Focus Timer (Pomodoro) ⏱️
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No more distractions! Immerse yourself for a set stretch of time, set goals to build up consistency, and even enjoy filling up today's character count — all right inside ObsiKO. 🍅
← Home: ObsiKO 101
Where do I open it? 🔭
- Pick Focus Timer from the right sidebar panel. → A Tour of the Screen
- On iPhone and iPad, tapping outside the buttons on the home screen Focus Timer widget opens it right away.
How to start ▶️
- Pick a focus duration on the round dial, then press ▶ in the middle to start the countdown!
- Tap a tick and the dial lights up to there (tap a number to get exactly that number). Grab and drag to move the time back and forth (1–60 minutes). − / + go 5 minutes at a time.
- The numbers around the dial run from 0 to 55 minutes, and each lit tick is one minute. The ticks for the minutes left stay lit and go out one per minute, so you can see the time left at a glance.
- The digits in the middle are LED digits like an old digital clock, counting down to the second.
- It looks just like the Focus Timer widget on the iPhone and iPad home screen. On the widget, too, tapping a number sets that time (in 5-minute steps — widgets can't be dragged).
- What are you focusing on?: you can jot down a session name before starting (like "Chapter 3 draft"). Hit "Use current note title" to pull in the name of the note you're currently working on in one click — it's saved in the log too, so you'll never wonder "what was I doing back then?" again.
- Toggle End chime to turn the completion sound on or off (maybe keep it off at the library 🤫).
It's fine to pause ⏸️
- Got a phone call? Hit ⏸ (Pause) in the middle of the dial, then ▶ (Resume) to pick up where you left off.
- "I want 5 more minutes!" — use the +5 button on the right mid-session to extend the time. You can also tap or drag the ticks while it runs to change the time left right away.
- Calling it a day? Press ■ (Cancel) on the left — the time you focused so far stays in the log.
It keeps running even if you close it 🪄
- Close the panel, and a small timer still shows up in the top-right of the editor, keeping the count going. You can stay focused on writing while still keeping an eye on the time! (You can pause or cancel right from the mini timer too.)
- On phones and tablets, you get a heads-up even with the app closed 🔔 — the timer panel asks "Get a notification when time's up?" (if you've only used the widget, the panel opens once the first time you open the app). Tap Turn on, and even if the app is closed or you started from the home screen widget, a notification arrives when time's up. With End chime turned off, it arrives silently.
- If the widget shows 🔕 End alert off, notifications are still off — tap the widget to open the app and turn them on in the timer panel. On iPhone and iPad, even if you pressed 'No thanks' before, the card comes back each time you open the panel as long as the widget is on your screen (on Android, if the card doesn't show, turn on Settings ▸ Today's note ▸ Writing reminder once — the same notification permission prompt appears). If you said no before, you can turn them on in Settings ▸ Notifications ▸ ObsiKO on iPhone, or Settings ▸ Apps ▸ ObsiKO ▸ Notifications on Android.
- With a Focus mode on (Do Not Disturb, Sleep, etc.) or Silent mode (ringer off), the notification arrives silently.
- On computers and the web, a system notification also pops up when time's up, along with 'Stretch out and take a good stretch!' (on the web, only if you've allowed browser notifications). The same goes for when a break ends.
- If it ended while the app was closed, opening the app later won't play a late sound — it stays as the 'Focus done!' screen and in your log.
Widget, Lock Screen, and StandBy 📱
- Put the Focus Timer widget (small or large) on your home screen and it becomes the same clock as the app's dial. Pick a time with − / + or the outer numbers, tap ▶, and it starts without opening the app (on iPhone, even in locked StandBy). The large size makes a nice desk clock.
- While it runs, the time left also shows on the iPhone Lock Screen, StandBy, and Dynamic Island (iPhone Settings ▸ ObsiKO ▸ Live Activities needs to be on — it asks whether to allow it the first time). ☕ Breaks show as 'On a break' too, and a notification arrives when the break ends.
- Tapping ⏸ on the widget or Lock Screen pauses it (it doesn't cancel). On the paused screen, ▶ resumes and ■ ends it — ending records only the time you focused, minus the breaks. Open the app and it picks up right where you paused.
- When time's up, the widget shows 'Focus done!' and ↻ Start again, so you can go another round without opening the app.
- Focus sessions started or stopped outside the app still land in your log when you open the app (sessions started from the widget don't keep a 'What are you focusing on?' name or keystrokes per minute).
- It can take a few seconds for the widget to redraw after you tap it. ▶ and ⏸ sit in the same spot, so tapping again because nothing seems to happen pauses it right away.
