Self-discipline is an important characteristic to have. Unfortunately sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are constantly there to challenge our ability to stay on task, what with their constantly-updated content and all. If you find yourself wandering off to these and other sites when you should be working or studying, then perhaps you need something to help you stay focused, or at least prevent you from visiting those sites.

Cold Turkey is a clever little program that’s designed to prevent you from accessing certain sites for specific periods of time. Just install it, and tell it which sites you want to stay off of. Then, when you’re ready to get down to work, just tell it how long you need to stay off the sites, and it will make sure that you do. Whether you specify two hours, or two weeks, you won’t be able to visit the sites listed. You can’t even uninstall the software until the allotted time has passed. Think you can get around it by tampering with the encrypted file that keeps track of the time? That will only earn you an extra week of being locked out. This isn’t a perfect method, as those with knowledge of how to edit a HOSTS file will know how to get around it. However, if you need a simple way to keep yourself off of distracting sites, then this might be what you need.