Blog Post - Focus ToDo Praise

I struggle with focusing all the time. For a big chunk of my life this is because I had unmedicated ADHD. Now I've been prescribed to deal with it but I've had to learn all the other ways I have to deal with it as well. Things like maintaining my focus and concentration continue to be a struggle for me, and I have to draw a fine line between finding strategies to help me out without getting sucked into the hole of annoying Productivity YouTubers and shit.

One great tool I've found recently is "Focus To-Do." It's basically a task manager crossed with a Pomodoro timer.

A Pomodoro timer is a commonly recognized technique in maintaining focus. Start the timer and work for 25 minutes, take a five minute break, 25 minutes, break, 25 minutes, 15 minute break, then start over from the top. I've tried using it before, but the last time I did, I did not have focalin rewiring my brain. So trying again with Focus To-Do has been very helpful for me.

A big issue with me is that I have a hard time getting started on something, even more than the actual doing of it. I get side-tracked by other interesting stuff, then more interesting stuff that branches off of that stuff, and then suddenly two hours pass. Focus To-Do gives me the initial push that my brain needs with the timer. Most of the time I don't even need the breaks that come after - once I get going, I end up being focused enough to just keep it pushing on my own.

Besides being a Pomodoro timer, Focus To-Do has a handful of other properties that make it useful enough for me to have paid for it. One of the biggest is the fact that it comes with its own nice white noise whenever a timer is going. You can use ocean sounds, rain, so on and so forth. And the task management side is solid enough for it to have replaced Todoist for me. You can separate by project, set due dates, get reminders and all that good stuff. And it's on every device you can think of, so it moves from my phone to my work to my personal computers easily.

Also - and this doesn't matter nearly as much but still - Focus To-Do has hella stat tracking, which is great 'cause I'm a freak that likes to watch number go up. There are tons of things you can look at to keep track of the stuff you're focusing on, like how much time you're spending on specific tasks and projects.

Focus To-Do has been working quite well for me, as you can see above! I'm glad I went back to trying out the Pomodoro method again - it's been really helpful with my bad brain.