It's a Mac app. It may have an iOS version, but I don't use that.
What it does is put a small countdown window[1] on my screen that is always on top and counting down. It's easy to start another "pomodoro" with a quick click or key combo.
Will it work for everyone? Doubtful.
Did it stick/work for me? Yep.
I don't think the iOS version would work for me, as it always being in my view seems to be the key for me.
A little side note: I struggled a LOT with procrastination in my 20s. I was convinced I had ADHD because I would waste hours on useless bullshit online instead of working.
Then I started working on something I actually enjoyed and realized that my ADHD was just me avoiding work I hated. I can go hours without taking a break now, so much so that it’s become a health problem.
I suspect many such self-diagnosed cases of ADHD are just people stuck doing work that’s not for them.
(Doesn’t apply to clinically diagnosed ADHD cases of course)
That sounds like textbook ADHD my friend. ADHD isn't the inability to focus, it is the inability to control your focus. It's a form of executive disfunction that can cause you to procrastinate things which are annoying, or hyper-focus (to an unhealthy degree) on things which are inartistically interesting.
Just this morning I was late to an appointment that was really important, because I was really invested into fixing this bug I was working on. In the grand scheme of things that was a stupid decision, and if I had taken even 2 seconds to think about it I would have closed my laptop and went to my appointment. But I didn't stop to think: that's ADHD.
Your comment made me realize that I may have ADHD... I'm 42. I completely relate to parent comment too. Can someone point me to liturgies on the condition, I would like to understand a bit more? What is the process to get a diagnosis?
ADHD comes with something called hyperfocus, which is the ability to really focus on something you think is interesting. It’s part of why I got my diagnosis in my 30ies, because I never had an issue working full time in jobs I enjoy. There are other reasons, but that one was a big one.
ADHD has an interesting image to many of us as something that has you running around unable to focus, but for a lot of us, it’s nothing like that. It’s much more about energy deficiency. I’ll use myself as an example, I never had an issue working a lot, I did 50+ hour weeks when I needed to, only for a period and with rest afterwards (but that’s sort of how Danish society works, if you work 50 hours one week then you can take two full days off the next, or later). My “strategy” and I put that in quotes because I didn’t know it was a strategy at the time, was to go to bed early in stressful periods. This broke when I had my first child, since you can just go directly to bed when you come home from work for obvious reasons. As well as changing motivations and so on. But really, you won’t have an issue with focus when you’re interested. What you will have an issue with is things you aren’t interested in, and while a lot of us can endure them, we spend more energy than other people while we do it.
A lot of us even have a lot of the H but are still capable of sitting in a seat for an entire day. Sitting, not sitting still mind you. I sit wrong, I’ve astonished basically every “ergonomic consultant” or whatever their job is that comes around Danish offices every now and then by how I’m not broken physically from how I sit when they watch. Well until one of them was so curious that she decided to spend more than the usual 5-10 minutes observing me and realised I don’t sit in the same position for long. I’m apparently the embodiment of “the next position is the best position”, which is fun and all, but you probably wouldn’t notice if you didn’t look, so my H wasn’t obvious in my childhood years. Because I can in fact sit through an entire day of school and not listen to 80% of what is said. Same is true for meetings that should’ve been an email. The only real difference is that I’m twice as tired as a normal person who was also bored through the same meeting.
So in a sense, what you’re describing is text book ADHD, and may not be an issue for you. At least until some external influences change your situation.
I have a formal ADHD diagnosis, and I'm the same way (I know, every sibling comment is saying the same thing. just thought I'd chime in with my Credential)
At the same time, I do kind of question the utility of the formal diagnosis. Why do I need to go to the doctor to have them tell me "you can only focus on interesting things"? Isn't that everyone to some degree? If we had an education system that was less boring and stupid, "ADHD" wouldn't be an illness.
Yeah so some clinical diagnosis for ADHD includes comparing school books between Subject kid likes and subject kid doesnt like. your self diagnosis is probably still valid.
ADHDer here. The problem I frequently run into is that I don't stop to consider things. I don't, for example, stop to think "should I really be doing this right now?" when I'm hyper-focused on solving some interesting problem. Pomodoro-like techniques are really helpful because it is basically a "stop and evaluate what you're doing" reminder that goes off every 20 minutes.
So to answer your question, I think I would be happy for the reminder. But I would have to be careful not to build the habit of dismissing the clock, which would undo the point entirely.
There's no nuclear option yet but I could see it being added down the road if there's enough interest. It's possible in Electron to prevent the user from closing or minimizing an app. Preventing the user from uninstalling it would be a lot more difficult but I've seen other apps accomplish it.
