Here’s the deal: you’re an ambitious professional, and your day only has so many minutes. You want to get everything done, but you also don’t want to be burnt out by the end of the day. You want to focus on the right things, and knock those tasks out of the park.
So we built this list for you. It’s a collection of apps that do something: they help you focus and be productive. And who doesn’t need that?!
So go ahead, take a look at our list, and let us know what you think!
Best Apps For Focus And Productivity
What is a focus app?
How we evaluate and test apps
All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
Don’t confuse website blocker apps with parental control software—that’s not what they’re for. No, these tools are for you, and they hopefully help you build better habits. We researched this category extensively and considered dozens of options, then evaluated them against our criteria. We think that the best distraction blocking apps should do the following:
Block a list of websites and/or apps (determined by you)
Allow you to set a schedule and/or a timer
Be annoying (at the very least) to disable
Offer encouragement
In addition, because we’re thinking about work, we only considered apps that work on computers—there are no mobile-only tools here. Here’s the focusing software we think works best.
The 7 best apps to help you focus and block distractions
Freedom for blocking distractions on all your devices at once
Serene for planning and following through on deep focus sessions
Cold Turkey Blocker for scheduled system-wide blocking
LeechBlock NG for free browser-based website blocking
RescueTime for time tracking with built-in website blocking
Forest for motivating you to put your phone down
SelfControl for a nuclear option
Best focus app for blocking distractions on all your devices at once
Freedom (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Chrome)
Freedom screenshot
Most distraction blockers work only on whatever device you’re using right now. Freedom can block distractions—both websites and apps—on all of your devices, simultaneously. No more blocking Instagram on your computer, only to immediately open it on your phone. If you start a session, your distractions are blocked everywhere.
Set up as many blocklists as you want, then start or schedule a session. There’s a lockdown mode, which makes it impossible to edit your blocklists while a session is active—consider that if you’re prone to working around your own good intentions. There are also optional focus sounds, which are basically ambient background noise from coffee shops or nature.
The downside: there’s no long-term free version, only a limited trial that lets you run six distraction-free sessions. That should be enough time to figure out if it will work for you, though.
Freedom pricing: Premium starts at $6.99/month.
Best focus app for planning and following through on deep focus sessions
Serene (macOS, Windows “coming soon”)
Serene screenshot
Serene isn’t just a distraction blocker: it’s a productivity system built around periods of deep focus. Users choose a list of websites and apps they find distracting, then block them when it’s time to buckle down and get some work done. But there’s more than that here.
The app is built around planning your day. List how many things you want to work on and how long they’ll take. Then, when it’s time to work, click the Go Serene button to start a timer. All of your distractions will be blocked, optional concentration music will play, and you’ll be reminded that it’s time to focus and shown your countdown timer every time you try to open a site that you shouldn’t. These elements work really well together—you’re not only blocking distractions; you’re also reminding yourself of what you’d like to accomplish.
You can streamline your focus sessions even more with Serene’s Zapier integrations, which can create focus sessions from apps like Trello, Asana, Todoist, and any other task management app you can think of.
Create Serene sessions from new Trello cards
Serene + Trello
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Create Serene sessions from new Asana tasks
Asana + Serene
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Create Serene sessions from new incomplete Todoist tasks
Serene + Todoist
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Serene pricing: $4/month. Free trial limited to 10 free deep work hours.
Best focus app for scheduled system-wide blocking
Cold Turkey Blocker (Windows, macOS)
Cold Turkey screenshot
Cold Turkey Blocker is, in a word, customizable. Install this site-blocking app, and you can create lists of websites and desktop apps to block, then set a schedule for blocking. You could, for example, block social media and video sites during every work day. You could also block work apps, like Slack, when the work day ends. It’s all up to you. Or, if you prefer, you can turn blocking on and off manually. There’s even a mode called Frozen Turkey, which prevents you from accessing your computer entirely: turn it on, and you’ll see a blank screen until your scheduled outage is over.
