App+1 | Beyond the Vibe: I Designed and Developed a Different Kind of Timer App

Maybe I have a bit of ADHD too, but I don't need a Pomodoro timer to force me to focus. Even though I frequently switch between tasks in my daily life and work, I can actually sit still in front of my computer.

Compared to "how to force myself to stay focused," in recent years I've actually cared more about another question: "Where did my time go?"

There are too many tools on the market that emphasize "focus" and the "Pomodoro Technique." They often carry a strong sense of pressure: set 25 minutes, lock the screen, and the countdown begins. If you can't help but reply to a WeChat message or go get a glass of water halfway through, this tomato is "rotten," followed by a strong sense of frustration from failing the task.

But I gradually realized that I don't need a strict "cyber overseer." What I need is simply a quiet, objective, and pressure-free time tracker. I want to shift the focus from "painfully maintaining focus" to "effortlessly recording life."

Driven by this simple need, I designed and developed TimeGrow.

Why Do We Need to "Track" Time?

Have you ever felt this way: you were clearly busy all day, but when you lie in bed at night and look back, you feel like you haven't done anything? The emptiness and anxiety brought by this "time black hole" often cause more internal friction than not completing a specific task.

The significance of time tracking is not to turn you into a ruthless efficiency machine accurate to the second, but to see it.

When you start recording the time you spend writing code, reading, cooking, or even just zoning out every day, time is no longer an abstract concept that slips away silently, but becomes a concrete, traceable life trajectory. You will be surprised to find that you actually invest a lot of time in valuable things every day, even if it's just a short 15 minutes each time. This sense of control from having things "traceable" is a good medicine for relieving anxiety.

Minimalism: Lowering the Resistance to "Tracking"

Since it's about tracking time, the act of "tracking" itself cannot become a burden. As an indie developer, I know very well that if an App requires five tedious steps every time I track: "open app -> tap plus -> enter name -> select category -> tap start", I won't last three days.

TimeGrow has only one core interaction principle: Zero Friction.

• One-Tap Access: The App comes with preset icons for common activities (like work, reading, exercise, chores, etc.). Just one tap, and tracking starts immediately. No complex forms, no mandatory target duration limits.
• Dynamic Island and Live Activities: TimeGrow perfectly adapts to iOS system-level features. After starting the tracking, you can immediately switch out of the app to handle other things. The current tracking status will quietly stay on your Dynamic Island and lock screen. A quick glance tells you what you are tracking, and a light tap can end or pause it, completely eliminating the need to repeatedly open the App.
• Home Screen Widgets: You can even place your most frequently performed activities directly on your phone's home screen. Unlock the phone, tap the desktop icon, and you can start tracking time in an instant, making the whole process as natural as breathing.

Core Ingenuity: Let the Tracked Time "Grow" a Garden

The final feedback given by most time tracking tools is often cold bar charts, pie charts, and line charts. Although the data looks professional, it always lacks a bit of "human touch."

In TimeGrow, I introduced a lightweight plant growing system: the Time Garden.

Every time you record valid time, you will get a plant. As you continuously track, the longer you track and the richer the categories, the more lush your garden becomes.

At the end of the month, when you look back at the past thirty days, what you see is not just dry data like "worked 120 hours" or "read 30 hours", but a time garden of your own, personally watered by your every minute of investment. This little surprise of "quietly growing grass" adds a gentle positive feedback to the originally somewhat boring time tracking.

Leave a Little "Flexibility" for Life

TimeGrow encourages you to record everything. Not only those seemingly "high-end" productive times, but also those trivial, real moments of relaxation in life.

The 40 minutes of baking a chiffon cake, the 30 minutes of going out to walk the dog, or even the 20 minutes of pure zoning out on the sofa on a weekend afternoon... all these times are worth recording, and they will all bloom into small flowers of different colors and postures in your time garden.

We don't need to stay in a tense "focused state" all the time; we just need to honestly record the traces of life flowing by.

Final Thoughts

TimeGrow is not an efficiency artifact trying to "transform" you; it is just a digital journal that accompanies you every day.

If you're also fed up with those Pomodoro timers that fill you with pressure, and if you also want to try turning passing time into visible growth, welcome to try this different kind of time tracking App.

👉 TimeGrow

Make life traceable, and may your every minute bloom brilliantly.