- Android: the home screen widget is the same dial — pick a time with − / + and tap ▶ · ⏸ · ■ · ↻ without opening the app (tapping the outer numbers to pick is iPhone-only). While it runs, the time left also counts down in the notification shade and on the Lock Screen, where you can pause, resume, or end it. When time's up, the end alert arrives even with the app closed. To have the widget's ticks go out one per minute, allow “Alarms & reminders” when the timer panel asks once — even without it, the countdown numbers and the end alert stay on time. On Android 16 and later, the time left also runs in a ⏱ chip next to the status bar clock while it's going (paused shows ⏸ and the stopped time — turn this display off in your phone's settings and it stays a regular notification).
- In StandBy the widget shows up large, and dark at night. When the StandBy screen dims, your iPhone saves power by updating the remaining time only once a minute and hiding the seconds as '--'. Meanwhile the end time is shown too, and tapping the screen brings the seconds back.
When it's done? 🎉
- When time's up, the dial shows "Focus done!", and you can immediately choose what's next:
- ↻ One more: instantly start another session with the same duration! Don't lose your momentum.
- ☕ 5-min break: a break is the heart of the Pomodoro technique! A break timer runs, and when it ends, it lets you know: "Break's over — ready to focus again?" (You can also hit ■ (End break) early to jump right back in.)
- OK: go back to the start screen to pick a new duration.
- Every session is stored in the log (marked as success/failure, and deletable if you don't need it).
- It also tells you how fast you typed ⌨️ — like
320 keystrokes/min · 9,600 total. It's divided by the time you actually focused, so you can see at a glance how quick your hands were today.- It counts honestly — only real key presses. Text that arrived by paste or autocomplete doesn't count, and neither does anything typed while paused. For Korean each jamo is one keystroke (the number Koreans know); for Latin script one character is one keystroke.
- If you typed nothing at all it shows nothing (it won't write "0"). Sessions you cancelled partway have no result screen, so check those in the log below.
A log that shows your consistency 📒
- At the top of the log, a today's summary ("3 sessions · 75 min today") and a 🔥 streak ("🔥 5-day streak") show up, making it fun to keep the habit going every day.
- 🌌 A star is born: the night-sky strip at the top of the panel shows your completed focus sessions from the last 2 weeks as stars (the longer the session, the bigger the star). While you focus, a new star slowly grows in the middle, and when you finish it stays in the sky — cancel partway and no star is left. ✨
- The log is grouped by Today · Yesterday · by date, keeping things tidy even as it grows longer.
Setting goals & checking your progress 🎯
Below the timer, set a goal and see at a glance how much you've filled with a progress rate.
- Pick one of two metrics: ⏱️ Time (how many minutes/hours to focus) or ✍️ Characters (how many characters to write). Switch between them with the toggle at the top of the goals area.
- Choose a period — daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly — and press Set to stack the goal below as a card. Something like "25 minutes a day," "5 hours this week," or "3,000 characters today"!
- A 'week' for weekly goals follows the calendar's Week start day setting — Sun–Sat if weeks start on Sunday, Mon–Sun if they start on Monday. You can check the current rule with the Help button in the goals area. → Calendar
- You can keep several goals at once — a time goal and a character goal, daily and weekly, all side by side! Drop a goal you no longer need with the ✕ on its card.
- Each card's bar fills up showing what percentage you've filled so far. Seeing your consistency visually is quite motivating. 🌱
- Hit 100% and it's saved into your focus log as 🎯 Goal achieved — something to feel proud of when you scroll back through your records later.
- What counts toward it? — ⏱️ Time adds up your completed focus sessions plus the time you focused in sessions you cancelled partway, and ✍️ Characters counts every character you wrote that day, even without turning the character counter on.
- You can also press and drag on the input field to quickly adjust the value. The Help button in the goals area brings these rules back up whenever you need them.
Character counter ✍️
"Let's just write 3,000 characters today!" — set a target character count and enjoy the feeling of filling it up.
- Enter a target character count in the character counter below the timer and hit Start,
- and a thin progress bar appears at the top of the editor, filling up smoothly as you type (and shrinking back if you delete text).
- You can also choose whether to include spaces (check it to count spacing too).
- Once you hit your goal, a "Great work today! ✍️" toast appears and the progress bar disappears, with that record also saved to your focus log.
- The progress bar only turns off when you hit your goal or start a new counter. No need to hunt for an off button — just keep going till the end!
💡 Tap the number input field to select everything so you can type a new number right away, and drag left or right to increase or decrease the value.
Where do these records get stored? 📈
- Focus session and character counter records are kept by date, so you can check them: