Be Focused Pro - Focus Timer 4+

Simple, minimal, effective.

Great pomodoro timer. The interface / graphics are minimal but I actually quite appreciate this quality—less distractions, less “shiny things”, less novelty in other words, are vastly important and hugely under-estimated means to simply begin tasks… starting the work is, for myself, half the battle. Thus I appreciate that this app has little to no frills, while maintaining core functionality aspects to simply navigate through tasks: tagging and grouping tasks by tag is something I would find challenging to go without, so I appreciate this feature quite a lot.

The fact I have been using this app for nearly all of my work—household, office, school, projects—since downloading it over a week ago is exceptionally rare for me. That alone speaks volumes. The novelty thing (“Oohh shiny!!”) is quite a crappy procrastination-distraction habitual behavior, and one which is EXCEPTIONALLY challenging to break. Yet here I am, writing this review, another rarity. Indeed, it has only been a week. However, exceptionally few productivity-oriented apps “make it” past day-2 or day-3 for me—yet this one has made it to day-7 (almost day-8!!)… that is HUGE.

This is truly a nice app. Happy I gave it a try, for sure…if my “struggle” resonates at all—it may be quite helpful for you as well!

Developer Response ,

Wow! Thanks for such a substantial review!

Keep the Pro

I just started using this app. I find it very helpful for staying on task and for encouraging myself to take care of large tasks in small pieces, instead of waiting for a big chunk of time that never materializes. Whittling away by a Pomodoro or two at a time is much less intimidating than facing a week or a month on one gigantic project. It also encourages me to take regular, short breaks that do not derail my progress. I like the word pro on the badge because it helped me discern the free version I originally downloaded from the paid version. I agree with the people who prefer to use the phone version in order to conserve computer resources.
UPDATE: l've had this app for a while now. It's one of my favorites. It does exactly the description says it. And when I use it, my days are far more productive and far more peaceful. I hope the developer continues to update this excellent app so it's always current with the latest operating system.

Way too buggy and unreliable

I really gave this timer a chance and had numerous interactions with support that were not successful. One minor issue is getting double notifications when the timer is up, not a big deal, but annoying. More seriously, is WHEN THERE IS NO NOTIFICATION, and I keep working or take too long of a break because I wasn’t notified. I’ve read of LOTS of people having this issue, which makes me think this app has been pumped up with fake reviews. This is the ONE THING this app must do right to be useful, and it can’t do it reliably.

Then, today I got sidelined with some phone calls so I wanted to start my Pom cycle over from the beginning because I was only halfway through when I got the calls. I should have been able to do this by skipping work intervals and breaks until I got to the end of the four intervals. But the “skip interval” option just takes me back to the beginning of the interval and doesn’t allow me to start a whole new 2-hour Pom. So I’m done with this app. A pomodoro timer needs to do a few simple things, not create frustration. I really like the layout, concept, and Apple Watch integration of this one, but it’s just too buggy to be useful.

Developer Response ,

Please get in touch with us at “support@xwavesoft.com” so we can take a look at why this is happening. Thank you.