I tried this by grabbing a sound sample of a meditation bell and playing it every few minutes by calling mpg321 in a bash while loop along with a call to sleep.
It... sort of worked, for a bit, and then I just tuned it out. I still like it, sort of like having a grandfather clock, and it does slightly increase my awareness of time, but there's no change in my overall productivity.
I'm amused, but this would drive me absolutely effing bonkers and i wouldn't get anything done. It might be good for certain activities but for deep work and writing I'd lose it. Its the ticking.
It actually does work for me, the audible ticking and vocal time status updates keep me aware of the time and constantly brings my attention back to what I'm supposed to be doing. Of course it's only supplemental and not a silver bullet.
It also has alot of customizable options and I think that fact that it's just a single Vue file wrapped in Electron makes it super hackable and easy to adjust to your own preferences too.
Readit News
I used ai to generate this comment.
And for whatever reason, timers that counted down (as opposed to up) work much better for me.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smart-countdown-timer/id141070...
What it does is put a small countdown window[1] on my screen that is always on top and counting down. It's easy to start another "pomodoro" with a quick click or key combo.
Will it work for everyone? Doubtful.
Did it stick/work for me? Yep.
I don't think the iOS version would work for me, as it always being in my view seems to be the key for me.
1. Screenshot of the window on the original link at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smart-countdown-timer/id141070...
Then I started working on something I actually enjoyed and realized that my ADHD was just me avoiding work I hated. I can go hours without taking a break now, so much so that it’s become a health problem.
I suspect many such self-diagnosed cases of ADHD are just people stuck doing work that’s not for them.
(Doesn’t apply to clinically diagnosed ADHD cases of course)
Just this morning I was late to an appointment that was really important, because I was really invested into fixing this bug I was working on. In the grand scheme of things that was a stupid decision, and if I had taken even 2 seconds to think about it I would have closed my laptop and went to my appointment. But I didn't stop to think: that's ADHD.
That's classic ADHD hyperfocus.
ADHD has an interesting image to many of us as something that has you running around unable to focus, but for a lot of us, it’s nothing like that. It’s much more about energy deficiency. I’ll use myself as an example, I never had an issue working a lot, I did 50+ hour weeks when I needed to, only for a period and with rest afterwards (but that’s sort of how Danish society works, if you work 50 hours one week then you can take two full days off the next, or later). My “strategy” and I put that in quotes because I didn’t know it was a strategy at the time, was to go to bed early in stressful periods. This broke when I had my first child, since you can just go directly to bed when you come home from work for obvious reasons. As well as changing motivations and so on. But really, you won’t have an issue with focus when you’re interested. What you will have an issue with is things you aren’t interested in, and while a lot of us can endure them, we spend more energy than other people while we do it.
A lot of us even have a lot of the H but are still capable of sitting in a seat for an entire day. Sitting, not sitting still mind you. I sit wrong, I’ve astonished basically every “ergonomic consultant” or whatever their job is that comes around Danish offices every now and then by how I’m not broken physically from how I sit when they watch. Well until one of them was so curious that she decided to spend more than the usual 5-10 minutes observing me and realised I don’t sit in the same position for long. I’m apparently the embodiment of “the next position is the best position”, which is fun and all, but you probably wouldn’t notice if you didn’t look, so my H wasn’t obvious in my childhood years. Because I can in fact sit through an entire day of school and not listen to 80% of what is said. Same is true for meetings that should’ve been an email. The only real difference is that I’m twice as tired as a normal person who was also bored through the same meeting.
So in a sense, what you’re describing is text book ADHD, and may not be an issue for you. At least until some external influences change your situation.
At the same time, I do kind of question the utility of the formal diagnosis. Why do I need to go to the doctor to have them tell me "you can only focus on interesting things"? Isn't that everyone to some degree? If we had an education system that was less boring and stupid, "ADHD" wouldn't be an illness.
Sure, but ADHD has a couple of others features that break from the norm:
* what you find "interesting" is seemingly completely arbitrary, can change in an instant, and is totally outside your control
* when you try to do something "uninteresting", the harder you try to focus on it the more difficult it is to do so.
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So to answer your question, I think I would be happy for the reminder. But I would have to be careful not to build the habit of dismissing the clock, which would undo the point entirely.
It... sort of worked, for a bit, and then I just tuned it out. I still like it, sort of like having a grandfather clock, and it does slightly increase my awareness of time, but there's no change in my overall productivity.
It also has alot of customizable options and I think that fact that it's just a single Vue file wrapped in Electron makes it super hackable and easy to adjust to your own preferences too.