Productivity Owl
Overview
Productivity Owl is a Chrome extension developed by Productive Mark LLC.
According to the data from Chrome web store, current version of Productivity Owl is 2.0.3, updated on 2021-03-16.
7,000+ users have installed this extension.
370 users have rated this extension with an average rating of .
Want to be productive? Let the Productivity Owl guide you to accomplishment.
*** WARNING: This extension is very annoying. The owl is flying across your pages, annoying you, criticizing you, giving you psychological exercises, and closing your tabs. If you are not serious about being productive, this extension may not be for you.***
Do you need a new boss when working from home? Meet the Productivity Owl.
The owl is very strict. He will berate and mock you. You'll be forced to complete tasks to earn break time. If you do consistent work, use the timeboxing scheduler for work/vacation, and complete the owl's psychological exercises then you might be able to earn the owl's respect.
Just like the first version, the owl has 3 types of websites: Allowed, Blocked and Countdown. If a website is not on the allowed/blocked lists, you'll get a certain amount of time to get the information you need before the owl closes the tab. You can still use the scheduler to schedule free-time, and now you can also schedule work time. Version 2.0 introduced a task manager, and you get rewarded break minutes for each task you complete. There are also psychological interventions and browsing statistics in this version.
Although it is technically possible to earn the owl's respect - it's highly unlikely. The owl is very judgmental. It may take years before anyone earns the owl's "ultimate respect." Of course if you uninstall the extension or disable it, all respect is lost.
*************** APACHE 2.0 LICENSE OPEN SOURCE ***************
Since this extension is on every webpage you visit, I wanted to let everyone know there are NO TRACKERS or DATA COLLECTORS in the owl. The owl is 100% open source. You can view the source code on Github: https://github.com/mrieck/productivityowl
*Thanks to everyone who has been using the Productivity Owl over the years. He's been helping me be productive for the last 8 years. Hope he can help you too.
Productivity Owl Alternatives
Latest Reviews
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Francis Blondin
2022-04-10
I give it 4 star because I'm thankful it was made, but unfortunately I won't be using it. It's too harsh for me. Please just add more options! Like the option to allow for more than 3 minutes of surfing on a non-white listed website. The option to use different time limits for different websites (say you want to be allowed 20 minutes of Facebook and 15 minutes of Youtube a day). And the option to have all websites be white-listed by default, except for those you specifically want to see be restricted or blocked. |
Miranda carter
2022-04-06
I agree with other reviews criticizing the 3 minute timer for websites that aren't blocked but also aren't whitelisted. I have ADHD and really struggle with staying focused when it comes to reading so things will take me longer to find when doing research and constantly having to look at the countdown to see if the page needs a refresh does not let me focus fully on what I'm trying to read. Just a blacklist would've been preferred, sometimes I need to leave a page open for a long time but will never visit that site again afterwards so I don't want to bother with whitelisting it. The owls branch often blocks buttons on sites like Netflix during my freetime so I can't even enjoy my break without some annoyance. I do really like the concept of this extension with the browsing stats, to do list, reward times, and autoblocking of goof off sites but the 3 minute timer is really a deal breaker, I get stressed even just thinking about trying to browse to do any research so until this feature is removed I can't recommend this extension. |
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Liliana Kahn
2022-01-25
Overall the extension works and I like it expect for the fact that it closes tabs when I am not looking or am not on them. This can get pretty annoying when I am doing research or anything. I still use the timer and I can find the information I need within the time I have set on the timer. But for example I go back to my document and I still want to keep the research study around for referencing and copy paste, but the tab's timer keeps ticking and then in the background it closes. Could a option be added on whether the tabs timer is only active if the tab is active? I think Leechblock, which I also use, by James Anderson has a similar function "Count time spent on these sites only when browser tab is active". I definitely would prefer to having this option rather than having to schedule free time almost constantly which sort of defeats the purpose. |
Leonard Burca
2022-01-18
I can't imagine how many hours this extension saved me over the years. To the dev: Thanks for giving me some peace of mind and the tool to fight this intrusive technology in my life. You rock |
Esteban Rivera
2021-12-11
I really like gamification and I wanted to like this extension, but the fact that the owl considers every unlisted website in the settings as something bad that must be closed makes it unusable for everyday web browsing. |