FocusArx

Focus timer for programmers

Code has a ramp-up cost. Reloading the shape of a system into your head takes ten minutes or more before you write anything useful, which is why a timer that ends at 25 minutes can cost more than it returns. This one is built for long blocks and for protecting them.

Programmers need 50 to 90-minute blocks, not 25. Reloading the shape of a codebase takes ten minutes or more, so a short interval ends just as the work becomes cheap. Write the task down before the block, silence notifications, and let the break wait for a green build.

Why is 25 minutes usually too short for code?

The Pomodoro interval was designed for tasks that are easy to start and easy to stop. Debugging is neither: by minute twenty you have usually just built the mental model of the failure, and the timer then asks you to drop it.

Use 25-minute sprints for the work that is genuinely granular — triaging issues, writing tests for one function, reviewing a small diff. Use 50 to 90 minutes for anything where the state lives in your head.

How long does it take to get back into a codebase after an interruption?

Gloria Mark's interruption research puts the resumption lag at roughly twenty minutes, and the interrupted work tends to be finished faster but under measurably more stress and effort. For code the lag is worse, because the state you are holding is not a document position but a hypothesis about a system.

The practical implication is that a block is only as good as its perimeter. One notification in minute forty can cost the remaining twenty.

How do you protect a block from messages and standups?

Batch them. Put the block on the calendar as if it were a meeting, set your status once at the start, and answer everything in the break. If a message truly cannot wait twenty minutes, it is an incident, and incidents deserve their own process rather than your attention.

Write the task down before you start — one sentence, specific enough that you could hand it to someone else. A block spent deciding what to work on is a block that gets interrupted.

What should you do in the break between blocks?

Anything that is not a screen with a feed. Stand up, walk, get water, look at something far away. The point is to let attention residue decay rather than to replace one stream of input with another.

If you are mid-thought, write one line about where you stopped before you stand up. Re-entry after a break costs far less when the state is on paper.

How do you know which hours actually produced work?

Log the task against the block. After a week you can see whether the 9 AM block shipped code and the 4 PM block produced tabs, which is more useful than any estimate of how many hours you 'worked'.

FocusArx scores each completed session and keeps the history, so the pattern is visible rather than something you have to remember. Teams that work the same hours can differ by a factor of two in how many of them were uninterrupted.

Frequently asked questions

Is the focus timer free?

Yes. The timer, tasks, streaks and session history are free. Custom 10 to 180-minute presets and longer analytics unlock with Focus Tokens earned from completed sessions rather than money.

Can I run 90-minute or 2-hour blocks?

Yes. Intervals run from 10 to 180 minutes, so 50/10, 90/20 and a full two-hour deep block are all one setting.

Does it work without a connection?

FocusArx installs as a PWA and keeps timing offline, which matters on a train, in a data centre or anywhere the network is worse than your laptop.

Does it record which task a block went to?

Yes. Each session is stored against the task you set, so the log reads as work completed rather than time elapsed.

Is there a way to work alongside other people?

Public study rooms run shared intervals with others working at the same time — the body-doubling effect, without a call. Cameras are optional.

Start a deep work block free