Another day, another deadline: these time management apps help you to stay within scheduled deadlines, work focused and feel rewarded while doing so. Proper time management reduces stress and is crucial for success – and happy clients. That’s why we collected some of the most popular focus apps.

 

 

With more than 70 percent of creatives in the visual arts working freelance, it’s about time to look at some tools which can make the planning and the actual working period of a project much easier. If you don’t have a team-lead bossing you around and or colleagues around to make sure you stay within the timeline, its good to know there are apps who can help you stay on track.

 

 

Focus Tomato

This app is build around the “pomodoro technique” which was invented by Francesco Cirillio in the 1980’s. It consists of five steps: write down your task, set an alarm for 25 minutes (Cirillio’s alarm was a tomato shaped kitchen timer), work on the task, end when the alarm goes off, take a short break and return to you task after for another 25 minutes. One slot of 25 minutes is one pomodoro. After four pomodoros, you take a long break. Repeat until the task is done.  Focus Tomato has a nostalgic design, offers various background sounds like white noise, coffeehouse sounds or library sounds and helps you stay focused in a humorous way.

 

 

Tiimo

A visual planner app. Tiimo was developed for neurodivergent brains (adhd, autism, bipolar, ptsd to name a few examples), however it aids anyone – also people with “normal” (neurotypical”) brains. You can set a focus timer, schedule reminders and engage with the community because we all know its easier to do something if you don’t feel alone.

 

 

Forest

Forest has a playful approach to time management. The concept is super easy: you plant a tree when you set your timer. If you unlock your phone-screen before you achieved the time limit, the tree dies. All your trees are collected in your forest and you don’t want a forest filled with dead trees. With every successful session you gain coins with you can use to unlock more fancy trees and make your forest more colorful. With a total of 2500 coins you can plant a real tree with forest’s collaboration partner “Trees for the Future”. Good for your focus and good for the planet. Of course, you can connect with friends and focus together. Another good part is the chronic where you have an overview of all your sessions.

 

 

Mars Craft

Another gamified focus help: while you stay away from your screen and are productive, you build a colony on mars. If you leave the app during a session one of your buildings explodes. Mars Craft is the app that is mostly built like a game: you can reach various levels, a battle with your friends and explore mars bases from users from all over the world.

 

 

Freedom

This is the only app that is designed to be synced across devices. While the apps mentioned before work on phones, iPads and some on apple watches, freedom one allows you to block apps, certain websites or the whole internet while leaving the opportunity to make website exceptions on your computer. Focus on what you really want to achieve without being distracted.

With this selection you can surely find the perfect app for more productivity, less time wasted and no more guilt.

Image Credits:

Cover: ©Tiimo

1 © Focus Tomato
2 © Tiimo
3 © Forest App
4 © Mars Craft
5 © Freedom App