social media is a harmless addiction &ndash; which makes it difficult for us to tell how much better off we&rsquo;d be without it. Whether you just want to take a little bit of time out to get back on track or you&rsquo;re looking to have a total digital detox, these tips and techniques are bound to help.
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<h2>Blocking Apps</h2>
It&rsquo;s so easy to justify a quick five minutes on a platform that it sometimes happens almost automatically. Taking a quick five-minute break? Suddenly Facebook is open. A bit of time to kill before you have to leave? You check Instagram.
Blocking apps is a good idea &ndash; if anything, you&rsquo;ll quickly realize how often you use social media whilst on autopilot.&nbsp;<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-site-website-blocke/eiimnmioipafcokbfikbljfdeojpcgbh?hl=en">Block Site for Chrome</a>&nbsp;is a good option if you&rsquo;re desperate to limit app usage, features like scheduled block times and syncing blocked sites across devices will help break your addiction!
<h2>Come Back to the Real World</h2>
It can seem like the digital world is all there is to life. Time to unplug! By making more of an effort to live in the moment you&rsquo;ll rediscover how good life is offline.
So, if it&rsquo;s someone&rsquo;s birthday give them a call instead &ndash; or even better, try and meet up. Get the members of your group to chat together for lunch at the weekend. Go for coffee with a co-worker during your lunch break instead of sitting on your phone. You&rsquo;ll quickly realize that it&rsquo;s much more rewarding!
When we post a photo or a status update, we quickly lose focus on our experience and begin to think about how people will react to it instead. One of the best ways to become unplugged is to reflect on our experiences in different ways. Keep a scrapbook of your favorite photos or write a journal with your thoughts &ndash; this way you&rsquo;ll treasure the moment instead of worrying about what other people think!

<h2>Get a Handle on Procrastination</h2>
If you&rsquo;ve reached the point where your own addiction has begun to frustrate you, chances are that procrastination might be playing a role. You&rsquo;ve got to hand it to social media &ndash; it&rsquo;s the perfect way to dawdle and put off tasks.
So how do you avoid procrastination? You face it head-on!
For every task procrastinated there&rsquo;s a reason. Maybe the task is too big and you don&rsquo;t know where to start &ndash; why not split it into smaller steps? Or perhaps you&rsquo;re lost under a mountain of assignments &ndash; list them in order of priority so that you know where to begin.
If you&rsquo;re struggling to get stuck in and maintain concentration levels, you might find that the Pomodoro technique can help. It&rsquo;s a popular time management technique that involves working on a task for twenty-five minutes before taking a five-minute break to stay focused. After four twenty-five-minute sessions, take a longer break of half an hour &ndash; this will help refresh and rejuvenate you.
Once you&rsquo;ve suppressed your tendency to procrastinate your productivity is bound to increase. Even if you still find yourself checking social media during your five-minute break, you&rsquo;ll still feel better with twenty-five minutes of concentration already under your belt!
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<h2>Reward Yourself for Quitting</h2>
Okay &ndash; so you don&rsquo;t have to quit social media altogether. It&rsquo;s still possible to be super-productive without going completely off the grid! A key technique when overcoming your addiction is to ensure that if you do feel the urge to check, you do it with purpose. In other words, ask yourself&nbsp;why&nbsp;you need to check &ndash; if there&rsquo;s no clear reason then suppress the urge.
Rewarding yourself for breaking the habit will help you overcome your addiction. It can be something as little as a bar of chocolate for a day without using social media to procrastinate, or a bigger reward &ndash; like Saturday night takeout after a long week of no scrolling. Giving yourself an incentive or diversion means that you have something to focus on and look forward to.
Why not make yourself accountable to someone by telling them that you&rsquo;ll share your reward with them? Not only are you more likely to stick to your promise but you&rsquo;ll feel better hanging out with them &ndash; in the real world!
<h2>Enjoy Your Digital Detox</h2>
There&rsquo;s no magic formula for breaking your social media habit. In fact, it&rsquo;s pretty hard work!
However, by blocking apps, rewarding yourself for cutting down, taking pride in your newfound productivity, and reconnecting with the non-virtual world you&rsquo;re more likely to severe your addiction to social media for good.
What are your favorite tips for setting a limit to your social media use? Let us know in the comments!

