Terrible Focus
A focus app with a potato who needs your attention
Everything
The product
Terrible Focus is a focus app featuring a hand-drawn potato character who needs your focused attention to build a home in a forest clearing. Rather than restricting phone use through punishment, it replaces the urge to check your phone with something meaningful.
What if there was someone who genuinely needed you to put the phone down, not to punish you, but because they couldn't do their work without your focused attention?
How it works
The potato suggests tasks during focus sessions (5-120 minutes). There's a real-time 1:1 ratio: each minute you focus equals one minute the potato works. A "Give me a minute" button allows pauses without penalty. The clearing evolves with use, becoming more lived-in over time.
Design philosophy
The app intentionally avoids gamification mechanics like streaks, metrics, and leaderboards. Instead, it emphasizes building something tangible together: you can stop whenever you want and what you made doesn't disappear.
Everything is hand-drawn, prioritizing a wholesome feeling where the potato just wants to build a home rather than extract engagement metrics.