Avoid procrastination by using a work-only firefox profile

Most of us have been there before: you begin to do some work, which at some point involves browsing the web for some information or another. While you're there, your time-wasting bookmarks poke at you, an email or RSS feed notification pops, and before you know it, you lost twenty minutes, an hour or even more. And, mainly, all motivation to finish what you started is gone.

In an open-space work environment, where people can see at any moment at you're doing, this is less of a problem; there's some kind of self-regulation taking place, and you can hardly abuse. However, if you got an isolated workstation, are self-employed, or working on side projects, there's no one to keep you on track. If you regularly find yourself in such a time-wasting situation, like I am - this blog is a living (dying...?) proof of it, as are a lot of other personal projects -, you'll want a solution that will force at least a bit of discipline into your work time.

There's a lot of Firefox plugins that can help you stay on track, by blocking access to certain sites depending on the time, etc. (see LeechBlock), but I found that was not enough. First, it assumes a regular work schedule, which is not the case with my side projects. My shortcuts still remain there, prompting some kind of reflex to open them (even though they are blocked). My email and RSS notifications sometimes pop. I can glance at the weather widget a bit too often (I know it's snowing, damnit!). So, there's too much I can do that's not work.

Following the advice in found in a LifeHacker article, I created a "work-only" profile in Firefox. It may seem an overkill, but believe me, it's easy to setup, and does a really nice job.

What is a Firefox profile?
You can consider a Firefox profile as if it was a completely different Firefox installation than the one you're normally using. That means it has it's own set of bookmarks, extensions, navigation history, password, etc. Anything you do in one profile, never affects the other one(s).

Nice. Now, how do I create and access that profile?
First, you need to access the Firefox Profile Manager. On the command line, this can be done with the following command:

firefox -ProfileManager -no-remote

The -no-remote option is necessary only if you have an instance of Firefox currently running (which is most probably the case if you are reading this article).


From there, you can create your new profile.

Now, to start Firefox using your newly created profile, simply launch it using the following command:

firefox -P NAME_OF_THE_PROFILE

Note that is there's already an instance of Firefox running, the command above will use the profile of that instance, and not the one you specified. To override this restriction, simply add the -no-remote option at the end of the command.

To facilitate the use of that new profile, without using the command line, just create a launcher with the whole command.

OK, that profile is completely bare. What should I put in it?
Personally, I go with a couple of productivity-enhancing, twaeking extensions, like Tab Mix Plus and FireGestures. Also, Adblock Plus does a nice job reducing distractions (annoyances) on a lot of sites. Also, think of any job-related extensions you might want, like Web Developer, Firebug and the like.

And, last but not least, LeechBlock. This can block access to all the sites you specify. You know where you normally lose track of time (digg anyone?). Make sure to configure the extension as tight as possible. Remember, this profile is to be used when you plan on working.

Also, to make your job easier, set all the bookmarks, search engines, and remembered password that can help you work.

That seems good. Anything I should avoid?
Sure! First, make sure you don't have any bookmark or remembered password for sites you should not use. But then again, you blocked them, right?

Also, avoid any pop-up extension, like mail and RSS feed checkers. Even when you are the most focussed, it doesn't take more than a little "You got new mail!" sliding window, or a huge count of unread items, to make you lose your precious concentration.

This is just plain evil...

And what's next?
Hopefully, a more productive environment. On my side, let's see if that leads to a bit more articles on this blog.

Also, if you are a bit of a jack-of-all-trades person, working on a couple unrelated projects (e.g. web development, writing, etc.), you could create more than only one "work" profile, and tailor each profile to its tasks. If you're willing to spend a couple of minutes to tailor your work environment(s), you can probably save a lot more in the long run.