Milestones

A person can play a game for four hours without noticing the time and still not start a report that is due in three weeks. It is the same person, the same afternoon and the same amount of attention. What is different is the distance to the reward.

The game tells you how you are doing every few seconds. The report stays silent until someone else marks it, weeks from now. In 2007 Steel reviewed the research on procrastination and found that the distance to the reward is one of the strongest predictors of putting a task off. Reviews by Jackson and MacKillop and by Patros and colleagues in 2016 found that a reward further away pulls less, and more so in people with ADHD. The report is no more boring than the game. It is further away.

What milestones do

Milestones answer that distance. They put a goal within reach of the next session, and they say what you have done so far in a form you can look at. Every session you complete adds to Sessions recorded, and with Plus the card shows how far away the next level is.

Untimer has fifty four milestones in four groups. The Milestones screen lists the ones you have reached with the date of each, and the message box on the Timer screen announces a new one, with a chime if sound is on.

The four groups

Time recorded counts the sessions that ran their full length.
Days covers runs of days and days with a session. It also covers returning after time away, steady months and the years since your first session.
Patterns covers how many sessions a day holds and the hours, weekdays and seasons you work in.
Tasks and breaks covers interruptions, sets, breaks, task estimates and finished tasks.

Levels

Thirty six of the milestones are levels on eleven counters. Each counter has one card. The card shows your level, such as Level 4 of 7, and the milestone you reached with its date. With Plus the card also shows the next milestone and how far along you are, such as 1,056 of 2,500 so far.

Here are the eleven counters and their levels.

Sessions recorded has seven levels, from 10 sessions to 10,000.
Days in a row has five levels, from a week to a year.
Days of the last year has three levels, at 90, 180 and 300 of the last 365 days.
Days with a session has four levels, from 10 days to 1,000.
Sessions in one day has four levels, at 4, 8, 12 and 16 sessions.
Interruptions noticed has two levels, at 50 and 250.
Full sets has two levels, at 10 and 100 sets.
Breaks taken has three levels, at 10, 100 and 500 breaks taken to the end.
Accurate estimates has two levels, at 10 and 50 tasks that took the number of sessions you estimated, give or take one.
Estimates revised has two levels, at 10 and 50 estimates you changed after the task was under way.
Tasks finished has two levels, at 10 and 100 tasks.

Milestones that appear when they happen

Eighteen milestones have no levels. Each one appears on the Milestones screen when it happens, and stays off the screen until then, because a list of things left undone would weigh on you. These are some of them.

Back after a week away appears when you have a session after more than a week without one.
Started again appears when you stop a session and start another one the same day.
Early start appears when the first session of a day begins before seven in the morning.
Late finish appears when you begin a session after eleven at night.
Every hour appears when you have run a session in every hour of the day.

Started again is a milestone for a day that went badly and was picked up again. Back after a week away is a milestone for a gap. Most systems punish both.

Why milestones report facts

The research on rewards shaped how the milestones work, and it points the other way from what you might expect. In 1999 Deci, Koestner and Ryan combined one hundred and twenty eight experiments and found that tangible rewards people expect for an activity lowered their own motivation for it. People start doing the thing for the reward, and when the reward stops, so do they. Plain information about what someone had done, with no payment attached, did not have that effect.

A focus timer that pays you in points for focusing is arranging exactly the condition that wears down your own reason to focus. So Untimer hands you facts about your own work. A milestone is information: how many sessions, how many days and the date you reached each level.

A level is a position, and it holds where it is. A run of days keeps its best, and a milestone you have reached is yours for as long as you keep the account, whether or not you have Plus.

Why they work

Milestones work because the problem is distance, and information solves distance. A count that moves with every session makes a faraway goal feel close. The milestone is a side effect of the work. You do the work because the count lets you see it adding up, and the report three weeks away keeps that from you.

In 2010 Lally and colleagues followed people forming everyday habits and found that the time it took varied enormously between people, and that missing a single day made little difference in the end. Days with a session counts the days you had one, and Back after a week away marks a return after a gap, so both are built around that finding. A missed day leaves the count where it was, and the day you come back after a week away gets a milestone.

Looking at a level is pleasant too. The founder has a thousand sessions of his own and knows the date he reached them, and it means something to be told that plainly by an app that has no reason to flatter him.

Free and Plus

Every milestone you reach is free. Without Plus the Milestones screen shows every milestone you have reached, with its date. With Plus each card also names the next milestone and shows how far along you are. That is the part that brings a distant goal close, and it is what Plus adds.