Online shopping during work hours has a specific shape: you open the site for one item, get pulled into "customers also bought," and twenty minutes later you've added three things to a cart you didn't know you needed. It's not really about the shopping — it's a browsing loop dressed up as a task, which makes it easy to justify as productive in the moment.
It's also expensive in a way social media isn't. A wasted twenty minutes on Reddit costs you time. A wasted twenty minutes on a shopping site can cost you money on top of the time.
Why It's Hard to Resist Mid-Task
Shopping sites are optimized around the same recommendation and urgency mechanics as social feeds — limited-time offers, related items, low-stock warnings — all designed to keep you browsing past your original intent. Combined with the fact that "I'm just looking" feels harmless, it's an easy category to underestimate until you check your bank statement.
Blocking Shopping Sites During Focus Time
Lock In! includes a Shopping preset blocklist covering major retail and marketplace sites, so they're unreachable during your work sessions without you having to remember every site you tend to drift to.
One Preset for Common Retailers
Add the Shopping preset to a session and major marketplaces and retail sites are covered immediately, no manual list-building required.
Add Niche Sites You Actually Use
If your personal weak spot is a specific boutique site or resale marketplace not covered by the preset, add it as a custom domain — the blocklist isn't limited to what's built in.
Strict Mode for Payday and Sale Days
If certain days are riskier than others — payday, a big sale event — Strict Mode removes the option to disable the block partway through, which matters most exactly on those days.
Unblocks Automatically After Work
The block is tied to your session, not a permanent restriction, so shopping on your own time in the evening is unaffected once the timer ends.
Keep the cart empty until the workday's done. Get Lock In! on the Mac App Store