We’ve procrastinated, whether it’s just shuffling tasks we’re not keen on to the bottom of the to-do list now and then, or as a daily habit. Thankfully, developers have been hard to work on anti-procrastination apps to help us stay on target.
While putting things off for a while now and then isn’t an issue, chronic procrastination can severely impact your career. People usually procrastinate if a task is unpleasant or if they are feeling overwhelmed or burned out. Regardless of why you do it, here are our favorite anti-procrastination apps to help you kick the habit.
Best Anti-Procrastination Apps
- Rescue Time
- Forest
- Rocket 135
- Carrot
- Cold Turkey
- Mindly
- Write or Die
- Tomato Timer
- Focus To-Do
- Habitica
1. Rescue Time
Rated 5/5 by PCMag, Rescue time is one of the most lauded procrastination apps.
Available across multiple platforms, the app will work out where you’re spending your time, what websites you visit, and which apps you use and categorize them.
You can then block apps that aren’t helpful to you for certain time periods; for example, restricting your access to Twitter to outside working hours to stop you from getting sucked into doomscrolling.
2. Forest
Apps for procrastination either help you reinforce your self-control or encourage focus through gamification.
Forest is the latter. Whenever you want to focus, you open the Forest app and plant a tree; while the app is open and your phone is undisturbed, the tree grows.
Use your phone and the tree dies. Over time you can establish your own forest, and exchange in-game coins to plant trees in the real world in association with Trees for the Future.
3. Rocket 135
Having a long, long, to-do list can be overwhelming and that leads to procrastination.
Rocket 135 is a procrastination app (iPhone and Android) that encourages you to choose one big thing, three medium things, and five small things each day. With a bright and colorful user interface, Rocket 135 helps you get that sense of accomplishment as you tick off your rationalized to-do list.
4. Carrot
Carrot rewards you for completing tasks with in-app fortune cookies and other rewards – but you don’t want to let this app down.
Unlike others, Carrot is powered by an ‘AI Construct with a heart of Weapons Geade Plutonium. Gulp! With over 400 unique rewards there’s plenty to keep you inspired, and the AI learns as you use the app to make it a more personalised experience; if that’s what you want from ‘your new taskmaster’. A unique take on productivity apps!
5. Cold Turkey
Regularly making it onto list of best procrastination apps, Cold Turkey is a blocker that will help you keep laser-focused.
Fully customisable, Cold Turkey will let you block a handful of websites, the whole internet, or even your laptop if you need to reinforce screen breaks. Unlike some web blockers, Cold Turkey is tough to get around so once you’ve set it up you’re bound by the rules.
6. Mindly
To-do lists work well for some people, but they leave others in a cold sweat. No matter how attractive they are they still make it very clear just how much you have on your plate.
Mindly, on the other hand, challenges you to capture your inner universe through association. It creates beautiful expanding nets of associated ideas or tasks, letting your shut down the view of the work you’re not focusing on right now.
7. Write or Die
Not for the faint-hearted, Write or Die is one of the more hardcore apps to help with procrastination.
The idea is simple – set a word target and an allotted time and get writing. If you get all your words written – great. If you don’t, the app will delete all the vowels from the work you’ve written so far. How’s that for an incentive?
8. Tomato Timer
Have you heard of the Pomodoro technique? It’s an anti-procrastination method that has its roots in old school kitchen timers shaped like a tomato – hence the name.
The idea is that you set a timer for 25 minutes and work until the timer goes off. Giving yourself a deadline helps to boost your dopamine, and 25 minutes seems manageable to most people. This app makes it all the more appealing with cute tomato graphics.
9. Focus To-Do
This app takes the idea of the Pomodoro Technique and combines it with a to-do list.
You can then select tasks and work in 25 minute (or however long you want) sprints to get things done. This is a cross-platform app that you can use on your computer and mobile devices, so there’s really no excuse to put those all-important tasks off.
10. Habitica
Another gamification option, Habitica lets you set your own tasks and the reward level. The twist is that as you tick things off your to-do list, you are earning XP for your character in a Dungeons and Dragons-style adventure.
Reward yourself with a little downtime to battle the enemy and use that XP for all-important power-ups.
Pick Your Anti-Procrastination Apps and Go!
There is a wide range of anti-procrastination apps available, from those that help you prioritize, or help you stay focused, or give you virtual rewards for your good behavior.
We hope that you’ve found something that suits you in this list – now stop putting it off, download your favorite and get going!
