Although I’ve never been diagnosed with it, I think I may be a little bit ADD. There are many times throughout the day that I’ll want to do something, but then I’ll get distracted by one thing or another. It’s pretty frustrating, frankly, and leads me to working many a late night trying to finish off the day’s tasks.
I started looking for a way to fix the problem recently, and one of the options I came across was Concentrate. At first, I thought it was a simple little program that helped eliminate distractions from my workspace. But then I bought it, and almost instantly I realized that it was much, much more.
I fired up the app for the first time and a small window popped up in the corner of the screen labelled “Activities.” This is where you set what job you want to accomplish right now, then once you click on the Concentrate button, a timer pulls up and you can start your job. Really, the best way to describe this is to give an example.
One of my activities is labelled Apple Gazette, for when I need to hammer out a post. Once I click on the Concentrate button, a whole series of movements fire up. Chrome opens and loads up the Apple Gazette login, and all of the websites I use for research on a daily basis. Then it hides all other applications and turns my chat status to “away.” The really important part though, is what it blocks me from doing. Concentrate doesn’t allow me to open up any of my favorite time-wasting sites, including Twitter and Facebook, and will prompt me if I try to do so. Finally, there’s a timer that’s adjustable, which in my case is set to one hour.
This is all adjustable, and there are other functions as well. You can open up a specific file, switch which Space you’re in, run a script, or any number of other things, making it truly personalized, and easy to work with. This makes it really the perfect way for me to get things done.
It’s $29, which isn’t cheap for a program that on the surface doesn’t look like it does much, but really it’s quite the bargain. If you’re not sure about the program, download the trial which lets you try it out for 60 hours. For me, it was the answer to a problem and ultimately, it’s going to earn me money long term. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go get some things done.
