Flora - Green Focus

It’s a good app if you’d like to form new habits and cement them via timeblocking. I’ve used this app for a little over 2 weeks for my language learning immersion and it’s very effective at helping me do a little at a time. I think they also fixed the issue of your tree being accidentally killed if you make one mistake, even if you were still paying attention to what you were doing (this was very annoying for me and turned me off the app initially, because I would lose an hours worth or more of progress simply because my phone screen decided to do its own thing). And of course, I can’t fail to bring up their subscription service. While I haven’t personally subscribed and so I can’t commentate on the benefits other than what’s being told, the idea of planting trees in poorer countries is absolutely sweet and I’m glad there’s people who use this app to do good around the planet. That being said, the reason why I can’t give Flora a full 5 star review is because the “allow Flora to let you use background apps” option, which I’d like to enable as I have some things I’d like to timeblock that’s exclusive to my phone, is completely broken and doesn’t work. If you’d like to timeblock / track your time spent on a given activity and still need full, uninterrupted access to your phone to do the thing you want to track, you’d be better off setting a timer or using an app that lets you do this (like Flow).

For the most part, this app has gotten me off my phone and focused on work. I like that we are not physically able to get on anything else without consequences with the option of a real consequence and the digital figural death of a tree consequence. I would like to see more plants from different places added as well as more customization to be able to look at fully at our gardens instead of just on the top of the screen. It gives me a rush of dopamine by being able to see all of my accomplishments and I think that being able to enjoy something so simple with this app makes me want to use it more instead of just using the basic phone timer. The layout itself is kind of boring and I do not like that the to-do area is in a different place than my trees and the timer. I think that keeping them under the timer will help me manage my tasks better. The option to see a fuller view of our garden could double as a background under semi transparent to-do tasks. I would also like to be able to have the ability to move my trees around. Even if it is just a button that randomizes them in a few different ways. I think this app would also benefit from adding seasonal changes to the trees and plants. That may be a lot to ask for but I find it most enjoyable for games and phone apps to mimic natural seasonal occurrences. Plus holiday backgrounds could also be added. I hope that might suggestions mean anything, i recommend this app to anyone that is neurodivergent as it helps limit distractions and gives us something to look forward to when we complete the timers. Thank you for reading!!!

The timer feature itself was all I was looking for; but soon came to realize there was more. The app is cute and nicely laid out with easy tracking of focus time and break time. Every focus session grows little plants from different locations around the world using the “world tour” feature. This app won’t let you leave the app and go do something else or else a tree or plant is ‘killed’ so I bring myself back to focus. But not just digital plants are being grown, with a very small subscription, you can make it so that every focus session allows a real tree somewhere in their many locations worldwide to actually to planted, therefore a huge help to the environment and you get your work done. Generally a great tool. The only thing I think is unfair is you get penalized for canceling a session or pausing the timer. Sometimes, things happen for a while and we are unable to follow through. It could just be a bathroom break, a desperate drink, a call from a a co-resident. A pause in the timer or a cancel of a session because you realized a bit late like,” Oh wait, I’m not actually starting work yet. I haven’t done this or that. I’ll start later.” Otherwise it’s a good tool and really adorable in design.