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Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

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Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#81

Post by doorhammer »

dangwhy wrote: post #57
doorhammer wrote: post #53

app looks clean. I dig it. Kind of unrelated to the app, but wanted to share a related thought that's been useful to me over the years in case it's useful for anyone else. I have pretty strong ADHD. Pomodoro and other time tracking techniques never really worked well for me long-term because they end up being associated with a lot of anxiety and self-shame as I used them, so I tend to stop using them as negative feel…

Love this comment. I suffer from some of the same problems and feelings. One weird thing that works me is playing reality TV in the background (love and hip hop, vanderpump ect). Seems to have really calming effect on my brain which lets me focus on work. I've realized over the years that my adhd is just suppressed anxiety in disguise and reality TV masks it.

thanks for the positive feedback! I'm not as quick to engage as I once was and I appreciate it

I usually can't do any background noise with a pattern but there are a handful of albums I've listened to hundreds of times while working over the years in the same way I think you're talking about. I ended up finally ripping them from old cd's because every year Spotify would tell me that I basically no other music mattered to me in comparison ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also listen to mynoise.net (a gem of the internet) pretty often. Over the years a few of their tracks have become mentally associated with a sort of calm productivity for me

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#82

Post by sogen »

doorhammer wrote: post #81
dangwhy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love this comment. I suffer from some of the same problems and feelings. One weird thing that works me is playing reality TV in the background (love and hip hop, vanderpump ect). Seems to have really calming effect on my brain which lets me focus on work. I've realized over the years that my adhd is just suppressed anxiety in disguise and reality TV masks it.

thanks for the positive feedback! I'm not as quick to engage as I once was and I appreciate it I usually can't do any background noise with a pattern but there are a handful of albums I've listened to hundreds of times while working over the years in the same way I think you're talking about. I ended up finally ripping them from old cd's because every year Spotify would tell me that I basically no other music mattere…

Sir, can you share your list of top 3-5 albums?

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#83

Post by z3t4 »

tra3 wrote: post #62
crimsontech wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this because you think it won’t take as long as it does or because you get distracted during the pomodoro?

Because things always take longer. "Finish this feature" is scheduled at 2 pomos but in hindsight really needs 20. So then I have a choice to blow through my carefully arranged schedule and finish things, or leave work hanging. Haven't solved this one yet.

I just have one priority and keep working on it until its finished or something else become the priority.

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#84

Post by shaunsingh0207 »

sizzle wrote: post #78
Yizahi wrote: post #77

No offense author, but what is specifically ADHD related in this timer? Actually I'd argue that it is ADHD unfriendly because it is in the web browser. So now I need to open a browser and hunt down one tab among hundreds, because as a ADHD person I tend to hoard them to process later and of course never do it. There are also no notifications or sounds in your website (I may have nuked all browser notifications at som…

Absolutely, the ADHD version would be a physical egg timer you manually turn the dial on and can’t lose sight of on your desk. A digital representation would have to float on top of all other apps somehow.

now I'd spend all my time turning the dial and overengineering its replacement :(

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#85

Post by disiplus »

doorhammer wrote: post #53

app looks clean. I dig it. Kind of unrelated to the app, but wanted to share a related thought that's been useful to me over the years in case it's useful for anyone else. I have pretty strong ADHD. Pomodoro and other time tracking techniques never really worked well for me long-term because they end up being associated with a lot of anxiety and self-shame as I used them, so I tend to stop using them as negative feel…

To be honest, nothing really works for me except medications. like i have a spare smartphone that's running my pomodoro timer, but if it's a task that interests me i will blow past every 5min pause and anything else because im focused on the task that interests me on hours end, like i would program in my head while drive home, but if the task is boring that i don't want to do i can have 100 timers it would not help. like for example i have to fill a form and send it that would return me 17k in overpaid taxes i did not do it for last 4 months. there is X amount of those task that no amount of timers would help me do it. i fucking hate my adhd in that without medications im a zombie. the only thing that i can hope without medications is find interesting problems. that's also shit when you have a family because you cannot turn of, because you are dealing with the interesting problem all the time and it consumes you. my brain is great in resolving big challenges, but the worst at doing daily tasks.

