Flow - Focus & Pomodoro Timer 4+

So I had problems getting accustomed to it first, but in time, I found myself truly changing the way I work and view work. Or anything that requires a lot of time and dedication, for that matter.

My problem with ADHD brain is that I tend to forget time. I can't really "feel" time the same way I suppose most do, so I've always had the problem of either working 8 hours straight with no breaks and getting extremely tired and weak suddenly (didn't drink water, eat, etc.), OR with more tedious and off-putting tasks I would work something like 10 minutes and take a break, thinking I just did a nice hour of work.

The thing that eventually pushed me past the "getting-used-to" part, was finding Raycast had an extension for it, and that's been amazing. The menubar icon with the second click start-stop is just excellent, and it's just aesthetically pleasing in my bartender setup, which makes it nice and somehow inviting, even, to use.

The best part of this app is that it gets out of your way. It's not like those confusingly configurable pomodoro apps or such, that have huge application windows with almost unnecessary GUI to confuse the experience. This is just perfectly subtle, it mostly lives in my menubar and I control it mostly with Raycast. Even if I do use the GUI to operate it (like skipping or whatnot), it's just a perfectly nicely-sized little window, with nothing unnecessary in it, just press the skip arrow or next phase, and forget it extists as anything other than an assistant that reminds me with a big green screen when to have a pause and chill a bit. Or return to work. It's just nice to use.

This is a perfect UX for this kind of app, and the way it has extensions in some other UX and QoL-improving apps such as Raycast just makes it downright perfect (for me, anyway). I don't know if these integrations/whatever are official, or if the app has a cli api for example that they make use of, but be it as it may, it's great!

If you've found traditional pomodoro or other time-managing widgets and such too bulky or confusing or "heavy", you know, then I would encourage giving Flow a show.

The only thing I truly miss, is syncing the state of Flow between devices. As it is, my phone and my ipad both have their own Flow stuff, and so does my macbook. I mostly work with the macbook, but if, on a break, I go for example for a walk, it'd be immensely useful to have my phone alert me when the break is over so I can hurry back and get to it.

If such feature exists, I haven't found it. But this is the one single thing I am "lacking" with this app. Everything else is almost like I'd designed it for myself. It's just nice to use, it's so pragmatic, and it really does what it says on the tin, without getting on your way.

So as a suggestion to the dev(s), I would encourage exploring a way to sync the state, maybe it can be done via iCloud, it doesn't have to be exactly real-time, it would suffice, for me anyway, to sync the alerts (ends of phases), which always tend to have at least 10 minutes to sync (for me, depends how you config the times of course), so that would seem sufficient even for something slow and not intended for real-time sync, like iCloud. But maybe just give us a chance to define endpoints with simple REST api or something, set the urls in the settings, then have the app check them x minutes and fetch/merge/sync any changes they receive to the state they hold locally. It doesn't have to be provided by the app, it just would be nice to get a very simple (as in "just works") configuration option to set an api root url or specific endpoints for specific actions, so we may self-host it at least.

But maybe it is somewhere hidden in the app alraedy, though I doubt it.

But this app is great. It is downright life-changing for someone who's struggled with finding any actually bearable, sustainable UX for something like this.

This is it.

WOW! Thank you so much for your wonderful review! We really appreciate you taking the time to share your detailed feedback! We're so glad to hear that Flow has been helpful for you.

We definitely plan to implement the option to sync the timer and current session progress across devices in the future. Thanks for your input!

— Lea from the development team 💚

Helps me with productivity

Hey! Thanks for your 5-star review! We're thrilled to hear that Flow helps you be more productive.

— Lea from the development team 💚

Wonderful app! Waiting to get Siri Shortcuts support

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your kind feedback! We'll add support for Siri Shortcuts in the near future, so stay tuned!

— Lea from the development team 💚