How to Block News Sites to Stop Doomscrolling and Focus

News is the respectable distraction

Nobody feels guilty checking the news. That is what makes it such an effective focus killer: it feels responsible, it updates constantly, and every visit costs you the twenty minutes it takes to get back into a hard problem. For developers, writers and anyone doing deep work, the fix is not ignoring the world. It is moving the news into one deliberate window a day.

Plan your news window first

1. Pick a fixed time to catch up, such as 12:30 or 18:00.
2. Choose one or two sources you trust, ideally a daily summary or newsletter rather than a live homepage.
3. Block everything else news-shaped during your working hours, including the feeds where news arrives sideways: X, Reddit, Google News and your phone's news widget.

Free methods

• Phone: remove news widgets, turn off news app notifications, and on iPhone disable Apple News suggestions.
• Mac: add news sites to Screen Time's restricted list or give them a daily website limit.
• Windows: hide the news and interests feed in the taskbar and Widgets, and add news domains to the hosts file.
• Browser: remove news from your new-tab page and bookmarks bar.

These reduce exposure but are all one click away from being undone, and the hosts file has no schedule, so it is all or nothing.

Schedule a news block with NoorI

1. Enroll your computer and phone with the free Cloudflare One app, starting with the quick start guide.
2. In Content Policy, create a rule. From the News apps, add Google News, BBC, CNN, The New York Times and Reuters.
3. Add the other sites you actually check as Web addresses, for example theguardian.com, news.ycombinator.com or your local paper. Domain rules cover all subdomains.
4. Attach a schedule covering your working hours, leaving your news window open. The Work Focus Hours template is a good start.
5. Consider adding X and Reddit to the same rule; see blocking X and blocking Reddit.

App blocks, custom domains and schedules require Pro ($9.99/month, 7-day free trial).

Notes for developers

• Hacker News is a news site for most of us. If it is your vice, block news.ycombinator.com rather than the whole of ycombinator.com.
• Be careful with shared domains: blocking google.com to get rid of Google News would take Search and Docs with it. NoorI's Google News entry targets news.google.com only.
• Domain rules are exact for the name you add and everything beneath it, so bbc.co.uk and bbc.com need separate entries if you add them by hand. The BBC app entry includes both.

Keep the schedule honest

The weakest moment is the big breaking story mid-afternoon. Guardian Mode means editing or pausing the rule needs your accountability partner's approval and then a delay of at least 4 hours, by which point your news window has usually arrived anyway. More focus setups in blocking distracting websites during work hours.

Frequently asked questions

Can I block news sites only during work hours?

Yes. Put the news sites in a NoorI rule with a schedule matching your working hours. They load normally outside that window. Scheduling is a Pro feature.

Will blocking Google News block Google Search?

No. NoorI's Google News entry targets news.google.com only, so Search, Gmail and Docs are unaffected.

Which news sites can I block?

Google News, BBC, CNN, The New York Times and Reuters are in the app list, and on Pro you can add any other site as a custom web address.