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#86

Post by doorhammer »

disiplus wrote: post #85
doorhammer wrote: post #53

app looks clean. I dig it. Kind of unrelated to the app, but wanted to share a related thought that's been useful to me over the years in case it's useful for anyone else. I have pretty strong ADHD. Pomodoro and other time tracking techniques never really worked well for me long-term because they end up being associated with a lot of anxiety and self-shame as I used them, so I tend to stop using them as negative feel…

To be honest, nothing really works for me except medications. like i have a spare smartphone that's running my pomodoro timer, but if it's a task that interests me i will blow past every 5min pause and anything else because im focused on the task that interests me on hours end, like i would program in my head while drive home, but if the task is boring that i don't want to do i can have 100 timers it would not help.…

I very much relate to this (or at least parts of it; everyone's relationship with their own adhd is very specific and personal).

I was medicated as a 90s kid, then went a long time without being medicated. It took awhile to get medicated again and a longer time to be okay with it as a part of my life instead of constantly trying to wean myself off of it because of lingering stigmas around medications and mental health.

The timer for me is 100% in conjunction with meds and other life strategies for managing my ADHD and honestly, even then it feels crippling at times, especially since I've been laid off. Without the day-to-day structure of a job, my brain feels like a tornado in fog a lot of days.

Context is another big one for me. I don't do well working from home, so if I have a remote job I rent a small office. Part of it is having "work context" and part is just the fact that I don't have a VR headset, a thousand books on random hobbies, ten unbuilt lego sets, and a shelf of books on elm, clojure, idris, or whatever random language I'm interested in that week.

Anyhow, what you're saying makes a ton of sense. I feel like the timer thing just helps me specifically with even being aware of time at all, but I really find that coping mechanisms for adhd are super varied.

Appreciate you contributing your own experience, though, and highlighting that it's not as simple as one or two life hacks

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#87

Post by doorhammer »

sogen wrote: post #82
doorhammer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks for the positive feedback! I'm not as quick to engage as I once was and I appreciate it I usually can't do any background noise with a pattern but there are a handful of albums I've listened to hundreds of times while working over the years in the same way I think you're talking about. I ended up finally ripping them from old cd's because every year Spotify would tell me that I basically no other music mattere…

Sir, can you share your list of top 3-5 albums?

Yeah, for sure!

Honestly the ADHD focus ones are kind of random because they're sort of just albums I happened to be listening to at the point in my life when I finally started doing programming professionally (I def still like them though)

These are the ones I listen to the most when I'm programming. I'll flip through them depending on my mood at the moment:

Tool - Lateralus

Don Ross - Klimbim

Axiom of Choice - Niya Yesh

Axiom of Choice - Unfolding

Anoushka Shankar & Karsh Kale - Breathing Underwater

They're just sort of cooked into my brain at this point

Oh, there's also an album of Harpsicord music that I used to listen to at cafes because for whatever reason the Harpsicord drowns out voices really well (for me at least). I can't remember what it is now, though. I mostly use mynoise.net cafe tracks for that now

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#88

Post by crucialfelix »

hinkley wrote: post #79
lelanthran wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's designed to be somewhere in view of the person using it. Then it really shouldn't be a browser app, it needs to be a local app that runs in the taskbar. I've made two of these in the past: V1, browser based: the browser simply wasn't viable because there's no taskbar timer. V2, Bash+zenity script to run locally, pops up a uncloseable, uncoverable and omnipresent (across all workspaces) window, with a progress…

Arguably a case for ambient electronics. We need to start making physical devices with smarts. And for easily distracted people, you might want a physical timer that also synchronizes with your devices. Set a timer for the stove, then forget you're baking and try to leave the house, your watch or phone needs to get the alert.

Smart watch works great for this. Haptics twitch gently.

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#89

Post by hinkley »

crucialfelix wrote: post #88
hinkley wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably a case for ambient electronics. We need to start making physical devices with smarts. And for easily distracted people, you might want a physical timer that also synchronizes with your devices. Set a timer for the stove, then forget you're baking and try to leave the house, your watch or phone needs to get the alert.

Smart watch works great for this. Haptics twitch gently.

Sometimes too gently. And with watches that last 24 hours between charges, trying to do something in the early evening that takes hours could run you into a dead battery.

Really is better if you have multiple devices to remind you. Right now if I set a timer on one iOS device it tends to go off on the one I'm using. Give me more of that, including ambient devices.

Re: Show HN: ADHD-friendly Pomodoro web app

#90

Post by jonas-w »

danstewart_ wrote: post #43
kseistrup wrote: post #34

Does this thing run in UTC? I'm in the Europe/Copenhagen timezone (currently UTC+2) and the web app shows a time two hours behind localtime (and my pc is having the correct time from NTP).

Do you use firefox? I think by default it uses UTC to prevent fingerprinting. The site is showing the correct timezone for me on safari.

This should only happen when you activate resistfingerprinting iirc
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