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two digital tools to increase your productivity

We all know how easy it is to get seduced by the digital distractions that we come across social media and video sharing platforms. Facebook and YouTube are two big avenues where if we don’t cultivate awareness and maintain self-control, we go down the rabbit hole and before we know our precious minutes have been wasted just watching meaningless content, posts and videos and scrolling unconsciously as an antidote to our boredom.

Here are a couple of tools that I came across that have helped me avoid these digital content landmines and reduce my time on Facebook and YouTube so that I’m able to resist temptations and hence work, rest and play in a better way free of meaningless distractions.  I got to know about them in The Minimalists Podcast episode Habit, where James Clear shared these tools with the listeners and viewers. These are essentially extensions that you can add to your Chrome browser

  1. News Feed Eradicator for Facebook: If you find yourself constantly checking and getting caught up on Facebook, this will help you minimize your time whenever you log in. This extension removes your entire news feed and replaces it instead with an inspirational quote. If you want, you can customize the quotes as well. (Note: This does not work for Groups but is nonetheless very effective in limiting your time on Facebook overall).
  2. DF Tube (Distraction Free for YouTube™): Whether you use YouTube at home or at work, this Chrome extension will help you break your cycle of mindless viewing. The primary incentive for YouTube is to create as many views and ad clicks as possible. And that’s why it is designed in such a way that it ingrains into us the habitual pattern of clicking, watching and scanning for a new video unconsciously. DF Tube disables autoplay and hides the video recommendations sidebar along with related videos that appear at the end of videos. It also gives you the options of eliminating the grid of recommended videos that appear on your homepage, hiding comments and disabling playlists sitewide. Overall, DF Tube is a good tool to have. It not only helps us watch content of our choice but it also helps us protect our focus and curb our YouTube addiction.