Success - Facebook Procrastination-Avoidance

The person who wrote this should probably use Twitter or, at least, read this blog.

Just a quick update blog this time with a screen video. You may have read my blog on addiction issues I keep finding with Facebook a few weeks ago... 

I was going to shut it down completely but I found a couple of plugins that you can use that really help you avoid procrastinating on it. I've made no direct posts to Facebook since discovering them so I think that is great.

These are "Facebook Purity" and "Block Site".

Facebook Purity helps you decide what you want on your news feed, also gives you formatting options for things like having a background on your page (visible only to you). This is freeware.

The second is Block Site where you can put URLs in so that your browser will automatically not allow you to access those pages. You can also put a timer on this so that you can't access it during work hours but you can during a lunch break (for example).

Yes, you can turn both of them off in preferences (extensions on chrome) but you have to go out of your way to do it. This means that if you really want to get on Facebook you can but it's not an accident. I'm using Chrome (for the time being) but it works on other main browsers such as Firefox, Explorer, Safari.

This has so far proven sufficient for me for procrastinate less and to avoid getting wound up by some of the rubbish that you come across, adverts etc. Also Facebook Purity still allows cookies through to Facebook so it is ideal if you log into other sites with your Facebook credentials.

People can still contact me with direct messages on Facebook and tag and post as before. Also connected accounts will still post to my wall so I haven't dropped completely off grid. I have other plugins monitoring my traffic; who loves me, who hates me: not only on Facebook but, more importantly, to my business sites (will discuss that another point if anyone is interested).

I know this seems odd but I already feel it is more social than before as now; when I need to talk to someone, I go through to their page directly, sometimes see what they have been up to, I still comment and like, but it's more involved than it was previously with random news feeds abusing my attention. Once upon a time (the MySpace era) people would write more on your wall than in a private message and for the most part now I think this is the best application for my personality.

As for Twitter, I'm still using it but if they release the 140 character limit I might have to leave them completely as I don't need another Facebook... I've only just got a coping strategy for the one there already. :D

Here is a screen video of these working. Excuse the non existent editing and also note that I'm not getting paid for the product placement in the video.