Pomodoro Timer - Increase Focus: Increase Focus and Productize Yourself

1. What inspired you to build this? Most of my days were full but, looking back, hard to account for. I'd close the laptop after ten hours and struggle to say where the time went or what I'd really moved forward. I tried plenty of focus timers. Most were either too bare to keep me honest or so busy that they became one more distraction. I wanted something that sat quietly in the menu bar and was easy to come back to. It also had to remember what I'd done. That's where the tagline came from: Productize yourself. It means treating your own attention with the care you'd give a product you're proud of. 2. What problem were you trying to solve? There were two, and they turned out to be linked. The first was staying focused. That means no Dock icon, no window to manage and nothing pulling at your attention. A small ring counts down in the menu bar, and a steady tick keeps you in rhythm. The second was knowing where your time actually goes. A timer alone forgets everything once it rings. So every session can carry a short note and a few #tags, written while the work is still fresh. Over weeks those notes add up to an honest, searchable record of your work. Insights, streaks and a daily goal then turn it into patterns you can learn from instead of guilt you carry. Underneath both was something I wouldn't compromise on: privacy. Your focus history is personal. Everything stays on your Mac, with no account, no sign-in and no analytics. 3. How did your approach evolve while working on this launch? I started out building "a Pomodoro timer." Along the way I realised the timer was the easy part. What mattered was how the app felt to live with every day. That changed my priorities. I spent far more time than planned on small things: how the ring responds when you scroll or drag it, sound themes that loop without a gap, and colour themes calm enough to leave on all day. I also made streaks gentle rather than punishing, because missing a day shouldn't make you want to quit. I also learned to cut. Some features I was excited about didn't make 1.0.0 because they added noise without adding focus. Every addition had to pass one question: does this help someone do deeper work, or does it just look busy? Finally, preparing for the Mac App Store pushed me to finish properly. I tightened the code, tested the edge cases, wrote clear privacy answers and built a website that explains the app as simply as the app tries to be. Launching made it a real product rather than a side project. What I'm shipping is the tool I wished I'd had: quiet when you're working, and honest about how you spent your time.