Because this is a system-wide tool and not just a browser extension, you can’t work around it by changing browsers. But it goes further than that—there are all kinds of settings that thwart future versions of yourself from working around your current intentions.
You can block the Time & Language settings, stopping you from working around a scheduled block by changing your computer’s time. You can stop yourself from accessing the Chromium Task Manager, which you could, in theory, use to disable the blocking extension. You can even make it impossible to uninstall Cold Turkey Blocker until your scheduled blocking is complete. I could go on, but the basic point is that you can stop yourself from working around your block. Try this out if you’re the self-sabotaging sort.
Cold Turkey pricing: $39 Pro plan with unlimited blocking, scheduling, and the ability to block desktop apps as well as websites.
Best free browser-based website blocker
LeechBlock NG (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera)
LeechBlock screenshot
LeechBlock NG (the NG stands for “next generation”) works on most major browsers, is free, and gives you a bunch of options for blocking distractions. You can make lists of sites to block, then restrict them in all kinds of ways.
You can schedule times for apps to be blocked outright, which is very straightforward. Alternatively, you can limit your time on distracting apps by setting up rules. For example: you could give yourself 20 minutes of YouTube time every day, or four minutes of Twitter every hour. You can get even more specific, if you want, combining time limits with a schedule—think five minutes of Instagram every hour between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Or, if you don’t want to mess with schedules, you can trigger a one-off “lockdown” schedule.
It’s a lot of power, particularly for a free tool, and you can even lock down the settings during block sessions if you want. The only downside: this is a browser extension, not an app, so you can work around it by switching browsers. If you can avoid that temptation, though, LeechBlock should work nicely.
LeechBlock pricing: Free
Best focus app for time tracking with built-in website blocking
RescueTime (Windows, macOS, Android)
RescueTime screenshot
RescueTime isn’t, primarily, a distraction blocker—it’s one of the best time tracking apps. But it does include a distraction blocking feature called FocusTime, which allows you to block distractions using your time tracking history.
This works using data you’re already providing RescueTime, which allows you to designate apps and websites as productive, distracting, or very distracting. In FocusTime, you can choose to block distracting apps or even just anything you haven’t specifically tagged as productive. It’s a great way to block distractions without having to build a separate block list, particularly if you’re looking for a time tracking app anyway.
You can block distractions automatically using RescueTime’s Zapier integrations, which allow you to do things like schedule a daily FocusTime session.
Schedule daily FocusTime sessions
RescueTime + Schedule by Zapier
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RescueTime pricing: $12/month. Note that the free version of RescueTime does not include distraction blocking.
Best focus app for motivating you to put down your phone
Forest (Android, iOS, Chrome)
Forest for Chrome screenshot
Your phone is a time machine, but not in a useful way. It’s way too easy to pick it up and then notice a couple of hours have disappeared. Forest is an adorable app designed to help you with that.
The idea is simple: you open the app and say you want to plant a tree. Then you put your phone down. If you pick up your phone and switch to another app, your tree will die. Last 25 minutes, and your tree will live. Over time, you’ll grow an entire forest of trees, a reminder of all the time you intentionally spent getting things done instead of scrolling through Twitter. Plus, if you use a paid version of the app, your focus time could help fund real trees via a partnership with Trees for the Future.
Forest also offers a Chrome extension, meaning you can grow trees on your computer as well. This one works more like the other apps in this list but with an option to load distracting sites if you want to. The downside to overriding the block: you’ll have to deal with delightfully twisted copy. “This will kill your cute, little tree,” you’re warned. It gets worse: try to look at a distracting site and you’re told, “your tree is dead.” It’s manipulative, sure, but it’s manipulating you to spend your time wisely. Better than the reasons most apps manipulate you.
Forest pricing: Free on Chrome and Android, $1.99 for iPhone. Android Pro version costs $1.99, one-time, and offers syncing across devices and more tree varieties.
