When I’m stuck on doing hard things, my brain does something… It will open a new browser tab, and start typing. It will either type “faceboo…” or “news.ycombi…” until I twig into what is happening, but by then it’s too late: I’ve lost the context of what I was working on, and I’m wrapped up in The Scroll.

This is a bad situation: I’m an adult! I can do hard things!

I’m clearly not the only person with this issue, and there are all manner of apps and browser extensions and tools to prevent this, all of which require a varying degree of tech-savvyness. Here is the method I use.

I use the uBlock origin browser extension. You should too! It makes the internet a much calmer place. On an Android, this extension works in Firefox mobile too, which is lovely. It mostly blocks ads. But you can also add custom filters!

Adding filters for sites you visit by habit will present you with a screen that looks like this every time you visit them:

You can still click “proceed”, but it gives you an extra hoop to jump through to visit websites that you probably didn’t want to visit anyway. This extra step helps me stay focused on the work I’d prefer to be doing.

Adding a new uBlock origin filter

To add a new filter to uBlock origin - from any page, click the uBlock origin icon, then click the little gears

Click “My Filters” at the top, and select “Enable my custom filters”. In the box below, enter the sites you would like a bit of accountability for, then click “apply changes”.