For the last few days I have been trialing a service called Freedom (freedom.to) which blocks distracting apps and websites based on various criteria that you can configure yourself.
I used to use a similar tool called K9 Web Protection, which was intended for use as parental control software, but this was ultimately bought by Norton and shut down a couple of years ago.
Freedom works by creating “sessions”, which are periods of time in which distracting websites will be blocked. You set a time period in which you do not want to be distracted, pick a category of sites or apps you want to block, and click start.
The interface is very easy to use. You install the native application on every device you want to control, and then either start sessions in the app or through the web interface, where you can specify which devices you want the session to apply to.
Freedom comes with two built in block lists “All websites” and “Distracting websites”. You can edit these or create your own, either by category (e.g. sports, social media, news, etc) or by specific domains. You also have the option to whitelist certain sites, for example I block social media, but I whitelist Whatsapp.
Overall I think freedom is an excellent tool for blocking distractions. You do have the ability to end sessions and override the block (something you could stop in K9) so it still requires some willpower, but should be sufficient for most people. I can only speak for Windows/Android users as I have switched away from Apple devices in the past year, but I understand the iOS support is now good, and uses Apple’s network APIs to block URLs through a local VPN.