Are you a writer struggling with phone addiction? Forest app is the productivity app that is made for helping you stay focused on the task at hand.
It prevents you from using your phone while you are working on a task.
It also has other features besides helping you focus.
The app is published by the Chinese app maker Shaokan pi.
What the app does is it gives you an opportunity to plant a tree for a twenty-five minutes period, which means you doing a pomodoro for twenty-five minutes you set the app to focus on what you are doing writing, planning, etc .
If you leave the app, the tree dies, but if you stay focused for the twenty-five minutes period, the tree grows.
It is an incentive measure to prevent yourself from using your phone while working .
The app has a lot of things on the menu .
Let’s explore
Forest Menu and Features
Forest
In the forest, you see the overview of your activities in the app.
You see, the number of trees you have planted and number of times you have been focused (done pomodoro).
It gives you detailed statistics on when you spend your focus time .
It also records your app usage and where you spent the time on.
In the overview, you can also streamline your search to tags.
Tags are categories for the task you worked on. They help you organise the tasks and focus period .
They have a seven tags you can use.
- Sport
- Entertainment
- Rest
- Social
- Study
- Work
- Other
Only pro members can make custom tags .
Timeline
The timeline gives you the tasks and activities you have done so far.
It gives you the name of trees you have planted and when you planted them.
You can also see the places you spent your time during the focused section. This feature is available for pro members only.
Friends
The friend feature is available for pro members. It allows you to run pomodoros and stay focused with your friends that forest pro members.
Achievements
This allows you to gamify your focus period. It allows you to win coins when you focus.
For pro members only.
Store
Classic
You can access up to six trees as a free user . If you want to get access to more species of trees and flowers, you would have to upgrade to the pro plan.
Exclusive
The exclusive is a range of time specific species of trees that are released to mark special occasions like the birthday anniversary of the app.
Sounds
For most people, we need a touch of sound while working.
As a free user you get access to a select number of sounds like cafe in Paris for that coffee shop sound when writing .
There are other sounds like night forest, rain and thunder ,forest rain ,times square and sandy beach
Real forest
When you click on the real forest menu item, you get to see
- Number of trees you have planted
- Number of trees your friends planted
- Number of trees everyone has planted
Forest app doesn’t stop at planting virtual trees on your phone . You can also use the coins you earned from your focused periods to plant actual trees in actual places .
The forest garden program is a partnership between the Trees for the Future and the Forest app.
As at the time of writing this blog post, 917,689 trees have been planted.
They currently plant trees in East Africa and West Africa.
They have planted in five countries
- Cameroon
- Kenya
- Senegal
- Uganda
- Tanzania
News
The news is where you get notified of new flowers and trees species that have been added to the list of trees .
Stay up to date so you beautify your forest with new trees.
You can also follow them on social media.
Plant reminders
If you want to focus on specific periods . You can set up to ten reminders. You can also set these reminders to repeat so you don’t have to set them every time. If they are recurring tasks.
How to use forest app?
Yeah, I have talked about all the features of Forest app .
Let me give you a quick guide on how it works.
Plant mode
I like to call it focus mode.
When you get to the app. You are on a home page that prompts you to plant a tree .
Deep focus mode
To access the focus mode, click on the fire 🔥 icon at the top. It forces you back to the app if you leave during the focus period.
That’s why it’s deep focus .
App allow list
Pro members can allow some apps during the focus period.
For instance, you might focus on writing using Google docs. You can add this app to the app allow list and it will give access to it when using the deep focus mode.
Plant together
If you would love to focus with your friends. The plant together feature would make doing so fun.
If any member of the focus mode leaves the forest app. All the trees of the members withers. Not being the black sheep of the group can get you working .
When you click on the circle with a tree, it takes you to where you can change
- the type of tree you want to plant for that focus period ,
- The lengths of focus period ranging from ten minutes to one hundred and twenty minutes
- Tags combination
How much does the forest app cost?
The forest app cost a one-time fee of $1.99 dollars . When you purchase in Google play store you can use it across all your Android devices. You would have to purchase buy it for your iOS devices . The purchase does not cover cross platform. It also has a limited free version.
Click here to download the forest app
Conclusion
In a world of numerous things like social media ,news and gossips at our fingertips .
When we make our phone tools and not masters .
The things we prioritise get the attention they deserve.
Let me know the tools or apps you use to help you stay focused and productive as a writer.