What the Tech? App of the Day: Bluebird
Smartphone technology certainly helps us all to be more productive but it can also present distractions. From notifications to social media to YouTube videos to streaming music players, take your mind off of work or a project for just a minute and you can lose an hour or more and get nothing accomplished.
Maybe it’s just me, but my smartphone makes procrastinating much harder to overcome. There are many time management apps to help people focus on many tasks at hand. I’ve tried many of them but just before writing this story, I found another app to help me get things done:
Bluebird.
Bluebird is perhaps the simplest productivity app I’ve used. In fact, it’ll take about 30 seconds to explain how this app works:
Add a task or project and how long you want or need to spend on it. Then start the clock. Somehow seeing that countdown makes you focus.
I’ll add the task of writing this story, which should take about 30 minutes to an hour. The countdown staring at you prevents any distractions. The app also offers background sounds if you think that’ll help even more.
So that’s for one project. What about projects that can take days or weeks to complete?
Bluebird encourages you to split them into actionable tasks. Give yourself 30 minutes and get to work.
Bluebird will keep track of your progress and send you occasional celebrations and encouragement for how far you’ve come
Your progress syncs to your other devices. There’s also a Bluebird app for the Apple Watch that reminds you when it’s time to get back to your desk for the next work session.
Best of all, Bluebird is free with no ads, and it doesn’t collect any of your data. There is a Pro version with more features that’s reasonably priced, but you may not need it. The free version does plenty.
If you just can’t focus on what you need to do, if you get distracted or may Bluebird will do something about procrastinating.
