I’ve tested a lot of software tools over the years designed to block distractions and keep you focused. None of them work perfectly, mostly because of context.
Reddit, for example, is something I should generally avoid during the workday, so I tend to block it—this is a good decision for me overall. The problem is that sometimes the only place I can find a particular piece of information online is in a Reddit thread, meaning that to get that information I need to turn off my distraction-blocking tool. Then I inevitably end up down some kind of rabbit hole.
This is the exact problem Fomi, a macOS distraction-blocking tool, is built to solve. The application asks you what you’re working on, then watches everything you do on your Mac desktop—every app you open—and uses AI to analyze what’s on your screen. The tool can tell, from context, whether you’re using a particular website productively or as a distraction.
Zach Yang, part of the team behind the app, tells me on Discord he dreamed up the app after talking with a friend who was studying for an MBA. “He needed YouTube for study videos, so web/app blockers didn’t work, and once he was watching, recommendations would often pull him away,” Yang says. “That’s when I started thinking about using AI to solve this. I built a small prototype to test whether current models were capable of distinguishing distraction from actual work, and the results were good enough that I decided to turn it into a real project.”
Fomi offers a three-day free trial. If you decide you like it, subscription plans cost $8 per month. However, since the tool uploads screenshots of your desktop to an AI model in the cloud, there are privacy concerns you will need to weigh before deciding if a tool like this is right for you.
Watch This Space
I’ve been trying out this application for a couple of days. The first time you launch it, you’re asked what you do day-to-day and what kind of tools you use to do it. Then, when it’s time to focus, you tell the software what you’re working on and which tools you plan to use while doing it.
As you work, a green dot and a timer appear at the top of the screen, surrounding your MacBook’s notch. If you switch to a potentially distracting application, the dot changes to yellow. If you start engaging in things that are clearly distractions, the dot turns red and an animated tomato splats across the screen. You’ll see a custom message telling you to get to work—the app calls out your specific distraction.
This worked surprisingly well for me while testing. If I’m reading an article relevant to the topic I’m writing about, the application will leave me alone. If I read an article about something else, though, I’m warned to stop—even if that article is on the same site as the relevant one. The same goes if I look at Reddit posts, or even YouTube videos. There were a few false positives, granted, but I could always click the False Alert button and get back to it.
“Defining what counts as ‘work’ versus ‘distraction’ is pretty nuanced,” Yang says. “For example, a content creator might be browsing Instagram for inspiration, which can be legitimate work, but the same behavior can also be pure leisure.”
You can avoid some of these problems by being very specific while describing your occupation and tasks. Yang says his team is constantly working on improving this recognition engine.
Privacy Matters
You might legitimately worry about the privacy implications of something like this. The application regularly takes screenshots of your currently open window and sends it to an online AI model—OpenAI’s GPT 5 Mini—for processing. Some users will find it concerning that their private and potentially sensitive data is being uploaded to a cloud service. Yang tells me the Fomi team has taken steps to address this.
“Before anything leaves your machine, we run a local computer-vision pass to detect and redact personally identifiable information (things like names, phone numbers, emails, passwords, or card numbers),” he says. “Only the redacted image is sent to an AI model for one-time analysis.”
Yang says his company doesn’t store any information in its own servers and that screenshots are stored only in RAM. He also says the app is distributed through the App Store, and not a direct download, in part to reassure customers that the application meets Apple’s privacy standards.
Still, the amount of data sent to the AI model is considerable. In my tests, the application uploaded around half a gigabyte of files during the course of a regular workday, which is a lot of screenshots. This application isn’t something you should use if your job requires secrecy.
None of which is to say I didn’t find Fomi useful. I really enjoyed having a robot yell at me when I ended up slipping into distraction. I don’t know if I’ll use it forever, but it might help me build better habits while I do.
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