Before I share my plans, I'll give you a bit of background:
My usual workday is from around 9-6pm and running my own business I do have the luxury of working from home. The downside is I often work far too much in the evenings and weekends though.
Before work, I try to do a few mins yoga/stretching (something like this this peaceful warrior workout but much less graceful - ha!) before having a black coffee (I do 15:9 intermittent fasting) and then getting down to business!
Here is a summary of my plans:
1 x scheduled daily plan to block email, social media and news from 00:00 until 10:00. I have found that when I start the day right, working on something important, that the whole day goes better and I am much less likely to get caught in a downward spiral! The plan is also in effect from 22:00 to 00:00. I'll often spend the first part of the day working the most important new feature for FocusMe!
1 x scheduled plan to block all apps from 10:45 to 11:00. I call this my daily workout plan. The only apps allowed are my file browser and some specific videos. I use this period to do a quick HIIT workout. I often start with this 5 minute no gym workout or if it's a good day then a longer kettlebell workout. After my workout it's 11am and I have earned my first food and a nice cappuccino.
1 x plan for Email Launch Limiting. This runs from 10am until 4pm. I allow 30 minutes use of email with each launch, and then a minimum 30 minute break after the launch. I don't limit by the total number so I have that set quite high on 20. This plan helps me stop myself getting caught up in email instead of doing my most productive work.
1 x plan from 4pm to 5pm to block all apps. I call this my 'reading time' plan. I have been trying to build a new habit of reading more, and noticed that this part of the afternoon I am not the most productive anyway. So this plan forces me to take a break from the computer.
I have the above 4 plans all set to start automatically daily and with forced protection while active so I can't cancel it.
1 x quick focus plan. This basically just blocks email, social media and news in case I want to focus on something hard. I'll just run this on demand whenever I need it during the day. I usually start with an hour and sometimes will extend the time if I am on a role!
I'll often work late in the evenings too, helping customers or bugfixing. But I have scheduled breaks setup in FocusMe to block my PC completely from 11pm until 7am. I have that on forced mode so there's no way to get around it.
That's about it for me. Let me know if you found this interesting! I would love to hear how YOU are all using FocusMe to be more productive!! Please create a new thread to share your setup. Thanks!
I have already set up a plan which has "just block" listed underneath it in the Android app. I would like to add active password protection to it. However, when I click on edit I only get the option to choose applications and then enter websites after which it says on the bottom of the screen "save" or "previous". How can I edit the type of protection for the plan?
A minor tweak for user experience purposes: Add a "24/7" option to the scheduling modes
This would presumably function identically to a manually entered 24/7 schedule using the existing "Daily/Weekly" mode.
However, it means when setting up a plan, you don't have to select the Daily/Weekly mode, manually select all days, then manually put in a 24 hour schedule. Seems like a few unnecessary steps.
Not a huge need though as the functionality is already there, just nice to have!
I love my regular 1 hour breaks - they remind me to stretch!
But I find myself getting annoyed by them when they interrupt me in the middle of a game, or a movie with friends. So I have to manually turn them off each time, which can "last" in the off position if I forget to turn them back on! Not exactly ideal.
Could we please have a way to disable breaks either based on 1) full-screen behaviour, or 2) while a certain program is the active window? (e.g. automatic breaks enabled, except while vlc.exe, dota2.exe, etc. are running)
Currently for any given plan there's an option to show a timer, or not. My current plans are mainly active all the time, 24x7, blocking my less-productive activities, like reading news or whatever. I put the plans on pause for limited periods when I decide to indulge for a while. So if I turn on a timer at all, it's there ALL THE TIME, because I've got the blocks active all the time.
I'd like you to turn the "Show timer" option into TWO different options, to make this feature actually useful to me!
The first option would be "Show Timer when Active". This would bring up a timer ONLY when a plan is active, like it says. This would be great for focused work periods.
The other would be "Show Timer During Pauses" (or when inactive, or however you want to phrase it) This would bring up a timer only when I'm pausing a plan. In my case with my current plans, the pauses are the ONLY times I'm interested in seeing a timer.
Currently, the only way to show a timer when I'm pausing a plan is to keep the thing open all the time, eating up my screen space, or to keep the whole FocusMe window open when I pause it. I do the latter, but then I have to hunt for the remaining time on the big window amidst a lot of irrelevant data, which is inconvenient, and that whole window REALLY uses up a lot of screen space!!
Thanks for listening. I hope this can happen soon!
Hello,
I purchased a lifetime licence and I run the software at work. I would like to ask if it is possible to use the sotware without installing it with administrator privileges, for example if there is a portable or no installation version
Thank you
One of the USPs i find in FocusMe is having more options in TimeLimit. FocusMe got Hourly, daily, weekly monthly options in TimeLimit. That is terrific for people like me who work/study on their own without anyone else bossing around them to fix a schedule.
However it would be great if there was an option to set custom time period in Time Limit. As in ability to set an option like- time limit of X minutes for every Y amount of time period (Y being 2 hour, or 6 hours, or 2 days, or 9 days etc.. instead of the standard hourly, weekly, monthly options)
I make a plan to block the internet after 6 pm. Of course, I need active protection and inactive protection. Let's consider three scenarios.
It is the morning and I would like to modify the plan. Here, I am begin very rational. I might know ahead of time that I will need more time to do a task on the internet. I am not trying to surf on mindless sites.
It is 5:50 pm and I would like to modify the plan. Here, I am being irrational. We are close the period where I should be doing other tasks. I just want to surf on the internet and prolong the period, instead of doing housechores and sleep
It is past 6 pm, and I would like to modify the plan. Here, I am probably being irrational. We are IN the period where I should be doing other tasks, and go to sleep afterwards.
Remember that the closer, in term of time, we are to a reward stimulus we are, the more irrational we are. We think with high rationality only when we are making decision about the future. If offered the choice between 10 $ now and 20 $ tomorrow, we might take 10 $ now. But if offered the choice between 10 $ in a week and 20 $ in 8 days, we will take the 20 $.
Let us consider how I can use focus me to make a plan.
Case 1) High active protection, high inactive protection.
The problem, the plan is hard to modify in the morning when I am rational, but also hard to modify when I am irrational. So, it is bad at 7 am, but good at 5h50 at pm. and at 6h pm. The end result, I will not surf on the internet at night, but won't be able to modify the plan in the morning without much effort, even if I really knew in the morning I needed the computer up to 7pm.
Case 2) High active protection, low inactive protection.
In the morning, I will be able to modify the plan and act rationally.
At 5h50, unfortunately, I risk modifying the plan.
At 6h, well the plan is already broken.
The solution:
The time to have high protection is not when the plan is active or not active. This is because the time to have high protection is when we are irrational, and the time to have low protection is when we are rational. The closer to a plan being active, the more irrational we are. Focus me should be modified to reflect that.
There are several ways of doing so. We could brainstorm about them.
For now, I will give a few solutions:
1) Have a complete separate schedule for plan protection. This would be the best, it gives the most options.
2) Allow the active protection to extend a set time before the plan is in action. To give an example, I have no internet after 6 pm as a plan. But the protection becomes active at 4pm.
3) A user suggested to also allow quick block (for a block of time ) to also have an added duration of time before the plan start. Example, it is 4pm, I want to block the internet for two hours, but only in two hours. I start the plan now, a quick block, with a two hours delay. But the protection for the plan starts NOW!It is much easier to say, I will block the internet in an hour, than I will block it now.
