If you’ve read this far, kudos to you — the digital world is full of distractions that constantly splinter and pull our attention away from whatever it is we should be doing.
For example, writing this took me way longer than it should have, courtesy of a Wikipedia rabbit hole I had no business going down in the middle of a workday.
What might’ve helped? One of the several focus and anti-distraction apps and tools that have launched in recent years with the aim of helping us reclaim our attention, an industry worth $7T+ in the US alone.
Paying (for) attention
- Focus Friend, a gamified pomodoro timer in which an animated bean motivates users to stay focused by knitting socks as they work, was named Google Play’s best app of 2025. For $1.99/month, it also blocks distracting apps.
- Internet-viral Brick, a $59 device and app, turns smartphones into dumbphones by restricting access to specific apps. To unblock apps, users need to tap their phone against the physical tile, which is meant to be left at home.
- There’s also a plethora of distraction blockers, including Freedom ($3.33+/month), Cold Turkey ($39), and Opal (~$20/month).
Despite the irony of trying to remedy a tech-born problem with more tech, many of these tools have become wildly popular and, based on user reviews, seemingly effective.
But they have their limitations, a big one being context.
That’s what sets the newest entrant…
… Fomi, an $8/month, AI-powered macOS app, apart from the pack, per Wired.
- Instead of outright blocking websites and apps, it asks what you’re working on, then monitors and analyzes your screen to determine whether what you’re doing is productive or distracting.
- For example: Reddit can be distracting but Wired’s Justin Pot sometimes needs it to research information. Whereas other focus apps would automatically block the site, Fomi is able to contextualize a specific thread’s relevance to his work, eliminating the need to turn it off and on.
- If it does catch you dillydallying, a red tomato splatters across your screen with a personalized message scolding you to stay on task — kinda like an AI helicopter parent for the attention-impaired.
There are privacy concerns, since it sends screenshots of your desktop to a cloud-based AI model — but if you need help focusing, and miss the tough love of someone keeping you in check, Fomi might be just the solution we both need.
