Stopping a session early

The message box under the heading is where Untimer speaks. When a session runs its full length, the box says You focused for 25 minutes. When you press Stop, the hourglass goes back to rest. The sand returns to the bottom, a soft low note plays if sound is on, and the message box stays quiet. The hourglass is ready to wind again straight away, and the set count stays where it was.

What is counted

A session counts when it runs its full twenty five minutes. A stopped session adds no time to the day. It stays out of the count, the minutes, the hours you work best and the run of days. It also stays out of every other figure in the app, including the interruption counts. The message box stays quiet about it, because a line about it would read as a verdict.

Untimer used to count a stopped session. The box said you showed up for seven minutes, and seven minutes went into the day’s total. It read well, and it was wrong. A day of six sessions that had been stopped early reported nearly three hours of focus, and the person reading it knew perfectly well he had not done nearly three hours of anything. A total like that is the one people go on to rely on.

What is recorded

Each session keeps the length it was planned to be against the length it ran, and how it ended. It keeps how many interruptions you noticed and whether each one came from inside or from outside. It keeps the task you named, if any, and the time zone you were in. The numbers are not rounded in either direction, so a session stopped after forty seconds is recorded as forty seconds.

A stopped session is still on the record. It is listed with its length and how it ended. The Download my data button in Settings exports every session, including the ones you stopped, as one JSON file. The record answers what happened, and the figures answer what counted.

Recording on its own does a lot. In 2009 Michie and colleagues reviewed techniques for changing behaviour and found that keeping track of what you do is one of the most effective techniques there is, and that it works better combined with feedback and a look back at what you intended. So Untimer records, shows you the record and lets you look back.

Reset, Stop and End the break

Reset puts the running session back to its full twenty five minutes. It is the same session with the same task and interruptions, and it counts if it runs its full length. Stop ends the session. End the break stops a break the moment you have had enough, and the record stays as it was. Only breaks that run to the end count toward Breaks taken.

Returns instead of streaks

Most apps that want you to come back use a streak, and a streak works by threat. Miss one day and the number you have been building resets. A streak app knows you will feel that reset more than you felt any of the days you kept it.

Untimer shows you something else: 41 of the last 45 days. Active days counts the days you came back within a window. The four days you missed look like any other day, and a missed day does not reset the count. You can see the rhythm of your returning without being punished for the shape of it.

The research on habits supports the gentler number. Lally and colleagues followed people forming everyday habits in 2010 and found that the time it took varied enormously from person to person, from a few weeks to most of a year, with a middle around two months. The same data suggested that missing a single day made little difference in the end.

Information instead of points

Untimer gives you the facts of your own work. The reason is one of the most repeated findings in motivation research. 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. The thing they were paid to do became the thing they did for the pay. Feedback that simply told people something about what they had done left that motivation intact.

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 information instead: how long, when, how it ended and what pulled you away. That information is yours, and the days list and the export are free.

Milestones

Untimer has fifty four milestones in four groups. They are here because recognising something is different from paying for it. Milestones lists the groups and levels.

Back after a week away appears when you have a session after more than a week without one. Most apps would have spent that week sending you notifications about your dying streak. Untimer stays quiet through it. When you come back the message box announces the milestone once, and the Milestones screen keeps it with its date.

A milestone that counts something, like Sessions recorded, has levels. The card says the level you are at and the milestone you reached, and with Plus it says what the next one is. A milestone that describes something happening, like Back after a week away or Started again, has no levels and appears once it has happened. Showing your progress toward coming back would be showing your progress toward leaving. When one happens again, the card shows the latest time and leaves the tally out, because a tally is a number you would feel you had to grow.

Every milestone you reach is kept, and a level holds where it is. Days in a row shows the longest run you have had, and that number only goes up.

Stopping after seven minutes

You wind the hourglass up. Seven minutes in, something gives, and you press Stop.

The set count holds where it was. Untimer skips the break, because the work was short and the hourglass is one hold away when you want to go again. The screen is as it was, with the hourglass back where it started.

The one milestone that speaks to this is Started again. It appears when you stopped early and started another session the same day, and it is about the second one.

The next day the app looks the same, with the sand at the bottom and the hourglass ready to be held. Every sentence in Untimer is written to read well after a bad day.