Working remotely is one of those things that always sounds great to the people that don’t do it, but it has its drawbacks, particularly for those who struggle to keep themselves on task. Thankfully some apps aim to help you tackle procrastination head on, and 5217 is one of the sleekest to do so.
5217 was built based on research suggesting that you’re most productive when working in 52-minute intervals with 17-minute breaks in-between.
This isn’t one of those no-holds-barred productivity solutions that shuts down access to things like games or the internet for a certain amount of time. You can do anything you want in those 17 minutes of off time; scroll through Twitter, play video games — yes, you can even play games during your work day, so long as you get right back to work once your 52 minutes start over.
There’s no limitations at all, and really nothing to stop you from just closing the app and going back to whatever you’re doing to avoid working. Instead, 5217 keeps you in control while eliminating distractions.
In the settings, you can set 5217 to automatically turn on Do Not Disturb mode on devices running Marshmallow or newer, which should keep you from checking your Facebook notifications and “forgetting” to get back to work. If you’re especially easily distracted, you can also disable the notification LED.
At the end of your work day, you can share how many 52-minute work cycles you completed with your friends or coworkers. It’s a good way to encourage others to stay on task — just keep in mind that it’s a paid app, at least for now.
Yes, the app has been out for a while, but the main reason we wanted to highlight it is in preparation for the upcoming freemium version (with a beta already available) that limits you to just 10 work cycles before you’ll need to spend $1.99 for unlimited use, but also adds quite a lot of new features.
Here’s the official change log for the new version, coming sometime soon:
1 – The app is now free with a limit of 10 work cycles (~10 hours of work) as a trial. Users who purchased 5217 before this change will be automatically upgraded;
2 – Added repeatable alarm options. You probably don’t want to be reminded of 5217 during the weekend;
3 – Added a simple Stats page with Medals showing how productive you are;
4 – Added Play Games support with achievements
5 – Added Android Wear 2.0 support
6 – Improvements on animations & reliability
You’ll be able to set recurring work cycles alarms (so you can set them for Monday through Friday, rather than every day), use 5217 on your Android Wear 2.0 smartwatch, and more. The new version even brings Play Games support with achievements to gameify your work week. We’ll be revisiting 5217 as soon as version 3 hits the Play Store.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments