Top 5 Apps To Avoid Distractions And Maintain Focus

It is unsettling when you are stimulated for work, but a distraction occurs and takes it away. The motivation to work and the urge to check social media or indulge in other activities are inversely proportional to your productivity. It delays work and makes procrastination really tempting.

To manage distraction and get work done effectively, you need a system that organizes your day and accordingly structures time. Several apps help you minimize your obstruction or prevent it altogether. 

However, selecting a suitable anti-distraction app can require multiple trials and errors. To help you find your next distraction management tool, we have done the legwork for you and have come up with 5 apps that will help you to prevent all distractions.

So, in this article, we’ll cover:

• What is an anti-distraction app?
• 5 best anti-distraction apps to help focus and block distraction apps

What is an anti-distraction app?

An anti-distraction app helps to schedule time, remove any distractions, and lets you constructively focus on various workflows. Each app comes with integrated features such as labels for categorizing specific tasks, timeboxing to-dos, or automating numerous tasks.

Akiflow brings one such feature called the ‘Focus Mode’. This feature removes other windows with Key’ F’, which allows deep focus sessions on individual tasks. For example, while conducting meetings, you could record any highlights and easily focus on ongoing projects instead of switching different tabs.

Learn more: Handling Distractions And Focusing In Remote Work

The 5 best anti-distraction apps to help you focus

1. For planning: Akiflow

Source: Akiflow

Akiflow is an app that lets you deal with your multitasking troubles by helping you plan your whole day. It can organize your complete workflow efficiently and allow you to access all your tasks with a single click in one place. Akiflow is a one-stop destination app that effectively will enable you to plan, organize and avoid distraction with its new “focus mode”.

It is a task manager and calendar app which makes your day more productive. You can assign dates and times to your tasks, making it impossible to miss an important meeting or deadline. It can deal with productivity-draining factors like distractions, work overloading, overlapping, and overscheduling.

Its easy-to-use interface and affordability make it accessible to everyone. Further, its multiple app integrations save you the trouble of jumping between different apps, and the app keeps you updated on your upcoming tasks without sending overwhelming notifications.

Pros:

• Wide spectrum integrations with Slack, Google Calendar, and many more via Zapier
• Easy-to-understand user interface.
• Compatibility with all operating systems.

Pricing:

• Monthly plan: $15/user/month.
• Yearly plan: $12.5/user/month.

2. For blocking distractions on all devices: Freedom 

Source: Freedom

Freedom is a distraction-blocking-focused app ideal to deal with all sources of distraction around you by enhancing work and ultimately boosting productivity. 

Other apps can only block the distractions originating from the device you are working from. Still, with Freedom, you can block multiple devices around you simultaneously, which offers you zero focus breach.

Pros:

• Intuitive UI and easy operations.
• Customizable sessions and schedules.
• High-level cross-platform compatibility.

Cons:

• Focus sounds are only available in browsers.
• Expensive lifetime subscription.

Pricing:

• Monthly plan: $8.99/month.
• Yearly: $3.99/month.
• Forever: $159.99

3. For time tracking: Toggl

Source: Toggl

Toggl tracker is a popular time tracking app with a simple, user-friendly UI. It helps to improve your work quality by finishing the task in a designated amount of time. Besides, you can track your work hours, personal tasks, or billable time.

Also, it measures and enhances your work productivity and is suitable for both— teams and individuals. 

With Toggl, you can move between different tasks with a single click. The app further notifies you to take a small break to keep your efficiency intact.

Moreover, it allows you to create different workspaces to work with your teammates and share project reports. Plus, you can also integrate it with other tools.

Pros:

• User-friendly intuitive interface.
• Detailed status and productivity reports.
• Simple first-time setup and customization. 

Cons:

• Don’t have a broad range of features.

Pricing:

• Monthly plan for teams: $9/month .
• Yearly plan for teams: $8/month.
• Monthly business plan: $15/month.
• Yearly business plan: $13.35/month.

4. Mindful Browsing

Source: Mindful Browsing

Mindful Browsing is a browser extension that prevents you from getting distracted while working on websites or other sources, resulting in an inflated work rate. This tool is for you if you get distracted easily while working or feel overwhelmed by a barrage of emails, notifications, and site pop-ups.  

The app can restrict your access for a limited time to social media sites. All you have to do is create a list of the desired websites. The time limit is also customizable from minutes to hours. It also helps you fight your internet streaming addiction and increase your ability to focus on your work or task. 

Additionally, it gives you little flexibility to browse those restricted sites for a short time after doing a portion of your work.

Pros:

• You learn self-control.
• Easily customizable blocklist of sites.
• It gives you a break between work to keep attention.
• Eye-soothing interface makes it easier to work.

Cons:

• Break time is fixed to 10 minutes.
• Background pictures could be flashy and annoying for a few.

Pricing:

• Free.

5. To keep your phone down: Forest

Source: Forest

Forest helps to eliminate all possible distractions around you while increasing your focus by assigning a different goal to achieve. If internet surfing or social media scrolling can easily distract you, then the Forest app is made for you. Its interface works on the Pomodoro technique to keep the user focused by helping them keep their phones down. 

As you start the timer the app grows a virtual tree as your work progresses, but if you leave the page during a session, the tree dies. The premise  is that the user will figth their urge to give in to a distraction in order to keep the tree alive and growing. You earn points on the maturity of each tree, which you can use to plant a tree in the real world.

Pros:

• Gamified interface makes it fun.
• Visually stunning and engaging representation of progress.
• Multi-language supported.

Cons:

• Limited tree designs.
• It can’t sync apps and chrome extension data.

Pricing:

• Basic version: Free for Android and $1.99 for IOS.
• Pro version: $1.99 (both Android and IOS).

Wrapping up

These are the best focus apps that allow you to leverage productivity by saving distraction time and delivering robust work techniques. However, the most challenging part is to take help from technology and find one that best suits your needs. You have to choose a customizable app to serve your specific requirements to optimize the benefits.

With Akiflow, you can plan tasks and schedule as per your needs with a peaceful mind while keeping distractions at bay. Sign up for its trial version today!