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.
I had to type some string of random characters to unlock a break.
And some of the characters I had to type were :"rn". It looked so much like a "m" that it took me a full 15 minutes to find the error. This is the second time this happens to me.
This is a common problem of typography.
There are some solutions. One is kerning: Kerning is the process of adjusting character spacing for particular pairsof characters; sometimes it needs to be narrowed (as V and o shown here), and sometimes widened (e.g., to keep “rn” from looking too much like “m”). See for more information :http://web.mit.edu/6.813/www/sp18/classe...ypography/
Another solution would be to simply increase the space between each letters. This solution is simpler and efficient if the goal is not beautiful typography.
It would be great to be able to add some bonus time, once the daily allowance of screen time has been used up. At the moment FocusMe knows how much time has been used and that it has reached the maximum so it is not possible to enact a separate plan of bonus time.
An active plan should be allowed to be modified in many ways:
1) Change of the name of the plan (already mentioned elsewhere)
2) Anything that further restricts the plan should be allowed. Example include: adding random letters to type, changing a plan from random letters to forced mode, or making any schedule tighter, or allowing the plan to be restarted automatically the next day, or extending a plan with a certain end, etc.
3) It should be possible to fully view the plan, even when active. Right now if I want to understand an active plan, I have to clone it, just to view it.
Finally, to avoid errors, make sure the user confirm the changes.
Currently the lists, plans, etc. do not make it handy to ban large number of websites.
At this point, I want to ban every single website that I find distracting, this currently include a number of websites in the hundreds, and will possibly reach a number in the low thousands (over several years).
But of course, I want to be able to search and manipulate that list, for example to unban a site that was not distracting in the end.
Suggestions:
1) Enable alphabetical ordering of banned websites.
2) Enable easier scrolling down/searching, etc. of banned websites.
To give an example, I was trying to change from the daily mode to the weekly mode, and poof, I am locked out of my computer and have to type 1000 characters. Why? I didn't know that the weekly mode would mean a break.
If this worked like a Plan, I would first need to pause the plan, to play with it, shift from daily to weekly, realize that I don't want the current weekly plan and change it to what I want.
Another problem. I was trying to edit the break, and poof, I am locked out completely because of a tiny mistake, and I have to type 1000 characters.
Missing features are:
1) Several break plans, each with its own active and passive protection.
2) Having end dates, start dates.
3) Make the break plan resume the next day automatically.
All these features would be useful. In short, please make breaks function like plans!
I would like to make a suggestion. It would be nice to cumulate the time not spent. What I mean by that: I set up 2 mins an hour for youtube, which is very little. However, if I only watch 1 min, I would like the other minute to run over to the next hour, so I would have 3 mins, etc. If I dont watch any video, at the end of the day I could watch a good 15 mins video. This is better than setting up a maximim of 15 mins a day, which I may burn straight away in the morning.
I have never seen this option anywhere in these types of software and I think it would be a nice unique feature. Of course it wouldn't be a default option.
