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!

Helpful Study Tool

I just started my bachelors degree after not being in school for 6+ years. Flora helps me get off my phone and focus on the work. I enjoy the reward of a rose or tree at the end of each session. I also like the challenge of adding a sort-of “bet” on yourself by choosing a dollar amount and if you break your session (aka, kill your tree) you get charged that amount. There are a couple aspects I do not like: I do not like that the app does not remind you with a chime/sound/vibration when your session is over, I don’t like adding a “break” in sessions because I don’t know how long each lecture, quiz, or homework will take to complete, so when the time I’ve set is finished I like to evaluate if I’m at a stopping point for a break or if I need to add more time. I also really dislike that you have to pay for the app (albeit, one of the lesser expensive apps) to actually plant real trees. I don’t like that the saving the environment is monetized in such a way as if we would even need to plant trees if we weren’t tearing down the environment in the first place. It should be enough that trees are getting planted from people using the app, why monetize it? Overall I haven’t experienced any user interface issues or bugs, I like the app for the most part, and I’ll most likely keep it to keep me on task even after I graduate!