Samuel Johnson once said;
The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform. It is true, that no diligence can ascertain success; death may intercept the swiftest career; but he who is cut off in the execution of an honest undertaking has at least the honor of falling in his rank, and has fought the battle, though he missed the victory.
Nick Petrie Also said;
I love the beautiful distractions of the world - television and movies, video games, the Internet in general. But I try really hard to avoid them because they don't help me become a better writer. They subtract hours from my day. And a writer's main currency is time. Time to daydream, time to walk and think, time to sit and do the work.
The above quotes remind us the need to avoid distraction and procrastination in our day to day activity. A lot of people continually fall victims to the monster known as Distraction, a lot of young people are school dropouts today because they lost the fight against distraction and its friend known as procrastination.
Vocabulary.com defines distraction as "something that takes your attention away from what you're supposed to be doing. If you just can't keep from checking your email every ten seconds, that's a distraction that's going to interfere with doing your homework."
I once told an Elderly Man that His generation was lucky because they never had the numerous distractions that my generation is currently battling. Technology has brought a lot of life-changing events to our lives but it has also affected ours negatively by making most of us addicts.
Take social media applications and Android games, for example, Some people have become so addicted to them that they cannot stay focus at their work for an hour without running to these applications.
I've seen a lot of students try to read or solve assignments, but end up in their favorite Android application. In this type of scenario, we can conclude that the application that takes such a person away from His or Her timetable is a distraction. Whenever you see a distraction, be rest assured that you will also find procrastination. When an individual fails to perform His/Her task at the right time, the next thing the individual will do is to carry the task forward. Sadly, carrying a task forward does not give a guarantee that the individual will perform the task when due. The individual might still get distracted and the task might never be accomplished. I believe there is time for everything and having something that helps you stay off some distractions should be encouraged.
This post is a part of an ongoing series and I will be focusing solely on this wonderful application that helps control distraction and procrastination known as " Get Off Your Phone".
What Is Get Off Your Phone?
Get off your phone is an android application that helps you end mobile distractions and procrastination by locking selected applications for a specified period of time.
Features of Get Off Your Phone
The Get Off Your Phone application has some interesting features but I will only talk about the ones that I have used and liked during my period of usage so far.
Simple User Interface
A simple, cool and easy to navigate user interface is one of the reasons that I love this application. The application was designed in a way that anyone can easily use it without any issue. The design itself is sleek with an option to change the theme in use.
Lock Times
The application offers you different options on the duration of the lockdown. This makes it flexible and enables you to choose from any of the available lockdown time frames.
Multiple Applications
This is another feature that made me love the get off your phone applications. It gave me the ability to lock as many applications that I wanted. With this feature, any user can easily select all the applications that are distractions to Him/Her.
Effective application lock
After careful analysis and application usage, I can boldly say that the main aim of this application did not fail in any way. I've used it to lock numerous applications and the beauty of it is that you can't change the settings or stop the lockdown once you've initiated it.
Below is a screenshot of what I got when I tried to open an application that I had earlier Locked.
Total Lockdown
This amazing feature when enabled takes care of the loose ends. There's a possibility that a neutral application might be the source of distraction for the day. This feature disables all your phone notifications including calls and keeps you undisturbed all through your lockdown period.
I recommend this for any student that needs total concentration.
My Personal Review and Suggestions
The Get Off Your Phone application is one application that has helped me stay focused. I easily get carried away with social media and chats even in the middle of a serious thing. Sometimes I don't know when I pick my phone to surf the internet and most realize it after I've lost a lot of time. That is now a thing of the past ever since I discovered this awesome application. I know lock all applications that used to distract me and it has been so effective. I love the fact that you can't alter the lockdown duration once you've initiated it. Although there's a disadvantage to that. The bad side is that you might not be able to access the locked application in case of emergency.
I, however, have a few suggestions which I think would help me enjoy the application better.
The first suggestion I have is directed towards the lockdown duration. There are just four timeframes available and The application would be better for me If they can integrate a feature that enables me to set my desired timeframe.
The second suggestion is towards making the application to automatically detect and lock the most used application by the user.
Lastly, I would love if they made it impossible to clear the application data from the settings area of the phone. I discovered that clearing the application data deactivates the lockdown.
NOTE: The above review is my own personal opinion and view towards the application and thereby does not mean you will feel the same way about the application.
Conclusion
Daniel Goleman once said, ”One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us."
We cannot allow distractions and procrastination ruin our lives, I've learned to manage my own with the help of this application and I really do hope that you'll give this application a try if you are suffering from any Android application distraction.
Links
Project repository
https://github.com/Alikaraki95/Getoffyourphone
Github profile
https://github.com/dongentle2
Android play store link
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nephi.getoffyourphone
Resources
This post and all its contents were written by me based on my Experience, Research, Knowledge and personal use of the Get Off Your Phone Android application.
Most Images are from my usage screenshots and all other ones are properly referenced.
Series backlinks
Below is the link to the first post of this series
@dongentle2/school-life-must-have-apps-part-1
Below is the link to the second post of this series
@dongentle2/school-life-must-have-apps-part-2
Below is the link to the third post of this series
@dongentle2/school-life-must-have-apps-part-3
Below is the link to the fourth post of this series
@dongentle2/school-life-must-have-apps-part-4