Early last week, I was engaged in my regular bad habit of doom scrolling YouTube shorts (phone addiction be damned). In my mindless flicking, I came across a short by the beloved Hank Green. It was soon obvious a personal project of his was being advertised to me. My curiosity leading, I watched on…

Fun Lily Fact: I have ADHD. My sense of “oooo shiny” is breaking my focus and leading me to distractions. This is particularly bad when I’m relying on discipline alone to accomplish a less than engaging task.

When I returned to college some years ago, I discovered something called the “Pomodoro Technique”. A method of focus thats particularly helpful for those with ADHD. It involves setting a timer for a certain amount of time (a pomodoro) and then taking a break after the time ends. After a few pomodoros, you take a longer break. I personally like to do 30 minutes of focus with 5 minute breaks. After four 30 minute pomodoros, I take a 20 minute break. This allows me enough time to get into a task, but not so much time that my focus wanders due to “ooo shiny disorder”.

Now winding back to that monkey wrench of an addictive glowing rectangle…

I’ve had some degree of luck with utilizing the parental controls on my phone. These allow me to lock out certain apps during “focus hours” of my day. Unfortunately, this approach has proved to be rather ham fisted. It restricts all websites and only allows for a single block of time each day. This means during lunch or when I need a momentary mental break, I have to disable the feature just to properly use my phone.

This brings us full circle to the subject Hank Green’s video, his app Focus Friend. It cleverly combines the idea of pomodoros and locking out apps while you’re supposed to be focusing. When you set a timer, a small bean character begins to knit. If you can focus in that time without opening any of the restricted apps, you will be rewarded with scarfs or hats. These items can then be used to decorate your room. Should you fail to focus, the bean will lose it’s progress and fail to knit you something.

I think this app perfectly brings together several ideas in a clever manner. I can use my pomodoros and it locks out distracting apps. Not to mention I don’t want to make the bean sad.

In just a week, Focus Friend has already helped to increase my productivity while still allowing for a healthy balance in my work day. I would suggest to anyone with issues focusing to give it a go. There are no ads whatsoever. However, development isn’t free so there are some in app purchases.

Download Focus Friend Here

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