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Show HN: Effortless – Stay focused and beat procrastination on your Mac

16 points by Hernanaracena 8y ago

Hernanaracena 8y ago
I'm very easily distracted, a habitual phone checker and struggle with my ability to focus. As a result my co-founder and I decided to make a Mac app that has a simple plain-text todo list, and which displays your current task and a countdown timer on your Mac’s menu bar. I feel that by seeing the task that I’m working on at all times it’s harder for me to get sidetracked, and the timer creates an artificial constraint that keeps me focused. I hope you find it useful, I really would love to know your opinion.
SanderSantema 8y ago
This seems really nice, I've been looking for something like this however for another use. What I'm planning to use this for is keeping track off what I'm doing. Since I very frequently lose track of what I'm doing if I'm for instance solving some problem or if I'm learning about a new tool or program.
- Hernanaracena 8y ago
  Sander let me know if you see anything we can improve we are still working on it!
  - SanderSantema 8y ago
    Will do! Edit: A normal application in dock would be nice, since I use my mac with the menubar hidden most of the time and switching to the app using cmd-tab is handier. Possibly with and indication of what is currently going on to like you currently have in the menubar. Your system wide shortcut already provides some of this functionality but because macOS manages the menubar so badly it looks bad. An example: https://imgur.com/a/ilZjD https://imgur.com/a/ilZjD
    - Hernanaracena 8y ago
      Yeah I would like to have it in the dock too because when its full screen I can use cmd-tab and its easy to go back to the task that I'm supposes to be working on. I love that idea, I'll let you know when we have a new update!
      - Hernanaracena 8y ago
        I will, hopefully next week we will have it
        SanderSantema 8y ago
        Just read your comments, very nice! I'm looking forward to it. Hackernews is nice in being focused on content but a notification of having a reply would be nice ;) So far using effortless has been really nice apart from missing a dock app. Effortless is really simple and does exactly what it needs to do. Thank you for making this app!

16 points by Hernanaracena 8y ago

I'm very easily distracted, a habitual phone checker and struggle with my ability to focus. As a result my co-founder and I decided to make a Mac app that has a simple plain-text todo list, and which displays your current task and a countdown timer on your Mac’s menu bar. I feel that by seeing the task that I’m working on at all times it’s harder for me to get sidetracked, and the timer creates an artificial constraint that keeps me focused. I hope you find it useful, I really would love to know your opinion.

SanderSantema 8y ago

This seems really nice, I've been looking for something like this however for another use. What I'm planning to use this for is keeping track off what I'm doing. Since I very frequently lose track of what I'm doing if I'm for instance solving some problem or if I'm learning about a new tool or program.

Hernanaracena 8y ago
Sander let me know if you see anything we can improve we are still working on it!
- SanderSantema 8y ago
  Will do! Edit: A normal application in dock would be nice, since I use my mac with the menubar hidden most of the time and switching to the app using cmd-tab is handier. Possibly with and indication of what is currently going on to like you currently have in the menubar. Your system wide shortcut already provides some of this functionality but because macOS manages the menubar so badly it looks bad. An example: https://imgur.com/a/ilZjD https://imgur.com/a/ilZjD
  - Hernanaracena 8y ago
    Yeah I would like to have it in the dock too because when its full screen I can use cmd-tab and its easy to go back to the task that I'm supposes to be working on. I love that idea, I'll let you know when we have a new update!
    - Hernanaracena 8y ago
      I will, hopefully next week we will have it
      - SanderSantema 8y ago
        Just read your comments, very nice! I'm looking forward to it. Hackernews is nice in being focused on content but a notification of having a reply would be nice ;) So far using effortless has been really nice apart from missing a dock app. Effortless is really simple and does exactly what it needs to do. Thank you for making this app!