Three BILLION people. That’s around 40% of the world’s population and they all use social media. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat

How to Overcome your Addiction to Social Media

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">We all try to start each day with a plan to increase productivity but soon find ourselves becoming distracted, focusing on low-priority tasks, and often procrastinating. So how can we regain control of our time and avoid procrastination?</div>
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The old school lists on how to increase productivity don&rsquo;t work anymore, or at least not for everyone, so we&rsquo;re going to outline&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">productivity techniques</a>&nbsp;that can be adapted to your personality and working style and will help to improve productivity.
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<h2>Track and Limit</h2>
Regarding productivity in the workplace, time tracking provides context to help you stay productive and turn lists of project tasks into meaningful work. Once you know how long tasks will take you can estimate future tasks more effectively. If you manage a team in the workplace, using the same logic as above you can also see if your team is working according to the established productivity norm for a task. You&rsquo;ll be able to better judge where there are too many people on a specific project and who may need more support.
By judging how your time is spread across tasks, you can track and limit the necessary from the unnecessary. Are you spending enough time on big tasks? Are low-value tasks taking too long? Could budget-draining tasks be downsized or outsourced? Are all the tasks even necessary? These are all the types of questions that you can answer once you track and limit your workload.
One way of doing this is to go old school. Keep a notebook or diary in which you take notes all day about assignments received, goals set, guidelines provided, intermediate and final deadlines established, as well as tasks to complete actions taken. Include tools such as checklists to guide you in the performance of your work. Refine your system to make it easier for you to keep track in writing.
If you prefer to keep track using electronic tools, all you need is a database and a scheduling program that allows you to create a record for each work matter. As soon as you receive a new assignment or a change to an existing assignment, enter the information into the electronic record.
Whether you use a notebook or an electronic tool, be sure to capture these key pieces of information:
<ul>
<li>Expectations: Goals and requirements that were spelled out. Instructions are given or to-do lists assigned. Standard operating procedures, rules, or guidelines reviewed. Deadlines are set and timelines established.</li>
<li>Concrete Actions: Your actual work as you complete each to-do item, achieve each goal, fulfill each requirement and meet each deadline.</li>
<li>Measurements: How do your concrete actions are matching up against the expectations: Have you met or exceeded requirements? Did you follow instructions, standard operating procedures, and rules? Did you meet the goals on time?</li>
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<h2>Quit Multitasking</h2>
The human brain is designed to focus on one thing at a time. Bombarding the brain with information only slows it down and makes us less productive and encourages bad brain habits.
It has been reported multiple times that multitasking lowers your work quality and efficiency, making it harder to organize thoughts and filter out irrelevant information. A study at the University of London showed that people who multitasked while performing cognitive tasks experienced significant IQ drops &ndash; similar to people who have bad sleeping habits.
Multitasking has also been found to increase the production of cortisol, the stress hormone. Having our brain constantly shift gears pumps up stress and tires us out, leaving us feeling mentally exhausted. So what can we do to control this? First, we need to look into the causes of multitasking and how to repair the damage that has already been done.
The biggest instigator of multitasking mayhem? Our inboxes. Some studies have shown that even the opportunity to multitask, such as knowledge of an unread email in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points! The constant thrill of a new bolded email in our inbox keeps us ever-distracted.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-social-economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A McKinsey Global Institute Study</a>&nbsp;found that employees spend 28% of their workweek checking emails.
Protect yourself from the multitasking mental massacre by establishing an email checking schedule. Commit yourself to check emails only three times a day. Turn off and unplug texting notifications and choose specific times to check your phone as well.
To the best of your ability, set up a work environment that encourages the performing of one task at a time. It&rsquo;s probably not realistic to think that we can block off-hours at a time for a single task, but even committing to monotask for five minutes can yield productivity benefits.

