Focused Work - Pomodoro Timer 4+

I love this app!

I love this, I use it every day.
There is just one thing. When I am focused and doing the focused things - these infernal reminders to focus that require me to stop focusing to shut them off are no bueno. And there is no easy way to stop them. I turned them off on one of my devices, but struggling to figure out where to do it on the mac desktop. Please make that an optional thing - that someone has to select to use instead of being automatically set up. It's awful. I have ADD and superfocus when I can FINALLY get myself into the zone.. and it actually disrupts my ability to stay in that state.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the kind review, really appreciated!

It's possible to turn off particular alerts on the Mac app via the Preferences screen. Once the Focused Work app is opened, in the top left corner of your screen click the "Focused Work" menu button, then "Preferences". A new screen will appear where you can turn off the Distraction Awareness alerts. If you have any other questions please feel free to reach out at focusedworkapp@michaeltigas.com.au. Cheers!

Tremendous App With some Caveats

The app is gorgeous, I love the design. & the core functionality is only matched by two other apps that I know of. Creating custom sessions with URL schemes is super neat. The popover timer, too. There’s just a lot to live about this app. However, there are two things that cause it to lose a star.

1. I don’t understand the logic of being able to start a timer on one device but NOT having the option to mirror the timer on another device. I spent way too much time trying to start a timer on my phone & have it mirrored on my Mac, only to find out that the iCloud sync is limited to sessions & notifications. I think the option should be there.

2. The app uses shortcuts for blocking rather than Apple’s built-in screen time API. If I remember correctly, shortcuts was the way to go before developers could access the screen time API, it’s been out for ages now and is far easier to use from a UX perspective. But I’m not a developer, so I can’t speak to how challenging it would be to implement, I’m just sharing something that bothers me, personally.

I’d love to move away from a different app that I’m using, which is equally gorgeous, morris timers, and has a bonus watch app — but lacks the ability to set custom sessions. However, until the timer mirroring issue option is added, I just can’t do it. But, I don’t think that should deter anyone away from using this app, it’s really great & the developer has done a great job. He’s super innovative.

A game changer for this ADHDer, until the Pro feature pay wall

I have been using this app with SO MUCH success the past few months. As someone with ADHD, task initiation for those BIG projects with multiple steps can be mentally paralyzing to start so having timed sprints to get the ball rolling has been huge for my productivity.

That being said, I’ve been so disappointed with the performance of the app recently. I never had issues with glitches before, but noticed the free features of the app freezing or just not working ever since I noticed a pay wall on Pro features was introduced. It’s hard to identify if this is broader iOS performance throttling for my iPhone 12 Pro or specific to the app, but the fact that my issues started when some free features (like being able to name my sessions because my ADHD means that visual reminders to stay focused are incredibly important) were put behind a pay wall has put a bad taste in my mouth.