I often use timers and alarms either on my casio or on my laptop as reminders for this or that. I routinely get so carried away by whatever I'm doing that I don't notice when the sound alert plays. Sometimes, when I realize later on that the bell already went off, I can recall hearing it earlier, as if it were a faint memory from a half-forgotten dream.
Hi, I'm Manuel, the developer of Zenitizer. Thank you so much for mentioning my app! Quite exciting to see it pop up here on HN, where I'm usually just a silent lurker.
It started as a typical "scratch my own itch" indie project since I, too, was looking for an app like this for iOS and watchOS and couldn't find one that ticked the boxes for me.
Happy to answer questions and always open for feedback!
Love it. Especially the random interval. Wondering if anyone has ever proposed doing this whenever you get a text or social media alert. Seems ridiculous I guess but why not?
Is anyone else obsessed with bells? I fucking love bells. Genuinely my favorite thing in the world is finding big bells and sitting somewhere near them while they're struck. I really want to explore this interest more some day, like if I get hella rich I'm gonna have some fucknormous bell forged. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bqpHuloKZs
TIL the largest bell ever made, weighing about three hundred tonnes, was lost because four hundred years ago, some Portuguese guy stole it and then dropped it in a river:
The default settings are interesting. Are there people doing this every 15 minutes, daily? And otherwise live a "modern" life?
I don't meditate or actively practice mindfulness, the thought of it kind of gives me anxiety in a "I don't have time for that, gotta keep moving" way (though I do daydream and stare into space a lot, but is that mindfulness or the opposite?). In that sense I would almost consider this a form of torture, it's such a short interval, feels like it would always be on my mind (but that's the point?).
What is the relationship between mindfulness and deep focus, are they at odds or complementary?
As far as I understand it, the purpose of this is to avoid daydreaming, getting lost in thoughts or falling into auto-pilot mode. It's very easy to just start dreaming and go onto some tangent inside your head. So every few minutes there's a little wake you call to remind you if you're still present.