Focusmate - Virtual coworking for getting anything done

Love love LOVE Focusmate! I've been using it for 18 weeks and am averaging 26.4 sessions per week. Wooo! Feature idea/request #3: Give users the ability to book a session with a specific user *when that other user doesn't already have a session scheduled.* And doing so could trigger a tentative calendar invite to the invited partner, which they could accept or decline. For example, one of my favorites is named Matt; if he and I are in a session right now and agree "hey, this was great; wanna work together the same time tomorrow?", within Focusmate's current build, I would have to book a session first, then give Matt the green light to go in and book that session. But it would be super useful if I could just go ahead and book a session for both of us, even if the session is tentative by default for Matt.

The biggest problem I have with Focusmate is that I haven't been using it long enough to get into a habit yet, so I keep forgetting to book sessions! I could really use an email nudge every few days to remind me "hey, you haven't logged in for a while, why not book a session now?" (Also, I just want to drop a note in here to say that I really love picture-in-picture.)

@taylor_jacobson @mgalanos, @david_augustus_lopes, @aodenep, @antonio_braga, @najwat, @aveltri, @natalieong I have expressed my love and appreciation for Focusmate in other shares in this discussion, and will just reiterate here -- this is a game changer. You are all changing the world and how we work together. One suggestion I have for change is when I match with someone and I see from their profile that we will likely not be a good fit -- the only way to change partners is to cancel the session and reschedule. If possible, it would be great to have a way to "request a new partner" in that instance instead of needing to cancel and reschedule.

It's a little thing, but I would like it to be more obvious where my partner is located in the world. I don't always have time to look at their profile in advance. This would minimize chitchat at the beginning and the awkward "good night" when it is really morning there

I’m really impressed with how y’all are prioritizing these features. It looks simple, but it isn't, as I've spoken with a couple of dev guys when I met them on Focusmate. I particularly appreciate the team's focus on psychology-type systematic improvements, and how these are taking precedence over the improvements to the dashboard and session interfaces. It's refreshing to see that the essentials are being taken care of first, and it gives me even more confidence in the service and the thoughtfulness of the team behind it. The team really knows what they're doing and has a good idea of their priorities. Keep up the great work!

I’ve read a lot of the comments and am amazed at the impact that FM has had on so many peoples lives. Well done. I am a not “power user” of Focusmate. I haven’t used any of the favoriting or snoozing or anything related to choosing your FM partner. My only desire is to get matched with someone quickly. It is really frustrating when you sign up for a session and it doesn’t happen. I sometimes login and when no one is there get busy with other things and miss the dialog to request another partner. My suggestion would be to give people an ability to say they don’t care who their partner is and then match them as they login. ie, first person for a 10am session logs in. They get put into a room and are joined by the 2nd person who logs in and then so on. Everyone gets matched except possibly the last person to login if there are an odd number. It also becomes an incentive to login early. This could work with blocked and snoozed by just creating a new room if 2 people login simultaneously where one has blocked or snoozed the other. The other nice thing is if you login early, you aren’t potentially waiting 15 minutes for your assigned partner yo show up. You can get started more or less immediately.

I'm sure there was no intention to mislead, but it takes considerably more than 1 minute to sign up for product hunt, confirm email, and exit several popups about installing the app. (I'm now late for an appointment because I really only had 1 minute!) Which makes me wonder... Could we have a forum style section of the FM site, for this kind of thing? It could also be used to find folks working on similar goals, meet new faves, etc, all using our existing FM login. Beyond that, I love the recent additions and upcoming developments! All good stuff. Love the idea of multiple partners/ group sessions/ a lot of great suggestions in here that I haven't had time to look at yet. Although I'm disappointed about the 1 minute claim, and I'm still late, rest assured that I love FM and recommend it at every opportunity. It's basically magic for getting things done and I've met so many cool people! Ok now I've really gotta run!! Love to all!

Focusmate has genuinely changed my life for the better. I got divorced in August of 2022 and felt so lost as to how to get my things done without the support of a partner. I use Focusmate every time I am in office and it has helped me get those pesky tasks done, projects I have been putting off, even cleaning my home. It's allowed me to be able to move forward with my business and Im so grateful! I have a youtube channel and I even mentioned them in my last video because I just want everyone to know how incredible this tool is. https://youtu.be/VbmVyTwQga4

I'll second most of the commenters. I've been using it since... what, beta? It's made a significant impact on my productivity. I've written three manuscripts with it as my focus tool. The changes and improvements have been more than worth the subscription price for this service. Keep rocking on!

Hello Focusmate community! Thank you so much for this platform and this service. I missed my first session last week and received the "Are you okay" notice when I logged in again. I was *not* okay and I found that you canceling my upcoming sessions with time enough for people to be rematched until I clicked the "I'm okay" button to be so helpful and allowed me to avoid feeling bad for leaving someone hanging, hoping to be rema.ched. I love Focusmate and its ease of use: Log in, book a session, work. While the upgrades have all been great, please don't try to make FM a total productivity tool able to manage task lists, and reminders, and group work, etc., unless you are confident you can keep it simple in its execution. While I like the favorites feature, I find even the Groups to add a layer of complication that isn't really necessary. For me, meeting people from all over who are all working in whatever way they need to is a helpful reminder that we're all just trying to get by in the world and a little patience and sacrifice (a very little!) can do so much for the whole community. I think a robust snooze feature and maybe encouragement for people to identify what type of work they're doing/want to be matched with in their profile would go a long way to addressing some of the issues I hear about from other users in the FM Facebook community.