Be Focused Pro - Focus Timer

I use this with Focus Matrix, a companion app that organizes you to-do list into one of four cateogories: important and urgent, important and not urgent, not important and urgent, and not important and not urgent. As a grad student responsible for more work than could possibly be asked of a human, some of which is busy-work and some of which actually forwards one's progress toward exiting the program, it is helpful to organize one's workflow this way. Also, as a grad student you have very unstructured time. It's important to dedicate time to sitting down and working without distractions as there is rarely anyone looking over your shoulder or any work card to punch in or out of. You just have to sit down and do things, and what you work on is your choice. It really helps to have the focus matrix there to help you remember which tasks are worth spending your time on, and which ones are worth letting go. The Be Focused app helps you actually sit down and get the work done because you know that if you sit down and catch flow, you can off-load the responsibility of deciding when or not to futz around on facebook onto the Be Focused app. There are lots of apps that try to of these kind of things, but Be Focused Focus Matrix seems to be the most efficient and well-put-together execution IMO.

I like the way this app works (Mac OS), and how it tucks away neatly while you're working. It's easy to set up and easy to use. I do wish I could edit intervals on the fly, though. I'm a busy mom with several types of work on my plate every day. Sometimes I'm setting out to work on something (writing specifically) based on the amount of time I have available, rather than an ideal schedule of X intervals of X minutes each. I have an ideal schedule set up in the app - e.g., 8 intervals of 20 minutes each - but more than half the time that's not how my day looks. If I sit down with 18 minutes to work, or 35, I can't edit the interval for a one-time session without going into settings and modifying the entire schedule, which I then have to change again next time. It would be nice to have a default schedule in settings, but be able to modify the length of the current interval on the fly. Also, if I work for 18 out of 20 minutes and have to stop, it won't record that interval correctly. The only options are to let it run to 20 or "skip" entirely, so I can't get an accurate accounting of my time later. (I sometimes track my words written per hour in a spreadsheet, so the little differences matter there.) Overall, great product, but for my needs I'd love some adjustments!

Bought Pro during a sale after used basic for years. Worth the price for keeping myself synced across phone and work/home computers. I habituate quickly to the reminder notifications, so the most useful notification setting combo for me is 1) the persistent banner notification that doesn’t disappear from my desktop plus 2) having to manually restart the timer for each next interval. I adjusted the total intervals to a goal I’m likely to achieve even with a few interruptions and made realistic break intervals. Eventually I have learned to check for the timer countdown consistently throughout the day and I’m happy to get the note that I’ve achieved my target more often. Seriously, it’s so much easier to stay on task when you can look and see you have a break coming in a few minutes! I also have to make myself take the breaks to get up and move around, which seems odd but - again - trains my body to be truly ON when it’s time and completely relax when it’s break time.

I use Be Focused Pro daily, both on my iPhone and Mac. I find the Mac version more convenient, since most of my work is at the computer, but I'm glad for the phone version syncing with it when I'm on the run or planning. As a timer with reporting, Be Focused is great. Type in what you're working on, press the "Play" icon to start, and get to it. It even has modest time-tracking capabilities, a report of intervals worked and CSV export if you want to geek out your analysis. It's one of this well-scoped apps that doesn't try to do too much and would suffer bloat if it added every user suggestion. Nevertheless, I find myself wishing for a few tweaks to make it more useful in my workflow. 1. Better keyboard control in the ToDo view. ToDo view offers a great place to sketch out a day. It would be nicer if I could collect ideas quickly from the keyboard without having to bother my mouse. A shortcut key to add a new task would be enough. Being able to arrow up and down between tasks and, perhaps, Enter to edit, Shift-Enter to start working, would be bonus. Ability to cut and past, even more so. 2. A persistent dialog (similar to Focus List). Be Focused Pro tucks away nicely in the menu bar--sometimes a little too nicely. There are times I want to look at a list of tasks while I'm in another app, but Be Focused Pro hides itself any time you click out of its dialog box. I've suggested these features to their support.

I purchased both the iOS and Mac separately given that the pro promises a sync in all devices. Now that I have them in Apple Watch, iPhone and Mac, I expect them to sync so that I can be reminded of my break or when to resume my work on either or all devices. In practice, this doesn't work smoothly. If I start the timer on Mac, it doesn't sync to my watch or iPhone until I individually open the app and let them sync; rendering the pro version almost useless. The sync is also not always smooth (watch to phone, phone to mac); there are some lags and delay (it seems it goes to their cloud instead of trying to leverage Bluetooth or device to device connections). The pro is not worth buying --the developers need to learn from Hours on how to make the sync smoother. In addition, the break timer on iOS doesn't bark when the time is off; making my breaks longer than 5 minutes or sometimes I forgot to get back to work altogether. Other than that, the app is pretty easy to use and visually appealing in all devices.