I’m going on a bit of a Facebook fast. Like many people I say that I’m going “just check Facebook for a minute” and then find that I’ve wasted twenty minutes going down a rabbit hole following interesting links or commenting on friends’ posts. I’m also prone to getting melancholy when I see some of “my memories” pop-up in my Facebook feed. Those melancholy moments have a bigger impact on my productivity than anything else. All this is to say that I’m going on a Facebook fast for the next two weeks.

I’ve enlisted the help of the StayFocusd Chrome extension to stick to my Facebook fasting plan. Because of the nature of running a small business like mine I can’t completely give up posting on the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page. What I can do is limit my time on Facebook to only things that are directly related to business. The StayFocusd Chrome extension lets me set a maximum amount of time that I can cumulatively spend on Facebook during a twenty-four hour period. I’ve set a limit of twenty minutes which should be more than enough time to update the Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page.

The StayFocusd Chrome extension works with more than just Facebook. You can customize it to block yourself from any website that you want to avoid wasting time on during your day. You can use StayFocusd to block or limit access to sites like Reddit, Twitter, Pinterest, or even Amazon. Whatever the site is that sucks time out of your day, you can block it or limit it with the StayFocusd Chrome extension.

It’s important to note that StayFocusd will only work on Chrome on your computer. It won’t prevent you from accessing your blocked sites via a web browser on your phone and it won’t stop you from accessing your blocked sites via their corresponding mobile apps. Therefore, I’ve uninstalled the Facebook app on my phone (I never had it installed on my iPad).