Focusmate - Virtual coworking for getting anything done

Focusmate has been such a game changer for me in both my work and personal life. I love being able to schedule time for whatever I need to get done and not worry about it until then. I love the idea of matching with people doing similar things like desk/non desk work as it helps me branch out to think about different ways I can use focusmate to help me get life things done. I would love for it to be easy to switch between these types of tasks or maybe assign different sessions for different categories in easy ways- I wouldn't ever want to have to choose just one style of work for my profile in general- some days I need to write, others, cleaning and organizing is on my schedule. I am a sucker too for color coding- so if that's anywhere in the future I'd be on board!

I completed 2 years and 2 months on Focusmate. To say that Focusmate changed my life would be an understatement. -It helped me build myself up--bit by bit. -I built my freelance writing business from scratch. I wrote one book, a second draft, and several short stories. -I didn't fall apart, changing countries twice in 14 months because of Focusmate. -It gave me the self-discipline that I never thought I possessed. I had all these dreams about how I wanted my life to look, but no real plan to get there. Focusmate taught me how to plan things out and achieve a tiny chunk in each session. It helped me on bad mental health days. Days, where I would have cried into my pillow, became days of journaling, meditating, self-care, and talking to friends on FM. 🙂 It gave me a tonne of like-minded friends from all across the globe. Since I am a freelancer working from home, prior to FM, I literally did not speak to anyone on most days. Focusmate not only changed that but also gave me the opportunity to know some amazing people and be a part of their journeys. I've cheered completed dissertations, celebrated job wins, and talked about the struggles of introverts, creatives, and neurodivergent folks. Focusmate helped me realize that I'm not alone. There are beautiful strangers right at the corner (or, maybe, on the other side of the globe) waiting to become friends. This platform is helping me become the version of myself I've always aspired to be. I don't know what I'd do without Focusmate. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 💖 Here's to many more years of getting life done together on Focusmate.

1. ABILITY TO SET GOALS IN A SESSION 🎯: Not necessary, but I think it would be SUPER cool if there was a feature/prompt where each partner can more formally enter their goal(s) at the beginning of the session or even throughout the session. It can either be private or visible to the other partner (which I think might be more useful). I and many other folks already do this in the chat, but I think there's huge potential for a feature. I envision this feature encouraging (a little more formally) each partner to be intentional about what they want to achieve. There's just something about writing something down that brings it into reality and makes me feel more committed to achieving what I've declared I would do. Partner accountability is a plus! The result could be even greater progress and success for focusmate users. 2. ABILITY TO TRACK & CELEBRATE PROGRESS🎉: There's MASSIVE satisfaction in being able to "check off" my tasks as I'm going. I currently make a list and just add this green checkbox icon, which gets a bit redundant every time I want to update my progress. I've gotten so much positive feedback and so many folks asking me "how I do it." So I feel like that should be enough for proof of concept, haha. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe even a progress bar or some kind of feature to celebrate or encourage the other partner would be a really neat touch. I know Asana has a "celebrate" feature that makes me and my teammates feel so good. 3. EMOJIs IN THE CHAT BOX⭐️: I used to copy emojis from the iMessage app before I learned that I could access them through control + command + space bar. For all the folks who can't easily access emojis, it would be great to have the ability to use emojis. 4. ABILITY TO TAKE NOTES ON PARTNER🗒️: I've met so many incredible people on this platform. Sometimes, they will tell me their name and I'll write down the pronunciation on a sticky before sticking it on my wall. Or they will tell me amazing things about them and what they are working toward. As much as I would like to, I can't remember everything but it would be awesome for me to keep track of my interactions and budding relationships with the awesome people in this community. 5: TODAY'S GOALS / THIS WEEK'S GOALS IN SIDE PANEL📅: It would be lovely to keep an eye on the main goals I'm trying to accomplish in a day or in a week. Having the ability to see it on the focusmate platform (even if it's on the main calendar page right above or below "My Groups") would be helpful in keeping me focused. And maybe it's not an unlimited checklist. Perhaps, instead, there's only space for 3 goals at a time... 6: ABILITY TO SCORE SESSION AND/OR MY FOCUS DURING A SESSION. --- For reference, what my session checklist entries used to look like-- Session Goals: [ ] Task [ ] Task [ ] Task When I got smart with the emojis, they started looking like this-- Session Goals: ☐ Task ☐ Task ☐ Task and it's just the best feeling when they look like this by the end of my session-- ✅ Task ✅ Task ✅ Task

I love the weekly report that I get on how many sessions I've done, but I'd love it even more if it got into the weeds a bit more. Tell me more about my data! What day did I have the most sessions? Go back through previous week and tell me what day(s) and/or time(s) I use Focusmate the most. Tell me how many different countries I connected with. That sort of thing.

