▲ ▼ Remind me to take break when working from home
I'm forgetting to take regular breaks when I work from home as I get too involved with the task, as there's no one to interrupt me like in office. Without regular breaks, I get back-pain due to over exerting myself with the work which also increases my depression at the end of the day.
Current activity timers require manual start, which are useless when we forget to start the activity timer after a break or when starting the task.
I would like an activity timer which starts automatically when I start the work and remind me at regular intervals to take a break from work without me having to take any explicit action with the timer.
Butt Mover - https://buttmover.com is now in early access, Butt Mover makes it possible to improve our productivity and health without explicit focus.
This doesn't necessarily solve the exact issue you've described but might help with your back pain whilst sitting at your computer. It's a desktop app that monitors your posture via your webcam and shows an alert when you start to slouch. Hopefully it might help you! https://sitapp.app/
Hello @Apsara! I've just launched my product StretchMinder -> https://bit.ly/31Y6ffy and from what I see it looks as if this would meet your needs.
Reading your story, it really sounded like I could have been the one that written that! I was suffering from constant neck, shoulder and back pains and just feeling constantly fatigued from being stuck behind my desk all day when working as a Software Engineer. I also have a habit of being way too involved in my tasks. Like you said all the activity timers out there required manual start, and for me I felt I required more movement in my life on top of just standing up. So even when I used something like the stand up functionality on my apple watch, I didn't know what movements to do because I've just exhausted my brain for the past few hours.
Which is the reason why I've added guided movement exercises which can be done during your breaks. I've also included breathing exercises because we also tend to take hamster sized breaths all day when sitting infront of a desk, and a walking exercise to get those steps in.
Would love for you to check it out and let me what you think! literally just launched this last week and looking to keep improving the product.
Hey, thanks for letting me know; looks neat! I'll check it out.
But, I feel setting up schedule and sticking to it is still a huge ask. Automatic start without any action when sitting like how Abishek Muthian has demonstrated with Butt Pomodoro should be the way to go.
Can you consider integrating such a feature?
Unfortunately with the limitations of the iOS SDK the best I can do here is this. It's something that i've experimented alot with and the conclusion I came to is that I would need to have a bluetooth peripheral device which detects stationary movement which would send that data back to the device. Something way beyond my current stage but might consider if I can see a big demand in the future.
Hey there!
I recently came across an app on the App Store which automatically starts and asks you acknowledge that you have stood up at regular intervals. Everything from the schedule to the interval timer can be customised.
Link to the app store - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stand-up-the-work-break-timer/id828244687
Stand Up! is cool, it would have been perfect if it could automatically detect whether I'm sitting or not like what @abishek did with 'Butt Pomodoro'. I wish app makers like these integrated it.
How about a pomodoro timer which gets started automatically when you sit on a chair, be it before a computer or any where else?
That would be awesome! I have used pomodoro timer, as I said the main issue is starting these productivity timers manually.
But I wonder whether a setup to start the timer automatically when sitting on the chair would be simple enough to be affordable and not some ultra complex james bond level stuff which only few can have.
Truth be told, I've been working at solving this for a while now since you posted the problem as I'm sure many others including myself was facing the same.
It also contains a business plan for anyone who wishes to build this as a product commercially.
This is great work, apart from productivity this can help people with certain health conditions which requires them not to sit for long durations such as haemorrhoids(piles), perianal abscess etc.
This can also prevent several health ailments as the user is motivated to take regular breaks for small exercises.
I laughed out loud watching the video lol it's a really nice idea though. I've thought of how I could potentially add a connected device to my product and this actually might be a cool solution. Thanks for this!
You're welcome. I think such bluetooth peripheral would be a great asset to your platform. Like starting a small exercise routine automatically after 25 mins of sitting and a large exercise routine after 5 such sitting sessions.
But, ensure that you use production grade architecture as mentioned in my Business Plan as the PoC has several unnecessary components for quick prototyping.
Wow! such hard work, yet the final product seems to be simple and usable by anyone. I appreciate it.
Now, how can I get one?
Well, the plan is someone seeing this thread or visiting my blog resonates with the problem being solved using Butt Pomodoro and proceeds to build it commercially for making it available to consumers like yourself.
To make it easier for them to start, I've also included a business plan for Butt Pomodoro - https://hitstartup.com/business-plans/.
I see, come on guys! Someone bring this to market soon.
Meanwhile, I'm sending this to my nerd friends to build one for me.
You write a simple bash script so that as soon as the screen wakes or you open a particular app a timer starts and in order to remind for break a preset timer can be set and the moment the time is up the keyboard is locked this will be an indicator for you to take a break.
Interesting, can you show me some example to understand how it's done?