Vent: That $50 focus app timer that made me more distracted than ever

I spent $50 on a fancy app timer called 'FlowCore' last month to block social media on my laptop. Turns out I spent more time tweaking the settings and checking the stats than actually working. The free website blocker built into my browser does the same thing without all the extra noise. Has anyone else wasted money on a tool that just caused more issues?

2 comments

2 Comments

lee.casey23h ago

The Pomodoro timer in that app got me good too. Downloaded some fancy "productivity suite" for $30 last year and ended up making custom themes for each focus session instead of actually working. I used to think paying for apps made you more committed like it was a sunk cost thing. But seeing you say that about FlowCore makes me realize it just adds another layer of stuff to mess with. Now I just use my phone's basic timer and it does the same thing without all the extra bells and whistles.

rowan26215h ago

Man that $30 productivity suite thing hits close to home. I spent $25 on one called FocusFlow last year and spent an hour setting up color coded tags for different types of tasks before I even started working. The weird thing is I never even used the tags after that. The phone timer trick is the real deal though. Only thing I'd tweak is setting the timer to 25 minutes instead of the default 30 minute one that comes on most phones. That extra 5 minutes is enough to start drifting.