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A plan decides what gets blocked, and when. This guide gets your first plan running three different ways, then walks through the Plan Wizard step by step to build a work-hours plan that blocks social media.

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Three Ways to Get Your First Plan

Until you have a plan, the Plans tab shows Nothing is blocked yet with three cards. The same options live in the toolbar at the top of the page.

The Plans tab before you have any plans

Quick Setup

Two quick questions and you’re blocking — FocusMe makes the technical calls for you.

Plan Library

Ready-made plans for the common battles — social media, gaming, adult content and more.

Add a Plan

Build exactly what you want in the wizard — four steps, presets included.

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Quick Setup

Quick Setup opens automatically the first time you run FocusMe, right after you pick a theme. You can also start it with the Quick Setup button, which is shown while your plans list is empty.

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Step 1: The problem

What are you fighting? Pick one or more. Each choice becomes its own plan:
  • Distractions at work: Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, news and 37 more · weekdays 9 to 5
  • Adult content: 460+ adult sites · always on, locked down
  • Social media: Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and 7 more · every day
  • Gaming: Steam, Epic, Roblox, Battle.net and their games · every day

Step 1 — What are you fighting?

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Step 2: How strict

How bad is it, honestly? This sets how hard it is to talk yourself out of stopping:
  • Gentle Guidance — type 5 random characters to stop. Pause freely.
  • Firm but Flexible — 10 random characters, then a 2-minute wait. 3 pauses a day.
  • Lock it Down — 25 random characters typed perfectly, then a 10-minute wait. No pauses.

Step 2 — How bad is it, honestly?

An Adult content plan always uses Lock it Down, whatever you pick here.

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Step 3: Ready

Your plans are ready. Each card shows what the plan Blocks, its Schedule (Always on (24/7), Weekdays 9-5, or On demand — the suggested one is marked), and its Protection. Switch a plan off with its Enabled toggle if you’re not sure, or click Fine-tune → to open it in the wizard. Switch on Add screen breaks for a 5-minute break every 25 to 55 minutes (the stricter your answer to step 2, the more often), weekdays 9 to 5. The screen is locked during each break. Then click Start blocking. If you’ve switched every plan off, the button reads Save plans: the plans are created but none of them starts. When your plans include Distractions at work, Social media or Gaming, Start with a 10-minute focus session is switched on for you. It blocks the sites in your new plans for 10 minutes straight away, so you can see FocusMe block for real, then your plans take over. During it, a Time Limit plan that still has time left shows Counting rather than blocking. The session ends by itself. With only Adult content picked, the Ready step says Blocking starts straight away instead.

Step 3 — Your plans are ready

Keep this trial on every computer lets you sign in here with your Email address and Password. If you signed up on focusme.com, use that email and password; Create account opens the sign-up form on focusme.com. Click Skip for now to sign in later.

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Plan Library

Prefer to start from something that already works? Click Plan Library.

The Plan Library

  1. Browse the cards, or narrow them down with Search templates…, a category chip (Official, Social Media, Gaming, and so on), or the sort menu (Most voted, Most imported, Newest, A-Z)
  2. Click one or more cards to select them
  3. Click Import (N)
Imported plans arrive switched off. Click the play button on a row to start it. See Use the Plan Library for voting and submitting your own plans.

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Build a Plan with the Wizard

Let’s build a plan that blocks social media during work hours. Click Add a Plan to open the wizard. The header holds the plan name — it’s pre-filled with Focus Plan; change it to something like Focus at Work.

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Step 1: What to block

On the Websites tab, type a site into Type a site to block, e.g. youtube.com… and click Add. Repeat for facebook.com, instagram.com, tiktok.com, and any others. Quicker still: in the Lists: row, click the ready-made Social Media list to add the lot in one go.

Step 1 — What to block

You don’t need https:// or www. — just the domain. Switch to the Applications tab to block desktop apps as well.
Click Next.

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Step 2: When it runs

Pick a timing at the top of the page: Choose Weekly Schedule and click the Office Hours preset chip — that gives you Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00. Adjust by dragging on the timeline, or pick days and use the Weekdays, Weekends, or 24/7 chips.

Step 2 — When it runs, with the Office Hours preset applied

Each time block uses the Block rule mode by default. Select a block and switch it to Time Limit, Session Limit, or Screen Break for a different behaviour at that time of day — see Rule Modes. Click Next.

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Step 3: How strict

Choose a protection preset. Gentle Guidance is selected for new plans and is a good place to start:

Step 3 — How strict

Click Customize to set each challenge individually. See Plan Protection before choosing Enforced — there is no way out on your own until the plan ends. Click Next.

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Step 4: Review

Check the Blocks, Schedule, and Protection rows — each has an Edit link. Expand Options to add a description, choose notifications, show the floating timer, or change the idle timeout.

Step 4 — Review

Click Create & Enable to create the plan and switch it on. (Create creates it without starting; on the earlier steps the same button reads Create now.)

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Your Plan is Live

Your plan appears in the Plans list with its progress ring, targets, timing, and strictness.

Your new plan in the Plans list

A Weekly Schedule plan shows Standby outside its hours and Active inside them. A Quick Timer plan starts when you click its play button.

What you see when a website is blocked

While the plan is active, blocked websites show FocusMe’s block page and blocked apps are minimised (or closed, depending on the block action you chose). Single-click the row to see what it blocks and what’s coming up today.

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What’s Next?

Block Applications

Block desktop apps alongside websites.

Protect Your Plan

Make plans harder to bypass when temptation strikes.

Install the Browser Addon

Get the most accurate website blocking.

See Your Activity

Find out where your time went and how many distractions were blocked.