A second screen asks if you would like local network access to printers and other computers, or none at all. Launch the $10 program and it asks you how long you would like to disable internet access for: you can specify anything from one minute to eight hours. For programs that lack a dedicated full-screen mode, two utilities, Isolator and Think, can create a similar form of focus, hiding or blurring anything but the active program.īut in its severity and simplicity, Freedom (for Macintosh and Windows) may be the ultimate tool to ward off distractions: the virtual equivalent of retiring to a remote getaway, or going on a writers' retreat, to get things done. This forces the user to confront the equivalent of the blank page in the typewriter-an exhilarating and terrifying prospect for many authors. And many other programs, including word-processing packages Ulysses, Scrivener, WriteRoom, Dark Room and Writespace, now include a full-screen, no-distraction mode, with all unnecessary screen “furniture” (menus, palettes and so on) disabled or hidden. The programs' varied but allied intent is revealed in their names: Freedom, Isolator, LeechBlock, Menu Eclipse, Think and Turn Off the Lights, to name a few. The idea is similar to parental-control programs that prevent children from accessing inappropriate content: but these are controls that grown-up users deliberately impose upon themselves. Some programs fill the whole screen to keep disturbing alerts hidden others disable specific websites, such as Facebook, or even cut off internet access altogether.
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Keeping such diversions at bay involves some technological jiu-jitsu, using the power of one piece of software as a defence against distraction from others.
The problem with working on a computer, after all, is that computers provide so many appealing alternatives to doing anything useful: you can procrastinate for hours, checking e-mail, browsing social-networking sites or keeping up with Twitter. “CLEAR your screen and clear your mind.” That is the philosophy behind a new wave of dedicated software utilities, and special modes in word-processing packages and other applications, that do away with distractions to enable you to get on with your work.
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