Focus Bear vs. Timing: Saving Time Without a Timer

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According to TechJury, despite the countless number of time-tracking apps, only 17% of people actively use them in their daily work life. As such, any app that can help in time management without needing to manually track time is tempting.

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Focus Bear and Timing are apps that may seal the deal. Can you guess which app is for you? Well, this article is all about finding the right tool for you.

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Focus Bear

Focus Bear is a productivity app that implements features to help people with ADHD or who have trouble staying focused. We are starting this review with Focus Bear.

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Help You Stick to Commitments

The multiple focus modes, especially the Super Pomodoro Mode of the app, make sure you stick to your goals and are reminded of them when you face distractions.

With Focus Bear you can create a personalized morning and night routine. You’re probably used to other habit apps which will send you a push notification to remind you to meditate or study Latin. Sadly it is all too easy to ignore notifications and spend the morning mindlessly scrolling through the internet from the comfort of your bed. To encourage you to follow your routine, Focus Bear will take over your entire computer and phone screen.

You can even schedule when to switch off your computer to end your day properly. Moreover, you can decide to block all apps and websites except a few to eliminate further distractions during work.

Keep You Active and Productive

Using Focus Bear regularly, including setting up a productive daily routine, will help you form healthy habits for an improved lifestyle. The app takes care of your health, both physically and mentally. With its built-in break timer, you will take active breaks at regular intervals (every 20 minutes is the default) between work. Getting up and stretching (or even doing a set of pullups) is an excellent way to keep your energy high and avoid neck strain and those nasty screen headaches.

Track Your Progress

At the end of the day, Focus Bear will show you how many deep work blocks you managed to complete and your total time spent working. Having an overall sense of progression motivates you to stick to any habit for the long term.

You can also log other activities and track your progress over time using Focus Bear.

Timing

Timing is a time-tracking app for all your activities that doesn’t require any manual effort. It offers the following key features:

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Automatically Tracks Your Spent Time

Timing will automatically detect and track your time spent on documents, websites, and apps. It tracks in full URL or file path so you can be sure about its accuracy.

It will automatically recognize and ask to track your time after any voice or video calls for multiple meeting apps, including Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime, and more.

Supports Privacy-Friendly Project Sharing

Timing supports group work and shared projects with multiple people. The team members can freely report time without disclosing any private details or their own personal time records using the app.

Allows Manual Time Recording

Since not every important work involves using a computer or phone, Timing allows you to start a manual timer to add and keep track of your activities.

You can also add calendar entries to make sure each meeting gets counted and billed.

Which App Saves Time?

These two tools are perfect companions. In fact, the founder of Focus Bear is a big fan of Timing and has been using it for the last three years. Whereas Focus Bear has some coarse grained tracking features so you can see how many focus blocks you completed, Timing allows you to go much deeper and see exactly how much time you spent on each app and website. Looking at this data is very helpful for planning your day. You may find that you’re spending too much time on certain websites and can then add those URLs to your Focus Bear blocked URL list.

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Try out the apps at focusbear.io and timingapp.com