Scheduling Distraction-Free Focus Time

Why Setting Aside Focus Time Matters

Focus Time helps your family find a healthy, balanced routine around screen time. Everyone knows what to expect and what’s expected of them.

Scheduling screen time around your life

Every day, school starts and ends around the same time. Soccer practice happens at the same time and place each week, and dinner is (almost) always ready at 6 pm. Somehow, homework needs to get done in between. Setting an Focus Time is an easy way to remove as many distractions as possible during those important times of the day.

Focus Time means you can lock your kids’ devices from accessing the Internet during preset times. If your family struggles to put down devices during dinner, you can preset 6 to 7 pm as an Focus Time for all family members' devices. When everyone knows there’s no Internet during dinner, they’ll be prepared to focus on each other.

Benefits of Focus Time

Preset times of the day that are dedicated to NO screens? That’s a win for you AND for your kids. Scheduling Internet time can lift a huge weight for parents in the digital age by simply removing access when it’s time to focus. Circle’s Focus Time feature allows you to do that by locking Internet access to connected devices for any predetermined time frame you choose.

How Focus Time helps you (and your kids)

When the default mode for the Focus Time feature is enabled, it only allows only educational sites to be accessed. Or, you can add specific sites to be allowed during those times. No more worrying about your kids drifting off into a Youtube abyss. Here’s everything Focus Time can do for you.

• Easily schedule time off screens.

• Get your family focused.

• Encourage independence.

• Establish expectations.

• Learn responsibility.

When a profile is in an Focus Time, the assigned devices won't be able to connect to any apps or sites except those you set up as Unmanaged. You can also add a Bedtime to keep your kids off screens when they're tucked into bed.

Here’s How Circle’s Focus Time Works

Some of your family members are seemingly never on the same schedule. And sometimes, that’s a necessary evil! Parents get to multitask—bathtime for one while the other is knocking out homework. That’s why we created Focus Times to be completely customizable for each of your family members. You can set up a unique screen-time-free schedule for each profile.

How to set up Focus Times

When you open a family member’s profile, tap Focus Time. Then select the “+” icon in the top right and tap “Create New”. Give the Focus Time a name and set the time of day and days of the week when it should start and end. Under optional settings you can set if any sites are allowed at that time. Once you have things set up the way you’d like, tap “save.” After setting up your initial Focus Time for that profile, you can use the '+' at the top of the screen to add another.

Duplicate Focus Times for different family members

Since some of your family members actually do operate on the same schedule, you can easily copy an existing Focus Time to apply to a different profile. In the Focus Time settings, you’ll see the list of Focus Times from other family member profiles in a section titled “create from existing.” Choose the existing Focus Time you want to enable for this family member. Then, make any needed adjustments and tap “save.”

The “start time” is when the Focus Time goes into effect, and the “end time” is when it stops limiting the profile. You won't be able to name an Focus Time the same thing as another, and you can't overlap two Focus Times or an Focus Time and Bedtime.