Why does one quick check become 20 minutes?
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While building CogniFocus, I realized most people don’t consciously decide to stop focusing.
It usually starts with “I’ll check one thing,” and then suddenly 15 minutes disappear. The dangerous part is how automatic it feels. You don’t intentionally quit the session; your brain just slowly drifts away from it.
That changed how I think about focus apps. A timer can track time, but it doesn’t react when your attention starts slipping. So, I started building around interruption recovery and attention protection instead of only counting minutes.
Curious if others experience the same thing too or if it’s just me?
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Interesting approach. When I lose focus, it's usually perfectionism pulling me back in — I notice something isn't quite where I want it, and suddenly I can't let it go.
But your post made me think that maybe it depends on what focus actually means in context. When I want to be productive, getting stuck somewhere too long is a problem. But when I'm trying to optimize something, that same kind of "drift" can actually be useful.
Maybe focus apps need to distinguish between different kinds of attention — not just protect it. Have you considered that in CogniFocus?
@susanne_ertl Yeah, that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot actually. I don’t think all “drift” is bad. Getting deeply absorbed while refining or optimizing something can still be productive, even if it looks similar on the surface.
What I’m mainly trying to target with CogniFocus is the unconscious kind of attention loss where you suddenly realize you opened another app without really deciding to. That feels very different from intentionally staying with a problem for longer.
The more I build it, the more I feel focus is less about forcing constant discipline and more about noticing when your attention quietly slips away from what you meant to do.
@qasim_khan23 That distinction actually makes a lot of sense — and honestly, CogniFocus sounds like something I might need. :D
@susanne_ertl hahaha then maybe you’re exactly the kind of person I’m building it for 😭