Flora - Green Focus 4+

Helped Keep me focused and Motivated

The timer feature itself was all I was looking for; but soon came to realize there was more. The app is cute and nicely laid out with easy tracking of focus time and break time. Every focus session grows little plants from different locations around the world using the “world tour” feature. This app won’t let you leave the app and go do something else or else a tree or plant is ‘killed’ so I bring myself back to focus. But not just digital plants are being grown, with a very small subscription, you can make it so that every focus session allows a real tree somewhere in their many locations worldwide to actually to planted, therefore a huge help to the environment and you get your work done. Generally a great tool. The only thing I think is unfair is you get penalized for canceling a session or pausing the timer. Sometimes, things happen for a while and we are unable to follow through. It could just be a bathroom break, a desperate drink, a call from a a co-resident. A pause in the timer or a cancel of a session because you realized a bit late like,” Oh wait, I’m not actually starting work yet. I haven’t done this or that. I’ll start later.” Otherwise it’s a good tool and really adorable in design.

Needs some fixes

I love the concept behind this app, but I’ve experienced some problems with it in the past. For example, there are times when I spend 40-90 minutes studying and once the timer is up, I’m directed toward a “connection failure” menu even when I’m connected to the Internet. This screen will not disappear until I close and refresh the app, which prevents me from earning the time spent on my different goal trackers.
At times, when I open the app after the timer goes off, there are messages saying that one of my tress was killed, even when my phone remained untouched the whole time.
It would also be helpful if there was a “0 minutes” mark when planting a tree for when people want to focus for exactly one or two hours. Maybe you could also add minutes that are not just multiples of five for those that need to concentrate for a very specific amount of time.
This last point is not a flaw but something I would like to see in the app. As a busy student, I like to keep track of multiple aspects of my life, and I would like this app to have more than just six goal trackers if it were possible. It would be truly beneficial as there are some aspects of my life I’d like to monitor too besides my six main ones.
This app has helped me a lot in concentrating on my homework and studying during the summer and with some fixes, it could be even better.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, Thanks for your feedback. You might have encountered server updates that false kill your trees and we are sorry for that. We will continue making app better for you. Have a nice day!

My favorite time-keeping app!

So far this is the only time-keeping app that I’ve stuck with—which is saying something, as I’ve got severe ADHD and usually can’t stick with anything. I like the variety of trees and plants you can grow in-app, it’s not annoying so I can run it calmly in my background, and I can adjust the stakes as needed when I really need a kick to focus with the Real Money function. Plus it actually plants trees! I don’t particularly like losing money but I’m satisfied that if I *do* mess up my focusing, the money is going to a good cause. And even if I don’t mess up at all, I still get to plant trees periodically by focusing for certain amounts of time! It’s kind of a win-win.
The subscriptions are essentially identical except you can plant real trees more often, so I don’t mind paying for an app like this (I’m on the Basic plan because I’m a student with limited income—monthly it’s about $2 which adds up to around $20 with the full-year percentage discount, which isn’t bad at all!). Without the subscription you still have 100% access to the app, it only means you plant more real trees.

All in all, between price, functionality, and environmental ethics, this is the perfect fit for me, and I’d definitely recommend trying it!