Here are a few small changes you can make:
Remove temptation:&nbsp;Actively resist the urge to check unrelated social media while you are working on a task. Some workers may need to go so far as to install anti-distraction programs like&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>, where blocking apps and access to the most addictive parts of the internet for specified periods are controlled.
Work on just one screen:&nbsp;Put away your cell phone and turn off your second monitor, this will help you focus your concentration on one specific task rather than multiple things on different screens that can cause confusion, diversion, and procrastination.
Move:&nbsp;If you find yourself losing focus &ndash; reading the same sentence over and over or if your mind continually wanders off-topic &ndash; get up and briefly walk around it should help you to stay focused.
Work in intervals:&nbsp;Set a timer for five or ten minutes and commit to focusing on your assignment for that amount of time. Then allow yourself a minute of distraction, as long as you get back on your task for another five or 10 minutes.
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<h2>Minimize Interruptions</h2>
It&rsquo;s part of the modern workplace, and it&rsquo;s impossible to avoid. Whether it be open spaces, meetings, instant messaging, emails, or conversations with colleagues on the way to the kitchen or the bathroom &ndash; it can be a challenge to minimize these interruptions let alone get rid of them for good.
Here are a few of our key suggestions for minimizing interruptions whilst at work;
<h2>Plan</h2>
If you work in open spaces, chances are high that you&rsquo;re going to experience interruptions on a regular basis. So first things first, stop being surprised by them and plan for them. It&rsquo;s usually pretty obvious when they&rsquo;re going to happen so work that into your day. &nbsp;When establishing timelines, negotiating deadlines, or simply outlining your day, recognize that you&rsquo;ll probably be thrown off course a few times. Give yourself a little leeway here and there to allow for it. If you schedule yourself so tight that you have no wiggle room, the tiniest interruption will throw a wrench into everything.
<h2>Control</h2>
You are responsible for your time, so make sure you take matters into your own hands and create a system that works for you. If that means you need to limit apps such as turning off instant messenger, setting times when to check emails, and setting your phone to call divert, do whatever it takes to maximize your day. There&rsquo;s no reason you should be at the mercy of everyone else. Just be sure that you&rsquo;re checking in regularly and getting back to people within a reasonable amount of time.
Don&rsquo;t be afraid to use some kind of &ldquo;do not disturb&rdquo; sign to help deter in-person visitors too. It sounds awkward but, if you really need to focus your attention on a project, what&rsquo;s wrong with providing a signal to others? The key to making this work is that you also have to have &ldquo;open office hours&rdquo;&mdash;specific times when you make yourself available for drop-ins.
<h2>Don&rsquo;t Initiate</h2>
This one is obvious but we&rsquo;ll say it anyway: If you don&rsquo;t want people to interrupt you, don&rsquo;t interrupt them. Show respect for others by asking, &ldquo;Is now a good time to talk?&rdquo; before simply launching into a conversation. Be a role model for the kind of behavior you&rsquo;d like to see from others. Don&rsquo;t ping co-workers on IM with pointless chitchat if you don&rsquo;t want them to do the same. You have the power to train others on how you want to interact with them, so make sure you set your own rules and boundaries in place to do this.
<h2>Proactive Not Reactive</h2>
Being proactive is a move you make towards the world. It requires an individual to accept responsibility for his situation and take the initiative to make things better. Instead of letting their conditions and circumstances be the driving force of their decision, proactive people allow their values to determine the choices they make. They act rather than being acted upon, they play the ball before it plays them.
If you put this into practice in the workplace whether it be a reaction to situations or dealing with difficult people, you will improve your productivity.
Being proactive means you come up with multiple ways of viewing certain situations before reacting to them. You try and put yourself in a challenging person&rsquo;s shoes, even if it&rsquo;s just for a moment to try and understand. If you can&rsquo;t make a decision, simply buy some time, when you encounter setbacks and failures, ask &lsquo;what is the lesson here?&rsquo; &lsquo;how can I learn from this?&rsquo; Why? Because that&rsquo;s proactive and not reactive.
So there you have it, a roundup of how to be more productive in the workplace. By implementing some of these techniques, you&rsquo;ll be sure to notice a difference in your productivity, time management, and overall performance. Good luck!

We all try to start each day with a plan to get a lot done but soon find ourselves becoming distracted, focusing on low priority tasks and often procrastinating

