This overlooked Mac app helped me double my productivity

I struggle to get everything done in the time allotted each day, and I would pay good money to have more than 24 hours in a given day. Unfortunately, that's not possible, so I went in search of other ways to improve my productivity and combat my natural tendency to let my thoughts wander during the day. I found the answer in an overlooked free macOS app called Liquid Timer.

This lightweight application lets me start a Pomodoro timer simply by dragging it down from my top menu bar. I can set a custom length of time, tweak the completion sounds, and much more. The timer itself is easily visible, but inconspicuous enough that it doesn't distract from the task at hand. So why does it work so well? Even if I'm working on something that is mentally tiring, such as creating a set list of cards for a new TCG expansion, it's easier to stay focused when I know a break is coming.

The timer slips seamlessly into my workflow

One-click to start means I actually use it

There are a bunch of Pomodoro apps available. Seriously, you can find clusters of them right off the vine. Tomato puns aside, many of these apps need to be opened and activated, whereas I can trigger Liquid Timer simply by dragging the icon down from my menu bar and releasing it. By default, the timer snaps into place on the upper-left side of my screen, but I can then drag it anywhere I want to place it. It takes seconds to get started, and that makes it perfect for moving between tasks.

I can even adjust the length of the timer by how I drag it onto the screen. Pulling it lower makes it longer, while keeping it near the top of the screen shortens it. Timers can range from a few minutes to hours in length, depending on how long I want to stay focused (and sometimes, I use them to measure cooking times in the kitchen when I'm multitasking).

There's some psychological magic at work

There's a reason Pomodoro timers are so popular

The effect a visible timer has on my motivation is twofold. On the one hand, the constant counting down of the numbers gives me a sense of urgency. I want to finish the task as quickly as possible while wasting as little time as I can, but it also helps me to remain aware of how much time I'm spending on any given task. When combined with the knowledge that the "finish line," so to speak, gets closer with each passing minute, it helps me stay focused on the task at hand.

Something I've learned in more than a decade of freelance work is that a task will expand to fill the time given to it. Setting a Pomodoro timer breaks any illusion that I have an unlimited amount of time to complete something, and it makes it much easier to avoid staring out the window at whatever might be happening in the backyard. If you struggle with your attention drifting, this little trick is a lifesaver.

It's customizable, but simple enough that I actually use the features

Simplicity makes the dream work

A significant portion of my time is spent trying out software and learning the ins and outs of any application I spend time with. Rarely do I use the customization options in something unless it's truly useful. There are a few reasons for that, but they almost always boil down to the fact that the options aren't actually that useful. Liquid Timer lets me customize things, but there are limits to what I can do — and those limits make all the difference.

I can adjust the length of time and the sound it plays upon completion (and import custom sounds if I want). I can also choose whether to have a colored menu bar, a timer border, and full-screen notifications — all aspects that make a difference in how it appears and how I interact with the timer, but nothing that lets me distract myself by tinkering with the appearance too much (looking at you, Obsidian).

In the end, it's still just a timer

Tick-tock

Liquid Timer is great for my workflow, but in the end, it's just a timer. It doesn't do anything that I couldn't manually do myself by watching the clock. In the end, it's more of a psychological trick aided by a lightweight Mac app than anything else. It won't compensate for poor task prioritization or a lack of discipline, and some people may find a visible timer more stressful than helpful. It also requires someone to actually use it, rather than just starting the timer and ignoring it while falling for the usual distractions.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel

Despite its relative simplicity, Liquid Timer is one of my favorite tools. It's free, almost totally unknown (can someone be a software hipster?), and it looks nice on the screen. While it doesn't work miracles, it removes barriers to use; the drag-and-drop feature is the best part about it, in my opinion. I find it to be a fantastic solution to a common problem, specifically because it is so simple; Liquid Timer doesn't try to solve every problem, but it does encourage sustainable work habits that have yielded results in my day-to-day life.

Anything can be tackled in 25-minute increments

With Liquid Timer, I can break down any task into manageable chunks, no matter how extensive it might be. That holds doubly true for tasks I'm less excited about starting, such as editing a novel (it's the worst part of the process) or entering a lot of data by hand. As I've said, it's not going to suddenly fix a lack of motivation, but it does trick my brain into believing any task is easy enough to do for less than half an hour at a time.