My late-night screen habits are… not great. I’ll admit it.
Hyperfocus, if you’ve got attention deficit disorder like I do, is intense and relentless, almost like a separate entity taking hold of me. I’ll spend hours on an article, fiddling with every sentence until the words sing the way I want them to. Some people call it a superpower, but the reality is that it can be pretty brutal.
One morning I woke up with a headache so bad that I had to call out sick from work. Cold towel on my face. Lights off. Silence. Ugh.
But these free, installable tools I use on the regular? They work with my overactive mind rather than against it. Maybe they’ll help you too.
Get up and stretch, you fool
The first fix was setting up Break Timer, which is a Google Chrome extension that pokes you every so often, prompting you to take a break. I’ve configured mine to go off every hour. When it triggers, it takes over your screen with a full-window break prompt (you can change it to just a notification if you prefer). A gentle diddy will start playing as a timer appears in the middle of the screen, counting down your break.
Weirdly, it works. I’ll get up, uncurl my bent-over body (I sit like a goblin creature at my desk), and either grab a snack from the kitchen or see what my greyhound’s up to. If you’re in the middle of something important though, you can just close the window with a single click. Same thing goes for totally closing the app: just a single click.
After about a month of using the Break Timer extension, I noticed fewer headaches and less eye strain. Sitting frozen at a desk all day (or night) doesn’t make my work better. It just makes me sore and cranky, and that’s no good.
These physical breaks helped me feel less sore in the morning, sure, but my brain was still spinning at night. Eventually I figured the blue light from my laptop screen wasn’t helping me in the slightest.
Warmer screens at night
The second fix was to cut down on the blue light blasting my eyeballs. It doesn’t seem harmful at first. It’s just a glowing screen in the dark. But it can really do a number on your circadian rhythm and melatonin production. When your brain thinks it’s noon, it’ll behave like it’s… well… noon.
That’s why I changed the color temperature of my display.
I use WarmView to change the color temperature. It’s another Google Chrome extension and it changes the color within the browser itself. I like that the interface is so simple and straightforward. It just makes everything warmer and easier to look at.
Here’s how it works: You can pick from three different preset modes (Daylight, Sunset, Night) or you can adjust the warmth using a slider. Personally, I find Night mode to be distractingly orange (it’s too dark!), which is why I stick with Sunset mode–it’s a lighter and kinder on the eyes.
The warmer screen doesn’t magically make me tired. It just makes things a bit less stimulating. Sometimes I’ve got to physically walk away from the screen and do something else, which is why I’ve implemented a shutdown ritual.
The aforementioned shutdown ritual
The hardest part when you’re in hyperfocus mode? Stopping. So when it’s time for me to close up shop at the end of the day, I need to physically vacate the space I’m in.
And that’s where my tea making ritual comes in.
I brew myself a cup of lavender (non-caffeinated!) tea almost every night, and this routine alone signals the day coming to an end. I’m not exactly sure what it is. Maybe it’s the warmth of the mug or the ritual of turning on the stove to heat up the kettle. Whatever it is, it’s grounding.
On hard stops
So, what happens when I struggle to turn hyperfocus off? In those situations, I find that I’ve got to remove the temptation entirely. That’s where a site blocker extension called FocusGuard comes in.
This app lets you block off specific sites with one click. Just navigate to the website you want to block, open the extension, select the blue Block Current Site button, and… boom! It’s done.
I use this extension to block access to social media and Google Docs, which is where I do most of my writing. It might sound extreme to block access to these websites but sometimes hyperfocus doesn’t want to cooperate with Break Timer’s polite suggestions. It sort of needs someone (or something) to push it off of the cliff and that’s what this extension does.
Making my environment smarter
My hyperfocus probably won’t ever go away, nor would I want it to. It’s just who I am at this point.
But that’s exactly why I’ve made my environment work with me and not against me – I know myself well enough to know what works and what doesn’t. That said, it’s not all roses.
There are times where my brain just does what it wants. Sometimes I’ll ignore the reminders and everything else I’ve set up and keep working, even when I really do need a break. But most of the time? Those little tweaks are enough to bring me back down to earth.
