LIFE HACK

Get Focused With Pomodoro

All you need is these apps, 25 minutes, and a task to finish. Tap to read.

Sometimes we just need to get some work done. That means tuning out those social media notifications, or that wild text thread with your friends. These productivity apps use the Pomodoro Technique to help break the cycle of distraction. Once you start their timers, you commit to focusing on the task at hand for a set amount of time, and then you take a short break.

Try these apps to level up your workday.

Pomodoro is Italian for tomato; the technique takes its name from tomato-shaped kitchen timers. Usually, a Pomodoro cycle entails 25 minutes of work and a five-minute break. These apps lets you adjust the increments to suit your needs.

Bear Focus Timer

An illustrated and friendly bear named Tom is here to help you reply to those emails you’ve been avoiding. With Bear Focus Timer, you flip your iPhone over to begin a session and start the timer. This also triggers soothing (and configurable) white noise as an extra anti-distraction measure.

Lift your phone and you’ll be greeted by one grumpy mammal. Once you complete your goal you’ll receive encouragement from your new bear pal.
No one wants to upset a bear, so put your phone down stat.

But lift your phone back up to check your texts and Tom’s calm expression becomes a disapproving frown. No one wants to upset a bear—so put your phone down stat and get back to work.

Tap the settings icon in the bottom left corner to adjust your focus time or customize which tranquil sound (like rain, or that hipster soundtrack of coffee being finely ground) you’d like to accompany your burst of concentration.

Forest

If you want to gamify your productivity, Forest is for you. The app lets you nourish a tree while your timer counts down.

Get through an entire counter without leaving the app and you’re rewarded with a tiny virtual plant on a polygonal plot of land.

Every tree is beautiful, but we’re partial to the ones that grow candy canes.
The only way to grow a beautiful forest is to complete multiple Pomodoro cycles each day.

The only way to grow a beautiful forest is to complete multiple Pomodoro cycles each day. Along the way, you’ll earn coins you can use to unlock a classy Cherry Blossom, a cute Candy Tree, and other digital flora.

When you earn 2,500 coins, you can choose to donate them through the app to organizations that plant real trees.

Be Focused Pro

If bears and trees aren’t hardcore enough for you, consider Be Focused Pro. This app doesn’t just time you; it lets you create a task list for your day’s activity, then break these tasks up into intervals.

Sync your tasks across your Mac, Apple Watch, or and iPad for maximum quantification.

After using Be Focused Pro for a few days, check out the detailed productivity reports (with charts!) to see how much time you really spent on those projects.

Be Focused Pro lets you export these reports to a CSV file, which is especially helpful for logging hours and comparing trends across time.

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