Hello everyone and welcome back to the Keep Productive YouTube channel on today's video
We're going to be taking a look at freedom, which is a distraction blocker
Which is designed to help you keep focused when you're doing a specific activity
Now this piece of software is available on pretty much all devices and we'll be taking a look and how effective it is today
Also a little bit about the features and how it specifically works on the Mac edition
Which is replicated pretty much across all of the desktops. So without further ado guys, let's dive in to freedom
So guys just before we dive into this video
I just want to thank brain FM for sponsoring this month here on key productive for those who don't checked it out yet
Brainy FM is a music application that uses AI to help choose the most effective music for a range of different scenarios
Now if you haven't used it yet
You can choose a range of options from sleep to meditation
to focus and you can use it during those times and it's quite useful because what it does is it actually
Helps you to focus even further. So when you're using like freedom you could use this alongside it to help your sessions go even more
effectively now you can try it for free on Android and iOS
using the free five sessions link below but if you really
Fancy and love it when you use it do check out the code keep the 20% off
I was playing around with this one when I was in San Francisco as I mentioned in yesterday's feature
And I used it to have a really good old sleep
And also using it during a few of my focused work sessions, too
Especially when I'm editing a video as well or doing something like an article to really retain the focus. So guys big
Thanks to Brenna phone for sponsoring this month here will keep productive. So guys, let's dive into freedom
I have my Mac open here in front of me. And what we're gonna do is we may actually dive into the application
Okay, so I have downloaded freedom and I'm just gonna show you it will appear in the area
So for example here I can click and freedom freedom is available on the menu bar on the Mac
So it will be up here as this mini butterfly
Don't get confused for the likes of the Ulysses logo
Okay
So they have an iOS version Android Mac and Windows and it does allow you to essentially
Block the entire Internet now a lot of time the distraction we face during our days is from the websites
We use on a day-to-day basis
Now you can use the application for seven free sessions and unclick the link in description below
But during that you get the opportunity to try out pretty much all the features
And there is a premium and premium is priced at
But if you want to go for the yearly plan it's $29 per year
so at the end of this video you should get an idea of the features how actually works and
Whether it's a good investment for your workplace or work productivity, so as you can imagine, this is the Mac version
I'm going to demonstrate how you go about using this. So as you can see here, I've got obviously my francesco mac connected
I'm gonna go ahead and press launch dashboard because essentially it takes me to the website which has a bit of a like an
Overview of all the devices you use so I've been actually connected it to my iOS device
I wanted to do a separate feature on there to show you what actually and how that works
Because I think that's a bit more effective
You can see here that you can actually start a session from here so you can start a specific timer
You can choose what to block whether that's actual Mac applications or all website and on the devices you use it
so for example if you wanted to block like all
Buying habits for an hour on specific prices you could do and as you can see here, I've made what's called blocked lists
So as you can see
You can create a block list down here and you can choose a certain sites that you want to reduce blocking
so for example
you can have anything from games to sports and you could just block LinkedIn for a couple of hours or you can choose the
specific website that distracts you most maybe you want to put in read it in there or something like that or even
Slack if you want to have a bit of time off
Now you can choose the actual time. Then you choose you can actually set one for later
Now it's actually only available in the premium. But now it actually allows you to set up a for example scheduled one
so for example, if you know you're gonna be writing or you wanna like, you know,
Set something very specific up. Then you can have that going now
you can actually add a session you can add a recurring session as I said that's available in the
Past the free session actually, it's not included in there, but it actually allows you to set up a recurring one
so for example
if you wanted to have a
Routine hour to spend not touching any websites to be writing in your own book than you can do
So now locked mode again is available on the upgrade. I'll go through the full pricing
When we finish but I'm just going to go back to here and this is my sessions and what if number 14c session history
I had a thirty one minute session a couple of weeks ago and you can write your
accomplishments here and
What exactly you blonde? So I blocked all the websites and apps on this Mac and I accomplished edited a folder YouTube video and
Again, you can see the same so you can see here over the last seven days
I'm saved 26 minutes with freedom apparently and that's aimed to help you. Keep a track of how well you're doing
Now if I go out of this, I'm just gonna minimize this for now and go back up to the area here
I can go ahead and select devices. I'm gonna be actually blocking on I can actually select the block place
I want to choose
So for example in this case
I'm gonna block all web sites block all app use and that means that it won't connect to the internet and also
block the buying and distractions online now if I go ahead and start the session based on any bit of data, for example
I can have a custom length, which I could choose to be like, you know, like 45 minutes specifically and
