Focus

I didn't need another timer. I needed something that would stop me from getting distracted.

When I'm working or studying, I usually know exactly what I should be doing. The problem is everything else that is one click away.

I could sit down intending to study for two hours, open my laptop, and tell myself I'll quickly check something. Then another tab opens, then another app, and before I know it, a significant part of the time I set aside for work is gone.

I've tried the usual solutions: timers, productivity apps, website blockers and telling myself to simply exercise more self control. The problem with most of them is that they still leave the final decision to me.

When I'm already distracted, giving myself a button that says “Disable” isn't particularly helpful.

So I decided to build something for myself.

Designing around the moment discipline usually fails.

The idea behind Focus was not to help me remember that I should focus. I already know that.

It was to create an environment where focusing becomes easier and distraction becomes harder.

I wanted to be able to decide beforehand what I was going to work on, what I didn't need during that time, and how long I wanted to stay focused. Once a session started, the app would enforce those decisions instead of constantly asking me to make them again.

That became the foundation of the product.

Focus is about protecting a block of time.

A focus session lets me set a period of time specifically for studying or working. During that period, distracting websites and applications can be blocked while the things I actually need remain available.

I can also create different focus profiles for different situations. A study session might need access to my notes, browser and certain academic tools, while a design session might need Figma and my browser but nothing else.

The idea is simple: decide what deserves my attention before the session starts, then let Focus protect that decision.

Making distraction require a little more effort.

One of the things I found interesting while designing Focus was that completely removing every escape route wasn't necessarily the right approach.

Instead, I wanted to introduce just enough friction between the impulse and the action.

If I try to disable a restriction, there is a temporary limit. If I start a strict focus session, I can't simply change the rules halfway through. Even uninstalling the app requires an extra step.

These decisions are not there to punish the user. They exist because the user who created the focus session and the user who wants to escape it five minutes later are often making very different decisions.

Focus is designed to help the first version of me win.

The interface stays out of the way.

Because the product is meant to help me concentrate, the interface itself shouldn't become another source of distraction.

I kept the dashboard structured around the things that actually matter: what is being blocked, what is currently active, how much time I've spent focusing, and what my current session looks like.

There is also a more immersive Focus Mode that strips the experience down further while a session is running. The intention is to make the transition from “setting up my work” to “actually doing the work” as short as possible.

Built because I wanted to see if I could solve the problem differently.

Focus started as a personal productivity problem, but it became an interesting product design exercise.

Instead of asking, “How can I motivate someone to focus?”, I started asking, “What would happen if the environment itself helped them stay focused?”

That shift shaped almost every decision in the product.

I designed the experience around my own habits and frustrations, then used AI and vibe coding to turn the concept into a working desktop application.

It is still a personal experiment, but it represents something I find increasingly interesting about product design: sometimes the best way to understand a problem is to build the thing you wish existed.

Focus is my attempt to make the right decision once, before the distractions start.