Show HN: A minimalist web timer for focus and time tracking | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: A minimalist web timer for focus and time tracking

iamlockedin.com

107 pointsStephenAlvin40 comments

Started as a timer to track my freelance coding hours and stay focused. It’s local-only, zero-login, minimalist. Not monetizing it (yet), just seeing if others find it helpful. Thoughts welcome.

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I built almost the same but reversed: https://timer.bryanhogan.com/

I made it for time-boxing, so setting myself a time limit on multiple tasks to not get distracted and get things done.

I just made it to have a simple tool, so of course no monetization, local-only and minimal as well.

I love it. I made something for weekly planning a long time ago: https://obligabucket.netlify.app/ - same thing, local-only, and no monetization. Wasn't even sure it still worked. Feels like the task list aspect of obligabucket might fit neatly into the task list I'd set up over in flow timer when it's time to switch into execution mode vs planning mode.

For a while my time management just kinda took care of itself, but there are more distractions and competing priorities in life/work now so I might pay more attention again./

Nice project! Congratulations on publishing this!

I would like to take this opportunity to share a little side project of mine called 't0'. It's an IRC-based timer! You can try it out by joining the #bitwise channel on Libera (https://web.libera.chat/#bitwise). If you're unfamiliar with IRC, there's a quick guide at https://bitwise.codeberg.page/ that shows how to join the channel and start using the timer.

More details on the project are here: https://github.com/susam/tzero

What I find most interesting isn't the timer itself, but how the community uses it. Following the channel activity helps me discover plenty of new and interesting reading and learning material, as members announce what they're reading/writing while triggering the timer.

It looks neat! I like that you use a dark BG (I prefer using my display in low light)

What I'd like to see in a tool like this:

- loose / fuzzy autocomplete for tasks - shortcuts

PS. I made a tool for... sitting and doing nothing at all; people on HN seemed to like it:

https://sit.sonnet.io

https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/

That's a strange understanding of minimalism.

It’s a Steve-Jobs-core thing. Like calling something beautiful.

Yeah, on first glance, I thought it was running on a readme.md

Clean and straightforward! If I could offer one suggestion: maybe not make the post sharing stuff the central item in the page. I understand that it's nice to simply share the tool instantly but it goes against the "minimalist" nature of the tool.

The ublock counter goes up fast, feels like visiting youtube.

Thats because it does. The background sound is streaming from youtube

This does not feel like a minimalist approach at all.

It's very pretty, but isn't something like this better implemented as an unobtrusive (until it needs to be) local app?

I wouldn't mind using something like this but it needs to live in the system tray/taskbar/dock/etc.

Not in a tab in the web browser.

Agreed and if you're on Windows I would highly recommend this one: https://chris.dziemborowicz.com/apps/hourglass/

My thought is why do I need a web app to track my time? If there are no functions that actually require web, then what's the point? If it's to practice your personal coding skills - ok, that's actually a good way. Especially the feedback from real users is great. Otherwise it solves an imaginary problem.

And then I can share the fact that I was doing something for some amount of time? Seems like something opposite to minimalism.

> Not monetizing it (yet)

This is amazing.

Insert coin for an additional hour of timing.

Great tool! I also built a gamified one for anyone who wants a bit more fun http://focumon.com/

Thanks for this. As someone who works in the nonprofit space, being able to track time to individual projects is crucial. Nice minimal tool.

Thanks! I'll keep trying to improve the product.

It's been a few hours and I've made changes based on the feedback:

- Moved the sharing UI down and made the timer central

- Added a button to turn of the rain (which was using significant cpu)

- Lowered the default volume

Moving forward I'll:

- replace youtube audio streaming with just plan sound so your ad blockers don't go crazy

- find a less cpu heavy animation altogether - add import button for your timesheets

Here's my take on a Timer: https://github.com/Klaster1/timer-5. Local only too (it's a PWA), with optional JSON export/import and basic filters/stats. Served me well for more than 10 years.

I remember trying your in the past and really works for me. Only I find the layout a bit funny with the buttons spread out - do you usually use it on your iPad or phone maybe, instead of a desktop?

Honestly, the buttons are there for emergency, I mostly drive it by hotkeys (Shift+? to see the list). Do you think buttons could be placed differently?

Those are great and help a lot, had forgotten about them! Do you usually have more than 1 active task at a time? Found that decision "interesting" :)

Absolutely, these are my two main use cases:

1. Tracking video games, what my timer was originally for. Each game I'm currently playing gets its own task.

2. Tracking day job activities. My first programming job had mandatory time tracking and I so happened to have a right tool for it. A decade later, job task tracking transformed into a habit, which helps me stay organized a lot. During a work day, I often switch between different activities, like reading emails or working on a Jira ticket. At the end of the day, I mark all of these as done in a couple of key strokes.

I needed something like this and it was the first application i "vibe coded".

I added a feature to take in an estimation of the time i needed for a task and then lock me in. It would track estimation mistakes and keep a log of those. I also made it run only one instance in a browser. Works quite well.

I wanted to like this but right when the stars(?) in the background started heating up my CPU tabdouse[0] kicked in and closed the tab.

[0]: https://www.bugsink.com/blog/tabdouse/

I would not use this because of the distracting stuff on the borders. Hardly "minimalist".

Good point. If I added a button to hide the random stuff, would it work better for you?

Simple and sweet. Please turn off the autoplay for sounds. If possible, please add Pomodoro too.

If you want pomodoro try this : https://pomofocus.io/ handles sets of 25-minute focus periods with 5-minute breaks out of the box.

Just FYI your timer crashed my Firefox (and all my frickin' tabs!), immediately after I pressed pause and then closed out the tab.

If you're curious for specifics, my contact info is in my profile.

Anyone know an app that asks me what I’ve been doing instead? I can never remember to start the timer.

After-the-fact is the only time entry method I want to use.

Freckle does it well (letsfreckle.com), and so does Cushion (https://cushionapp.com).

Is the source available anywhere?

love the ambience vibe.

don’t autoplay sound please.

A little aggressive. Somewhat cringey. Mostly harmless. I’ll try it, continue to use it if I like it, and if I continue using it and you ever start charging for it I’ll vibe code my own given the lack of complexity.

Or you could just ask your LLM for other timer sites that do the same thing. Probably burn fewer tokens that way, since you seem to be so cost-conscious.

While the difference between $3 and $5 can often seem small, I find that the difference between $0 and non-$0 is massive. It completely changes the feel of the thing, suddenly you need to enter a CC number or similar when there was none of that before. Even $1 can be quite painful, especially for software. I'm not walking through a store in a mindset of buying things already, I'm just sitting at home, not planning to buy anything at all.

Keep us posted, please. I won't be able to sleep without your update.

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