*** WARNING: This extension is very annoying. The owl is flying across your pages, annoying you, criticizing you, giving you psychological exercises, and closing your tabs. If you are not serious about being productive, this extension may not be for you.***
Do you need a new boss when working from home? Meet the Productivity Owl.
The owl is very strict. He will berate and mock you. You’ll be forced to complete tasks to earn break time. If you do consistent work, use the timeboxing scheduler for work/vacation, and complete the owl’s psychological exercises then you might be able to earn the owl’s respect.
Just like the first version, the owl has 3 types of websites: Allowed, Blocked and Countdown. If a website is not on the allowed/blocked lists, you’ll get a certain amount of time to get the information you need before the owl closes the tab. You can still use the scheduler to schedule free-time, and now you can also schedule work time. Version 2.0 introduced a task manager, and you get rewarded break minutes for each task you complete. There are also psychological interventions and browsing statistics in this version.
Although it is technically possible to earn the owl’s respect – it’s highly unlikely. The owl is very judgmental. It may take years before anyone earns the owl’s “ultimate respect.” Of course if you uninstall the extension or disable it, all respect is lost.
*************** APACHE 2.0 LICENSE OPEN SOURCE ***************
Since this extension is on every webpage you visit, I wanted to let everyone know there are NO TRACKERS or DATA COLLECTORS in the owl. The owl is 100% open source. You can view the source code on Github: https://github.com/mrieck/productivityowl
*Thanks to everyone who has been using the Productivity Owl over the years. He’s been helping me be productive for the last 8 years. Hope he can help you too.
I mostly liked. It’s very nice to block some websites, but as the app says, it will close every tab that is not on your “allowed” list. That said, studying can get really complicated when you search google for something, because that new tab will not be on your allowed list, so IT WILL BE CLOSED. Even if you’re not on the tab the countdown will start, sometimes you open it up just to see it being closed.
I love this. It would be even more fantastic if you could automatically sync your settings between browsers.
Best
I started to use this extension before the big update and already found it very useful, but after the addition of all these new features I’m finding this extension more useful than ever!
De uil is streng, de uil heeft humor, de productivity owl is geweldig
Very useful for people like me who both have ADHD and are very good with computers! if i were to try and use an application that forces me off of the distraction, i can always just remove it. even ones made specifically to be extremely hard to remove while on block! but this one just gently reminds me in a way where i find it useful. the respect function is also motivating! best productivity app ive used.
Great work on the 2.0! Very useful and helpful, thank you very much!
It’s great! Honestly I love everything about it, it was exactly what i needed. The only problem is that no matter what I do, sometimes it doesn’t block certain websites (i don’t know why it doesn’t block twitter but it’s fine, it isn’t like i use it as much). Also, I don’t know to increase my respect level!! It’s a bit disappointing, but anyway. Apart from that, it’s amazing!
Very useful thing. I recommend this plugin
Greate extension, fits exactly what I was looking for. Great options to customize schedule. Helps me keep focused rather than surfing garbage during work hours.
Não nos deixa na mão
é bom se você que se manter focado, porém tem um problema.Toda vez que eu vou imprimir algo aparece FREETIME na folha de impressão cortando o que eu queria imprimir. Tá bem irritante esse erro.
Muito Bom, útil demais!
Have I really never reviewed this extension before? I’ve used it on and off for years now. I *love* it!! I mainly use it to keep myself from getting distracted while working on my novels, which means that I haven’t actually used it much the past year while going through a huge writer’s block. I also don’t use it constantly or really use the ‘free time’ feature, when I’m done working for awhile I just turn the extension off. Which I guess could be an easy way to ‘cheat’ as well, but I’ve never turned it off for that. I used a few writing-productivity extensions before finding the Owl and this one actually worked for me! In fact roughly 90k words of a specific novel were written while this Owl was blocking things!
I see a lot of reviews talk about the aggressiveness of this extension as a bad thing, but isn’t that kinda the whole point of the Owl? Seems like this extension is specifically made for hardcore procrastinators that other milder options haven’t worked for. I guess it could get frustrating trying to figure out how to research school or work related things if you need to open a lot of random sites, but I only have about 5-6 writing-related websites that I need so I just put those in the ‘allowed’ box.
I am so happy to finally find an extension that suits my needs after spending so much time looking for one. Thanks for Productivity Owl team!
Afer using it for a while I have a few suggestions. If you whitelist a certain website that you need for work it doesn’t automatically whitelist all the subdomains and you have to manually whitelist them which is not practical at all. Also, the maximum time allowed is to big I can just set it to 2000000 seconds and the owl will just sit there. Also there should be a settings lock option for the biggest procrastinators 🙂
I like it! it’s simple but i like when i type the blocked site. the owl comes up with image and says go back work. i wish it also has some sound that can be added or customized. so it can be some alarming and also bigger reminder that i am wasting time one web surfing. ^^ just a small suggestion.
Error handling response: ReferenceError: respsonse is not defined
at chrome-extension://eoagmdboiealblmpaahjlhajggndaahi/contentscript.js:128:7
Edit: still not fixed
I really liked all the idea and concept, and it’s working very fine. The only thing that bothers me is I don’t find an option to hide the owl that appears on right down corner showing me that “FREETIME” everytime, or the seconds that are left on given site. I’m then forced to block the owl when I need to reach certain site because that bothers me very much, thus reducing its usefulness since I don’t remember to turn it on everytime.
tl;dr: is there any way to hide the owl that appears in the right down corner?
Kind of works. Blocks most websites but wont block 4chan. I tried putting every combination of url that 4chan uses but still refuses to block it.
Lacks an option to have the owl timer working only on certain websites.
I’m giving it a four, so as not to gush. Initial impressions I like it. The owl gives me a bit of warning, it is ominous, and it reminds me that I don’t need to be spending this time on most if not any of these sites. I don’t feel that it is stopping more than making me aware. I guess to this owl I look like a mouse in a field who has spent too much time sitting still in the open. It may be a primal instinct that makes this effective. On another note I have also noticed it seems to be in an anti-desperation mode as the timer decreases when I reopen a tab – usually for a legitimate reason, knowing that I can finish my business and get out. Okay I am adjusting downward to a three, more like a 3.5 however it would be a 4.5 if only the “anti-desperation mode” switch worked. It seems to be on no matter how the switch is selected. And it looks like we’re years in between updates. Oh well. Five stars and a sandwich for the dev if this issue is addressed. Would also be good to have a quick ad button so we don’t have to keep copy pasting to allow sites we need to keep open.
Love it!, super cute! realy helps me stay focused
I looked through the code, and I’m pretty sure you will never gain respect ever. Other than that, this is the best productivity app I’ve found. I used a much more popular and polished one for a few minutes until I realized it couldn’t be customized the way the Owl can.
fantastics