Reviewers largely say Focusmate is a simple, reliable accountability tool that helps them start tasks, stay on track, and build routines, with especially strong praise from people with ADHD, remote workers, and students. Many mention long-term use, real gains in productivity, and an unusually strong sense of community. The main friction is around no-shows, late cancellations, matching preferences, messaging, and other workflow details, with repeated requests for better goal tracking and partner filters. One sharply negative review also raises concerns about moderation fairness and transparency.

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•2 reviews

There has only been one tool that I have returned to time after time after time....for YEARS. It's FocusMate. My boss used to think I was crazy to want other people (strangers!) on the internet to work with me, but honestly, it's the only thing that has worked when I'm in a rut. FocusMate is probably responsible for saving my career on more than one occasion. As someone who struggles with ADHD, FocusMate is a gift that sometimes feels too good to be true. Affordable. Works every single time.

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13 views11mo ago

•2 reviews

Just logged my 1000th session on Focusmate - it's my #1 tool to getting more stuff done (and better quality stuff!) I've dabbled with other accountability platforms and I keep coming back to Focusmate. For me - it's the best tool out there. There's huge power in making an appointment with another human to get meaningful work done. You do get no-shows but there are so many users that a replacement is usually found within 2min so the show rolls on. And you meet some great people doing interesting things from all over the globe. Thank you Focusmate and all my digital workmates!

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5 views2yr ago

Focusmate

Pete, thanks so much for taking the time to rate and review. I'm delighted you've had a positive experience. I'm also sorry to hear of the no-shows; this is something we're currently focused on improving. Please reach out any time (hi@focusmate.com) with any additional thoughts or concerns!

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2yr ago

•1 review

One of the most life-changing tools I've ever used! I wish I'd found it sooner! Incredible for motivation, with beautiful unexpected connections with people worldwide who are working on different things (and who are keen to hear about what I'm doing, too). I've only been using it a few months and already coworked with data scientists, software engineers, someone who took me along for their morning walk as the sun rose in Berlin (sharing the view on camera on their phone), someone playing cello, people doing food preparation, and others using it to get through life admin of paying bills and preparing notes for a medical appointment - with their cute cat sitting with us. It's simple and easy to use. I love that I can match with a random stranger or use the "favourites" functionality to schedule sessions with people I already know. I'm very grateful to the founders and all the staff who have been and continue to be involved with developing and maintaining this. You're changing lives. Thank you.

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3yr ago

•1 review

Focusmate has genuinely changed my life for the better. I got divorced in August of 2022 and felt so lost as to how to get my things done without the support of a partner. I use Focusmate every time I am in office and it has helped me get those pesky tasks done, projects I have been putting off, even cleaning my home. It's allowed me to be able to move forward with my business and Im so grateful! I have a youtube channel and I even mentioned them in my last video because I just want everyone to know how incredible this tool is. https://youtu.be/VbmVyTwQga4

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3yr ago

•1 review

--> I have thought many times that it would make sense for people with mic on/off preferences to be matched automatically with each other. --> Even more importantly: It would be great if those who have no mic at all and only write their hello & goals into the chatbox ("chat only") could be matched among themselves. --> A smart improvement would be this: Focusmate measures *how* punctual someone typically is and then matches them with people who have a similar punctuality score. Thus, those who care about starting early / on time are matched with each other and those who prefer being relaxed are matched with each other. --> Anything you can do to make focusmate easily and cheaply available for people with few financial means in developing countries is much appreciated. PS: As always -- I LOVE focusmate.

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3yr ago

•1 review

Focusmate has been such a game changer for me in both my work and personal life. I love being able to schedule time for whatever I need to get done and not worry about it until then. I love the idea of matching with people doing similar things like desk/non desk work as it helps me branch out to think about different ways I can use focusmate to help me get life things done. I would love for it to be easy to switch between these types of tasks or maybe assign different sessions for different categories in easy ways- I wouldn't ever want to have to choose just one style of work for my profile in general- some days I need to write, others, cleaning and organizing is on my schedule. I am a sucker too for color coding- so if that's anywhere in the future I'd be on board!

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3yr ago

•1 review

Hi Taylor and everyone else on the focusmate team, first of all, thank you so much for this product. It's absolutely a lifesaver for me as a procrastinating PhD student. I also much appreciate all the new features and I'm excited about the upcoming ones. 1. Feature request: when I click on someone's profile, have it pop up in the same tab that I'm already in (by maybe squishing the calendar to the right) instead of opening up in a new tab. 2. Performance request: when I have focusmate up on my computer, sometimes it takes a lot of computer processing whatever (I am not a software expert) and so then the rest of the programs I'm running go a lot slower. I'm not sure if my computer is just old, but I don't have this problem when I'm on zoom or another video conferencing platform.

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3yr ago

•1 review

I completed 2 years and 2 months on Focusmate. To say that Focusmate changed my life would be an understatement. -It helped me build myself up--bit by bit. -I built my freelance writing business from scratch. I wrote one book, a second draft, and several short stories. -I didn't fall apart, changing countries twice in 14 months because of Focusmate. -It gave me the self-discipline that I never thought I possessed. I had all these dreams about how I wanted my life to look, but no real plan to get there. Focusmate taught me how to plan things out and achieve a tiny chunk in each session. It helped me on bad mental health days. Days, where I would have cried into my pillow, became days of journaling, meditating, self-care, and talking to friends on FM. 🙂 It gave me a tonne of like-minded friends from all across the globe. Since I am a freelancer working from home, prior to FM, I literally did not speak to anyone on most days. Focusmate not only changed that but also gave me the opportunity to know some amazing people and be a part of their journeys. I've cheered completed dissertations, celebrated job wins, and talked about the struggles of introverts, creatives, and neurodivergent folks. Focusmate helped me realize that I'm not alone. There are beautiful strangers right at the corner (or, maybe, on the other side of the globe) waiting to become friends. This platform is helping me become the version of myself I've always aspired to be. I don't know what I'd do without Focusmate. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 💖 Here's to many more years of getting life done together on Focusmate.

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3yr ago

•1 review

I've found that keeping a short record of my sessions has improved my Focusmate experience. I log the initial goal at the beginning, and then afterwards a rating 0-5, what I accomplished, and whether I was off task. If there's no record, it's easy to let a few sessions go by without getting much done; writing it down increases my accountability to myself. And especially so if I then have a system to *go back and look* at what I've written down, or summarize it in some way. I'd be enthusiastic about a 'rate 0-5' prompt built in to FM at the end of a session, plus some graphs in your profile of your average ratings each day / week so you can see your progress.

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3yr ago

•1 review

I'm relatively new to Focusmate but it's honestly been transformative to my work and my productivity. I do have a few suggestions: 1. Allow users to make their pronouns visible publiclly in a way that is meaningful. I shouldn't have to open a partner's profile to see their info before a meeting starts. Some people get around this by adding their pronouns instead of their last name. This is exactly what I would like to see. 2. Allow matching/exclusion of partners based on what type of session they want to have (e.g. chat only, mic on/off, screen share). Again people get around this by adding this info to their name field but it's not ideal. 3. The ability to trigger a rematch for a scheduled session without having to cancel and rebook (often just matching with the same person again). I don't always want to snooze the person -- I've never met them. but maybe I'm just not in the mindset to have a session with a particular type of person or maybe they already indicate they only do chat and that's not what I want at that moment. Again. LOVE the service. I recommend it to everyone I talk to these days.

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3yr ago