Some ideas for future revs.: - A "study hall" that people can drop into any time for minimum 25 mins and it's mikes off for all but write what your project is - wallpaper of all the others in the study hall at the same time. No time on intros but still a commitment to be there - Periodic "events" or "challenges" - e.g. a book writing challenge - a group event you can sign up for a commitment of, say, 2 hours a day to write your book, get matched with others in challenge, Gamify with badges for those who care, but more about having a community pushing each other to get big goals out of the way. Could work for Thesis writing, 30-day-novel competitions, work out every day for a month challenge - A "zen hall" for drop in group meditation - a mindfulness moment. Group hall with tiled participants, sound off, 25 min meditation breaks. Perhaps starting on the hour and people can toggle to show events and drop in rooms when they are in the calendar.

Focusmate is a lifesaver for me! I struggle with depression and find it difficult to concentrate on studying without ruminating, crying, or feeling even more depressed that I have to study but don't feel like doing it. The irony, right? I tried finding study partners to help, which worked, but people can't always be available. Once I found out about Focusmate, I was on top of my game in everything, including my studies, chores, and sticking to habits like going to bed early and waking up at 5:00 am. I used all types of alarms for the latter, but they didn't help. Now I HAVE TO wake up at 5:00 to get ready for my 6:00 am session. I had always wished for an app like Focusmate. It's funny how I used to always search for an app with an accountability partner, and all the ones I found were either too expensive or didn't actually work. I'm so happy that someone who had the same idea was able to bring it alive in its best form! Thank you, Taylor and team! Special thanks to Nir Eyle, who was the reason for me being here. I totally recommend his book "Indistractble." P.S: I'm so excited for the Matching Preference feature! Now I won't feel guilty when I do chores on Focusmate :D!

Focusmate is a huge improvement for my private activities. I absolutely recommend it to everyone who wants to achieve a goal or work on a project without the pressure of deadlines and responsibilities by universities or professional work environments. Against the common sense and sentiment in the discussion I would recommend to change nothing. Stay bare bone. Every further feature distracts from the idea of Focusmate and makes maintaining the platform complex and expensive.

I love FocusMate. I’m enjoying the new features that come out, shorter sessions, longer, favourites etc. however please don’t make the app so complex riddled with a hundred different options. Simplicity was what drew me to FocusMate, click, click and click and you’ve got yourself into a 50-minute focussed zone. As time goes on, more and more features are great but let’s make sure simplicity stays at the heart of FocusMate. Although I enjoy the varied length sessions, before I used to just log on and I didn’t have to fiddle with the different minute sessions, now sometimes I do as you can’t always find someone doing the traditional 50 min. Of course, that’s a minor example but I hope what I convey makes sense.

1. A very minor annoyance that should be a super easy fix (perhaps just an < href > tag?) There should be a way to find your partner's profile page from within a session. Right now you have to open the homepage in a new tab and click on the calendar event. Intuitively to me, this would be done by clicking on their name or profile picture in the top left corner while in a session. Obviously open in a new tab since you don't want to leave the session. 2. Also I'd love to see a better way to message partners outside of sessions, while still ensuring privacy/safety for everyone involved. I know you can message someone from the edit session window, but its a bit clunky and getting responses in an email feels weird. Perhaps if you both add each other as favorites you allow direct messaging? But I realize that's a lot of work 3. Is it just me or can I no longer go back to previous weeks and see when I had sessions/with who? This was nice to help me monitor how consistent I was with my FM habits :)

Looking forward to trying last-minute booking and rematching queue, for those times when I reach procrastination panic state and just need to buckle down, or when I find a free hour in my day and need some accountability to make the most of it. Promising way to keep liquidity high for matches across the whole community.