Take a short break in a quiet place

It ruined it at the end by asking me to share it on Twitter.

I have my phone on all the time, regardless of if I am on vacation or not. When I take a vacation and I have spare time, I work - sometimes billable, sometimes not. Vacation for me doesn't equate to switch off the laptop.

I spend a lot of time glued to my laptop. When I am not at my laptop, I browse and read mails on my phone. I generally reply to the mails as soon as I get them.

I like it this way - this is a worthy investment of my time. What I do with my personal time is totally my prerogative. I don't see why people feel the need to preach around their lifestyles with silly music playing in the background. And seriously, the obsession with FB bashing is sickening. Don't like it, don't use it. How hard is that?

I am not an outgoing type, and without FB, I would have lost touch with a lot of friends and acquaintances. I don't engage in a regular conversation with many people, but I do catch them once in a while. There are other mediums for communication, but FB is all inclusive for my circle - everyone I know is on FB.

If you don't like being connected, switch off your phone - that's not rocket science. If you feel one shouldn't work more than 8 hours a day, that again is up to you. But why do you feel the need to preach it in a condescending, all-knowing tone.

I thought that was awesome. Discovering this on info-fueled hacker news made it more special.

I'd make several changes:

#1 Fix the F-11 message. Is this an IE thing? Do a browser detect, and display the right message.

#2 Get rid of the share on Twitter links at the end. just tacky.

#3 Get rid of the countdown. 30s break is cool, but countdown display speeds time up. Make the countdown hidden. If the user presses spacebar before 30s is up, should say "try harder" and reset the countdown.

#4 get rid of the cursing wasn't that funny

Anyways, I really liked this, especially the music and the white space.

Nice idea... but I don't like how it implies that I'm wired on social media and notifications. Seems almost patronizing and condescending. Yes, I check my email and facebook often. Yes, I do have a smartphone that gives me push notifications for a lot of things. Yes, I check twitter. Check, check, check.

Does this mean I never take a break from time to time to think? That I don't (or can't) enjoy quiet time? That I'm glued to my digital life every second of the day? That I need some snarky web app to tell me how to "relax"?

This would have more effect on me if I had a Twitter account. Or Facebook. Or Google+. Or if my phone "rang" more than a couple times per day, if that. Or if I had notifications for my email.

Seriously, I can't stand those. It's not willpower; it's a physical aversion to being interrupted.

Oh, and to relax I like either to kill the lights and listen to some Jazz, or to watch people on the street. Reading stuff isn't relaxing.

Cool idea. I'd use music not associated with a show like Lost. I couldn't relax; was thinking about unanswered Lost questions the whole time...

I stared at the "welcome to the quiet place" sentence for 2 minutes waiting for something to happen.

Lousy quiet place if I have to press space bar all the time, only to be rewarded with messages about how addicted i'm supposed to be to things.

Sadly having a mechanical keyboard did not help the experience.

[spacebar] to continue CLACK

I love this, I use it to keep myself in perspective from time to time when I alt-tab to Reddit fifty times in a minute without thinking. Also, use of the Lost soundtrack was awesome. Really underrated music IMO.

This sort of thing is so pedantic, almost insulting to my intelligence. Do i really need a website to remind me how to get off the internet from some random hacker news guy with too much time on his hands? He's almost countering his own message here. This is not a quite place. It's still the internet. I have to click my space bar to get to a new line teaching me about going to a 'quiet place'. Why is this even being clicked up on HN? And then i have to tweet it too? It's a joke right?!

All the spacebar action to read bits of text for <= 2 seconds was not very calming.

I found this incredibly condescending, especially when it likened "a friend" to "meaningless shit". Like someone else mentioned, my quiet place doesn't involve clicking or pressing a spacebar, or a computer for that matter.

Neat idea, but it would be easier to stop everything and sit and relax if one didn't have to press the spacebar continually. ;)

I have a playlist of soft jazz music, and sometimes when I need a break, I will load it up and adjust the volume in iTunes so that it sounds low and distant. Then I'll pull up rainymood.com in the browser, flip off the overhead office light, and go sit on the couch (my office has a couch) for a few minutes with my eyes closed.

With the combination of soft jazz + thunder storm + darkness, I find it hard to stay stressed about anything for too long. Of course, real rain is better, but this still works surprisingly well.