How to Improve Productivity in the Workplace - BlockSite

How to Improve Productivity in the Workplace

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<div class="elementor-widget-container">Discover how to block YouTube on mobile and desktop with BlockSite and start taking back control of your time without any distractions</div>
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It&rsquo;s the second most visited site after Google and 1.9 BILLION of us log in every month for an average of 40 minutes per visit. Yes, we&rsquo;re talking about YouTube. Arguably one of the most addictive sites on the internet and without a doubt, the one that can consume a lot of our time &ndash; pointlessly. We&rsquo;ve all &lsquo;lost track of time&rsquo; whilst watching various tutorials and random videos of cats and the next thing we know &ndash; we&rsquo;re 3 hours past our task deadline with more knowledge on stupid things that cats do than what we actually opened the internet to focus on and sat there thinking &lsquo;how did I let this happen?&rsquo;
Well, it&rsquo;s not entirely your fault YouTube&rsquo;s user experience is in itself addictive. All the &lsquo;new video&rsquo; recommendations and auto-play features help lure you into hours of content consumption, and while YouTube can be an incredible resource to teach, enhance your knowledge and entertain you &ndash; it can also reduce your productivity and make your focus, wander.
In short, whether you&rsquo;re a YouTube enthusiast or only watch certain videos, it&rsquo;s a great tool to aid procrastination, which is why BlockSite recommends blocking YouTube completely during hours when it doesn&rsquo;t serve you well. We&rsquo;ve also made it really easy for you both on the desktop and on the app.
Keep reading to learn how BlockSite can help you block YouTube and learn to say no to &lsquo;just one more video.&rsquo;
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<h2>How to Block the YouTube App on Android</h2>
Want to start limiting your access to YouTube and start taking back control of your time? BlockSite makes it easy for you to stop watching videos endlessly.
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<li>To start,&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en">download BlockSite&nbsp;</a>to your mobile device</li>
<li>Then, click on the BlockSite app on your mobile device and open the app</li>
<li>Click on the green + icon to add an app to your Block list</li>
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<li>Search for an app by entering the apps name in the search bar or choose from the app suggestions</li>
</ul>
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<li>Select YouTube by clicking the green + or enter YouTube in the search bar and then to confirm, click the green ✅ at the top right of the screen</li>
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<li>Once the app has been added successfully, BlockSite will let you know</li>
</ul>
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<li>Once you click &lsquo;Done&rsquo; the YouTube app will be blocked on your device</li>
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<h2>How to Block YouTube on Your Computer (Mac + Windows)</h2>
<ul>
<li>To start, click on the BlockSite icon at the top right hand side of your browser bar</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>&nbsp;Open BlockSite settings and select the &lsquo;Block Sites&rsquo; option from the menu</li>
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<li>To block YouTube, enter www.youtube.com into the web address bar. You can also choose if you wish to block these sites permanently or by schedule.</li>
</ul>
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<li>Once you have typed the web address, click enter on click on the green&nbsp;+&nbsp;icon to add YouTube to your block list.</li>
</ul>
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<h2>How to Block YouTube on Chrome (Mac and Windows) Desktop via the Favicon</h2>
<ul>
<li>Once you have installed the BlockSite extension on your browser, to block websites via the Favicon, click the icon found in the top right corner next to the URL bar. For your convenience in locating the icon, in the image below we have circled it.</li>
</ul>
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<li>This will open up the pop up, where you can click &lsquo;Block this Site&rsquo; to add YouTube to your block list.</li>
</ul>
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<li>Once you have added the site to your block list, you will be immediately redirected to one of BlockSite&rsquo;s redirect pages, or to a site you have chosen to be redirected to, making sure you stay in check!</li>
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<a href="https://blocksite.co/">BlockSite</a>&nbsp;enables users to be free from distractions to improve their productivity, overcome online addictions and focus on their studies&nbsp; &ndash; to name but a few benefits that downloading the extension provides.
With BlockSite, you can also sync your blocked websites with your mobile device on Android making it easy for you to stay focused even while on the go. The BlockSite app is available on both&nbsp;<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.blocksite&amp;hl=en">Android</a>&nbsp;and<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blocksite/id1474967653">&nbsp;iOS</a>&nbsp;and the features offered, some of which are free and others premium &ndash; including Work Mode, Scheduling, Site Redirect, and the Adult Content blocker, make sure that every user can take total control of their time and make productivity their priority.
For only a few dollars a month, investing in BlockSite Premium is undoubtedly the best investment you&rsquo;ll make in helping you achieve your goals and pushing you to become the best version of yourself.
So many of us are losing valuable hours of&nbsp;<a href="https://blocksite.co/productivity/">productivity and focus to digital distractions</a>, it&rsquo;s now time to reclaim those hours and fill them with things that really matter. Download BlockSite today and start taking back control of your time.

Discover how to block YouTube on mobile and desktop with BlockSite and start taking back control of your time without any distractions