1Focus Pro includes a feature to pause blocking for a limited time, which allows you to respond to emergencies without getting sidetracked for too long. It is disabled by default. Here’s how to enable and use it.
How to Pause 1Focus
Steps (2 minutes):
- Subscribe to 1Focus Pro.
- Open 1Focus. You can reopen the 1Focus window by clicking its arrow icon in the top right of your screen.
- Click on the menu icon (≡) in the top right of the 1Focus window.
- Click Preferences.
- Under Suspend Blocking, choose a pausing allowance. For example 10 minutes every 2 hours. You can only increase the pausing allowance while blocking is inactive. For a daily allowance of 30 minutes, enter 30 minutes per 10 hours (not per 24 hours). For unlimited pausing, enter 61 minutes per 1 hour.
- Close the preferences window.
- Start blocking.
- Click the pause button in the top left of the 1Focus window when needed. Please note that apps that could be used to circumvent blocking like Activity Monitor will continue being blocked during pauses.
- Click the resume button to resume blocking when you’re done.
Done! You can now pause blocking for a limited time. Once your pausing allowance is used up, pausing is disabled. You can pause again once your pausing allowance has recharged.
Troubleshooting
- If you get an error like “The value is too large”, wait for blocking to end. You cannot increase the pausing allowance while blocking is active. Otherwise, the setting could be used to bypass blocking, which most users do not want.
- If the pause button is grayed out, you have used up your pausing allowance. Wait for pausing to become available again. If needed, increase the pausing allowance.
- If this support page keeps opening, it’s because your pausing allowance in the minutes field is zero. You have to enable pausing as described on this page.
- For a daily allowance of 30 minutes, enter 30 minutes per 10 hours. Do not enter 24 hours because it would consider the past 24 hours, including yesterday. So your usage yesterday would affect your allowance today. 10 hours work better for this.
- Apps that could be used to circumvent blocking like Activity Monitor will continue being blocked during pauses.
For help, contact support.