The only (slight) downside is that every time I'm finished with this little exercise, I'm left with the urge to write a 1950's detective story....

Darn, I miss Lost.

Well, Seasons 1 and 2 at least.

I find it confusing that a lot of people found this preachy and patronizing. A lot of things on the internet vie for your attention. You go places on the internet, like Facebook and Google, where you have to endure a lot of ads that tell you what you should buy, what you should like, and how you should live your life. What's so terrible about this one thing that reminds you to relax once in a while instead of giving you yet another point of distraction? This isn't trying to force you into some new way of life. It's just making a friendly suggestion. 'Take it or leave it' applies here as well.

F11 - what's the breakdown of Mac users visiting your site?

Without even thinking I checked Twitter during the 30 second countdown.

The quiet place isn't so quiet then OS X doesn't have a volume level low enough for your headphones :)

Yes, I have to run iTunes at 50% volume, on the lowest rectangle for system volume.

Sorry. Forcing myself to take a break is just like forcing myself to work. Something to be avoided. I think we are misinterpreting the Taoist concept of "do nothing" which I think inspires a lot of these sentiments that "we should take breaks". "Do nothing" means to do what comes so naturally to us that it feels like "doing nothing". We simply allow our actions to play itself out, just like we allow our body to breathe.

I liked what it tried to do. It seems to be a work in progress. The social medial sharing is just to get the message across.

Meditation breaks are great, as is occasionally disconnecting from the matrix. But I'm not sure clicking through text on a website is the most effective way to accomplish this.

I'd say you're better off stretching for a minute or doing some light callisthenics. Perhaps while blasting doom metal.

It worked very well on an iPhone. Taps moved it forwards, and I was surprised there was a dedicated mobile site.

One thing to nitpick: on the countdown, it ends with "1 seconds". Trivial to fix, and really makes it look like you spent time thinking through the details.

The tone and nature of this oddly reminds me of a point in the video game Earthbound, where part way through the game you take a coffee break with one of the NPCs. It serves no purpose other than to give you a break and reflect on the game.

Now I'm depressed because someone I liked on the island just died.

Damned LOST music.

Sounds like music from the finale of Lost.

I sat there for 20 seconds in silence, before realising my Flash blocker was stopping the music. If it were my site, I'd use Flash as the fallback to HTML5 audio, not as the default.

I like its style. I wasn't aware that that's the music from Lost...if i'd watched Lost it might've annoyed me. As everyone said, the spacebar clicking doesn't help, the mixed messages don't help (the share links at the end), the cursing is way out of place and jarring. And i guess in a weird way it actually highlights how sad the whole situation is, to think that 30 seconds of downtime should be enough.

But i do like its style, good work.

At first I was click but then I was click click click. Amitay is a friggin' great designer, but there's no way he can beat my addiction to the web.

Whoa...I went to a quiet place and realized there's a potential startup here. Like a LaunchRock for "Do Nothing" sites. Someone take a stab at it before I do.

Good idea. A quiet place (with lost music) and anti-social media (with sharing buttons at the end). Hopefully, the irony is intentional.

Makes me wonder if the desire to optimize UI/UX and the viral loop will keep shortening our attention spans. It's a prisoner's dilemma where we're better off in the short run but worse off in the long run because we can no longer process longer form thoughts.

GAh! Information overload! Pop "ambient" music, animations, and shit to read; WTF kind of quiet place is this?! If you really want to take a break to reflect, go sit on a park bench outside with a pen and paper.

oh crap, I forgot to turn off Growl and it popup in the middle @@"

A good idea. However, the music made me feel as though the title should be "Take a short break in a Tom Hanks movie".

I found it aggravating. I know when to slow down. The music came on without an invitation. Trying way too hard.

now that we're back to normal, share this on all the social media i've just condemned and give me money.

that ruined it for me. but I'm glad he reassured me it wouldn't be a site that meant to scare the shit out of me!

wtf, I get to the quiet place and someone started playing a bunch of shit music.

Great site. Similar to donothingfor2minutes.com, but with more words.

Anyone know what music is that?

I did not appreciate having to press spacebar for every sentence, so I exited early. For something that tells you to relax, it sure does make you do a lot of work.