In case anyone missed it, I am re-posting this from Facebook.
You would think I’m a master of productivity…
But I’m not. ? ? ?
A few mornings ago I realized I had re-developed a bad habit of checking email too frequently.
I was not being highly productive. I was staying up late working. And worst of all missing out on time with my family.
It sounds terrible as someone who actually made this app -- but the days were slipping by there… I was getting stuff done but not necessarily the top things I should be doing.
The problem was the Launch Limiter had a flaw that was really bugging me for months! The idea behind the launch limiter is to limit your time on a certain activity once you started it.
Let’s use email as an example. When you start checking your email, the timer would start to count down, and it would keep going until the time was up. It’s different to the time limit, because with the launch limit the time keeps on counting down, even if you stop using your email (in this example).
The trouble for me was, some days I needed 10 minutes to finish my email, other days I needed 60 minutes. But if I set the maximum time per launch as high as 60 minutes then on my bad days I would keep on checking email many times over the course of an hour.
I needed each launch to automatically end if I stopped using email for a certain period of time.
Out of desperation one morning last week I started coding the new ‘Launch inactivity time out” feature to solve my problem. By 2pm it was finished! It’s been a game-changer for me personally and I hope it will be for the FocusMe community too.
This image is a screenshot of my setup.
Maximum launches per day: 100 (I don’t need to limit number of launches per day)
Maximum time per launch: 1 hour
Launch inactivity time out: 5 minutes
Minimum break time after launch: 1 hour
The Launch Limit Time Out feature is already helping me be productive.
One of the unexpected benefits I found is that I was more reluctant to check email, even when I knew I could! I didn’t want to just randomly check email because I knew the inactivity time out would kick in and trigger a break automatically after 5 minutes.
I now would rather delay checking my email until I really have the time and energy to deal with it fully! It’s a profound relief and I feel a massive productivity boost!
Of course, you don’t have to use this for email. It works equally well for News, Gaming and many other things.
The launch limit has always been my favorite feature (although I suspect that most people are not fully aware of it). But now it’s even better and I’m quite happy with that.
Oh, and it’s available as of yesterday (version 7.1.2.8). Please check it out!
Just wanted to share.
You would think I’m a master of productivity…
But I’m not. ? ? ?
A few mornings ago I realized I had re-developed a bad habit of checking email too frequently.
I was not being highly productive. I was staying up late working. And worst of all missing out on time with my family.
It sounds terrible as someone who actually made this app -- but the days were slipping by there… I was getting stuff done but not necessarily the top things I should be doing.
The problem was the Launch Limiter had a flaw that was really bugging me for months! The idea behind the launch limiter is to limit your time on a certain activity once you started it.
Let’s use email as an example. When you start checking your email, the timer would start to count down, and it would keep going until the time was up. It’s different to the time limit, because with the launch limit the time keeps on counting down, even if you stop using your email (in this example).
The trouble for me was, some days I needed 10 minutes to finish my email, other days I needed 60 minutes. But if I set the maximum time per launch as high as 60 minutes then on my bad days I would keep on checking email many times over the course of an hour.
I needed each launch to automatically end if I stopped using email for a certain period of time.
Out of desperation one morning last week I started coding the new ‘Launch inactivity time out” feature to solve my problem. By 2pm it was finished! It’s been a game-changer for me personally and I hope it will be for the FocusMe community too.
This image is a screenshot of my setup.
Maximum launches per day: 100 (I don’t need to limit number of launches per day)
Maximum time per launch: 1 hour
Launch inactivity time out: 5 minutes
Minimum break time after launch: 1 hour
The Launch Limit Time Out feature is already helping me be productive.
One of the unexpected benefits I found is that I was more reluctant to check email, even when I knew I could! I didn’t want to just randomly check email because I knew the inactivity time out would kick in and trigger a break automatically after 5 minutes.
I now would rather delay checking my email until I really have the time and energy to deal with it fully! It’s a profound relief and I feel a massive productivity boost!
Of course, you don’t have to use this for email. It works equally well for News, Gaming and many other things.
The launch limit has always been my favorite feature (although I suspect that most people are not fully aware of it). But now it’s even better and I’m quite happy with that.
Oh, and it’s available as of yesterday (version 7.1.2.8). Please check it out!
Just wanted to share.