Press start a session now once I've started a session, obviously everything gets blocked and can see up here
I've got 45 minutes left on this one and
It goes about blocking everything. So for example, if I went over to Chrome and I decided I'm gonna be like, okay
I'm gonna go to
facebook.com
You can see here blocks automatically and a message should appear Serang saying take - take a deep breath
You are free
So it has a sort of website blocker automatically installed and it will reroute to that website
Now if I just go ahead and cancel this one if I wanted to cancel
Actually, I don't think there's a cancel button. I think you are sort of locked in
I haven't actually tried canceling a thing before. Okay, that's a good indication that it's quite an effective way of doing it
For example, if I wanted to manage the blocks desktop, perhaps I could specifically block a certain set of apps now
this is really useful because if art for example
I'm gonna be using like there is like my writer and I wanted to write an article in a 45 minutes
I'm doing it for I keep keep that one unblocked and if I wanted another one
You know blunt I could certainly do that
Now you can only save this before the freedom session starts
So that you're not going and changing the settings during your session because that would be sort of
Defeating the point of the concept and you can only do that with the freedom exceptions here
So for example, you have to set this up
The websites that will not be blocked when you start so the way you do that is just by hitting add a site and go
And had it an specific one
So the one thing I actually haven't done is you need to be able to set this up with the exceptions list
And then actually go over to here and enable website exceptions
so for example
If you're a social media manager and you need a specific couple of pages
Or you want to be able to get access to your my pages Facebook then this is probably the best place to set up
So make sure you're enabling web exceptions now in terms of the overall
Experience when I was using this during the sessions on the Mac and it blocks all the apps out that I didn't want to
Distract myself, which is really useful
And for example if I wanted to go over to this manage block desktop apps list
You can see that I've specifically got like calculator blocked and if I go up to the search bar and type in
Calculator and I specifically try and open that it automatically shuts the app down
so I actually can't access it it like shows it for a second, but then decides to like
Force closed it which is quite a good technique
Um, but sometimes it's sort of like if you forgot that your block apps list
You probably be like panicking whether your actual devices were probably working now overall
I think this applications most suitable and I recommend it for people
Who are really getting distracted by social media and I would like to do a full review of the iOS
application because once you connect this with your iOS and Android apps
I think this would be really effective
But the way that you can select your devices and block certain things is quite nice now the full feature set
Includes a lot more for example block the entire internet the Mac App Windows iOS and Android apps you get session history
Allowing you to see more details which we demonstrated earlier session annotation website exception
So we called locked mode which actually gives you sort of locking so that you don't make any edits
During the future or ender session also recurring scheduling and advance scheduling too
You also get freedom parks and windows website extensions as well
so there are a
Huge bunch of benefits for this one if I go over to the area then I wanted to create that
So if I go back up here and press launch - sport
Then I should be able to get access during this period of time and you can see my current work session here
So it gives me an idea on the pricing
But if I go to upgrade I can give you a bit of an idea on what that looks like now
They actually have a discount at the moment. It just appeared here sixty four dollars fifty four forever access to
Freedom and that's using may 20 19. I'll try and clue down the description
That wasn't plan now. It's just and she just came up
They one things after note is the windows website exceptions isn't currently available
So that's just something to note
But probably what I recommend doing is trying to free trial first setting up maybe
Seven sessions of work that you'll be doing a specific activity like editing
setting up all your settings edit all the right website to be blocked in all set up and then giving it a go and actually
Making sure and seeing if it's a good investment
I recommend actually
Testing it seeing if it works for you because some people are pretty good at being able to set up a habit of them not
Touching it, or maybe even like putting a jar in your room of just having like, okay
I'm gonna put a pound in there every time I go on Facebook or something like that
also telling a spouse that they'll donate to a bad charity if you if they do this and being honest about that or
Having like an accountability bunny showing your website history
For example, I don't know but if you don't see like freedom beneficial in those 7 sessions
Then necessarily it might not be for you. There are other sort of mini distraction blockers, which I'll probably be reviewing soon
So it's probably worth checking those out as well. So guys are hopefully you found this review useful of freedom
I'll probably doing the iOS app soon because I want to do a separate feature on it. But all the informations available freedom
Oh
Soon to check out all the details there, but I really appreciate you stopping by today
If you're brand new to keep productive YouTube channel hit subscribe it be absolutely
fantastic to have you in the community if you enjoyed this video and found it valuable hit the like button and
If you'd like to comment below with your own experience of freedom
Please do or any other distraction blocker because it's good to know what other solutions are out there. Anyway, guys huge
Thanks, and I'll see you guys in a future video Cheers