Best focus app for a nuclear option for Mac users
SelfControl (Mac)
SelfControl for Mac screenshot
SelfControl looks spartan: there’s a blocklist, a dial for setting how long your block period should be, and a start button. That’s it. But it stands out for one key reason: it’s impossible to undo.
Seriously, this app is hardcore. Closing the app does nothing—all of your distractions are still blocked. Deleting the app doesn’t do anything, and neither does rebooting your computer. The only way to disable blocking, once you set the timer, is to reinstall macOS entirely (which would delete all of your apps, settings, and documents).
It is truly the nuclear option for blocking distractions—none of the other apps on this list come close to this level of permanence. If you’re the sort of person who starts blocking, then caves, this app is for you.
best apps for focus and concentration
- Brain.FM
The designers of Brain.fm take a scientific approach towards creating music that helps one focus. The app features music that can get your brain reacting differently to other music, purposefully designed to guide you into a mental state free of distractions. Collaborating with researchers at academic institutions, the Brain.fm scientists have conducted experiments to discover the effects of music frequencies and technology on the brain.
The result is this app providing access to patented functional music that elicits something called ‘strong neural phase locking’, which is science-talk for coordinating brain activity to get your concentration levels up when you need it most. Brain.fm is available for both iPhone and Android, and you can get the first five sessions for free.
- RescueTime
Get RescueTime if you need an automatic time-tracking, distracting website and app blocker that will help you take control of your time. gives you the tools and data you need to reclaim your focus and become your most productive self. The downloadable software lets you see how you spend your time and then provides you with the ability to block the worst distractions.
RescueTime also has in-depth reports and tools to improve your productivity. The time tracker is automatic so no need for manual data entry of all the applications, websites and other software you use. The app will help you identify time sinks and set goals to achieve better focus. Available on iOS and Android, you can check how well it works for you if you get the free trial first.
- Focus@Will
Another application you might like that provides specially created music to increase your focus is the Focus@Will app. It features personalized focus music that promises to help you complete whatever tasks you have ahead of you, even on a day when you get stressed and are under pressure. Specialized music genres available on the app include Focus Spa, UpTempo, Alpha Chill and Baroque Piano, to name just a few that feature in the thousands of hours of unique tracks.
The music on the Focus@Will app has been created by platinum selling music producers and is supported by world-class neuroscientists, helping the app acquire over two million subscribers so far. There is a free trial available and it is compatible with iOS and Android, MacOS and Windows desktops, as well as Sonos devices.
- Freedom
With more than one million subscribers who like it, the Freedom website blocker app helps you reclaim your focus and increase your productivity. Use the app to block an unlimited amount of distracting website and time-wasting websites. You can even block the entire internet apart from the websites you need to access for your task.
The Freedom app also lets you sync block all your devices, and features a special ‘Locked Mode’ that prevents you from ending a blocked session when your willpower wavers, which it inevitably will at some point during the day. It is available for Mac and Windows desktops, Android and iOS, and the Chrome browser. There is a free trial as well.
- Flora
The Flora app uses the pomodoro technique with a gamified aspect to add an extra incentive to your focus. It works by having you plant a virtual seed which then grows into a tree the longer you focus on the task at hand. If you break your focus by visiting another website or start browsing social media, then the plant dies. This gamified pomodoro technique app can be synced with friends or workmates in order to concentrate together.
The app is also a habit tracker and lets you create do-to lists every day, and features a special option to use the Flora Real service to plant real trees somewhere on earth to assist in cooling down the planet. It is available for iOS.
- LeechBlock
The desktop website blocker LeechBlock is a free and simple productivity tool for people who want to focus during the day but without too much fuss. It works as a web browser extension that will block time-wasting social media and other distracting websites. You input which sites to block and when to block them, and that’s it. LeechBlock lets you specify up to 30 groups of websites to block, and you can assign different times and days for each group. This lets you schedule the likes of news browsing and social media use for a specific period and duration, eliminating the possibility of wasting precious time scrolling and scrolling and scrolling…
Conclusion
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