First off thanks to @hnshash for posting us! I created Focuster because as a freelancer and entrepreneur at various points in my life, I have felt overwhelmed with all that I had to do. I studied some of the most effective productivity methodologies like GTD, Tony Robbins' RPM and The Big Rocks First approach from Steven Covey.
I found one of the most effective practices was to actually schedule time for things that are important. It forces you to look realistically at how much time you have available and make the hard decisions about what you have capacity for.
Focuster connects to your Google Calendar and helps you easily visualize how much free time you have and make the most of it. It flows around your existing events and is always updating so your most important work always stays top of mind.
If you have any questions about the product or even around focus & productivity in general please AMA!
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@hexsprite This is actually the way I use my calendar so I'm definitely going to check this out, it really seems as the definitive GTD tool I am going to try, in part because it is already so close to what I do to plan my days; I really hope it enhances that system.
I'm already thinking about great features like tasks linked with a bigger task, snooze task, logs of tasks and export data of time tracking for billing, or delegation of tasks to other people, (perhaps by adding them as attendee?).
One general question if I may: what are the more remarkable features in your roadmap? (if you can share)
And a simpler question: are you planning on enabling sync with iCloud calendars?
Because I really get advantage of having alarms work in all my devices as task managers reminders among other things.
Best of luck for you! Cheers
@cl0_0p Great question!
Next steps for us are nailing the mobile experience, first with mobile web and then an iPhone app to take advantage of the native notifications.
Then:
- Projects and Lists so you group your backlog more logically.
- "Block Time”: Building on the projects to allow "block time" which means I can set aside part of my week for a certain list or project. If the actions in that project are not completed in that block it would automatically roll over to the next block.
For example designate the weekend to work from your “Home” list and your top priority housework would be automatically scheduled during your first free time on Saturday.
- “Work Session Timer”: Basically a pomodoro-style integrated timer that you can use to track how long you’re actually spending working on it.
- “Focuster for Teams”: adding features for small teams like being able to have a dashboard to see what each member of your team is working on, what’s in their queue, and how overall busy or overloaded they are.
Love to hear more from all of you what you would be most interested in! Did I miss anything?
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@hexsprite Block time sounds amazing, all the other features as well! I'm definitely going to follow your project, and try Focuster. Keep it rollin' mate, and thank you.
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@hexsprite thanks for the discount offer - will give it serious consideration. When I click to sign up the discount doesn't show anywhere before asking for my c/card. Is that supposed to happen. Also is the only difference between the first two plans the ability to schedule 2 weeks versus one day? cheers
@helencrozier regular pricing of the plans is 10/20/200... the discounted rates are 5/10/100. The $5 basic plan only lets you schedule a single day a time, where as the Pro plan lets queue up prioritzed actions up to 2 weeks in advance. The Exec plan has all that plus a monthly 1-on-1 Skype coaching on Focus & Productivity. Sorry if its unclear, we setup the offer at the last minute.
The original version was one of the best and easiest ways to make my day crazy effective. The scheduling of your top priorities into your calendar was a game changer. This version goes even farther —the "Now" view Is like zen productivity.
This looks awesome! I had a whole rant on Medium about why task lists & calendars shouldn't be separate and in an ideal world Google Calendar would integrate with tasks and sort them by priority, but this does all of that and much more! Great job, looking forward to trying it out :)
@gevaperry - Focuster now supports Zapier integration with 500+ apps including Gmail, Trello, and Evernote. It's a great way to pull important tasks from your favorite apps into your calendar and follow-up until you get it done.
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I can't see myself paying for this until I see a mobile app that compliments this. I am trying to schedule my tasks and calendar when on the move or on my commute to and from work so the mobile app is 100% crucial for me to make a decision. I just wanted to post this in case others feel the same. Upvote if you agree.
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@officebeats I paid for it (sometimes you just have to be an early adopter, and why not pay?) ... but I agree completely with this, I've caught myself several times this week in need of creating a quick task on the move, and I couldn't do it.
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