Focusing in 2021
Easy? No.
Contributing Writer: Levi Weller
Fall 2021
I was heading over to my buddy’s place in my ¾ ton truck
and while at the stop light that turns to his street I received
a text message from him. Although I was less than 500
feet from his house I still picked it up and looked at what
he said. Even while driving one of the biggest vehicles on
the roadway, I still endangered myself and everyone
around by distracting myself. The issue many of us have in
today’s world is focusing. Driving is one example of
something we all are supposed to be focused on while
doing. Staying focused was usually not a hard thing to
accomplish but with all the distraction surrounding us in
this time and age it has become a rare feat many people
struggle with. Since this is such a tough accomplishment
for the average human, we have begun designing tools to
help such as apps, sounds/focusing music, and much
more to help us achieve the focused state of mind. This is
such an important topic during this time because there is
so much information we receive and need to transfer over
to work and not being focused really interferes with this
process. If only there was a tool that could maybe, just
maybe help us with this global issue.
Music? Podcast? An app! What if there was an app that
could help you focus, keep your mind in one place and
keep you off your phone while technically using your
phone! FLORA. Flora is a downloadable app that uses
many different routes to help solve this issue. Flora uses a
garden feature to involve and intrigue the user while
helping them. You grow trees with the time you are on
what is called the “Focus Timer.” This is a 25 minute or
more period with a 3, 5, 10, 15, and 30 minute selectable
break time. During this 25 minutes Flora shows your tree
growing and sends inspirational quotes to the user to help
motivate. The garden holds all your trees, big and small.
But! Beware! If you swipe out of the app or just leave it and
proceed to another app, your tree will die. There are
rewards along the way for your trees so you're not doing
this all for nothing… of course. Another fun feature Flora
offers is the friends page. You can friend request your
peers and focus with them! This page or feature also,
without the user’s quite knowing, gets others to focus
better/more too! This app excels at getting it’s users work
done by eliminating the distraction of the cell phone, which
is something we all could use help with. This can come in
handy even when you need to be focused in other
situations such as driving. If we go back to me driving my
¾ ton truck down Balfour and I have a tree growing on
Flora, it could possibly halt me from picking my phone up
to view distracting content such as a text message or
Snapchat.
This app, like any other app, does have its limitations. It
does make the user not wanna click on that text message
notification but it can’t block all notifications together.
Therefore you could be receiving distracting content
throughout your focus time which could throw you off track.
Other than that, Flora looks to be a great solution that we
could’ve used in the past, now and in the future. I do
believe that Flora can be very successful and help tame
this issue but it could use some advertisement to get more
constant user’s and spread the word. With some of these
tactics Flora could easily become an app that solves the
problem that millions are attempting to do. And with that,
Flora, the app that keeps you focused in 2021.
References
Aubrey, Allison. “Mindfulness Apps Aim to Help People Disconnect from Stress.” NPR, Oct.
2017. www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/10/16/557633144/mindfulness-apps-aim-to-help-
people-disconnect-from-stress.
Bishop, Bill. “The Big Sort.” YouTube, uploaded by TheVillageSquare, 31 Jan. 2011,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvzAUSVnIbo.
Craft, Kevin. “Kialo Is an Internet Unicorn.” UrbanDaddy, Nov. 2017,
www.urbandaddy.com/articles/40999/kialo-is-an-internet-unicorn.
Hauser, Eduardo. “‘The Daily Me’ Is Neither New nor Bad.” The Huffington Post, 2 May 2009,
www.huffingtonpost.com/eduardo-hauser/the-daily-me-is-neither-n_b_181922.html.
Kristof, Nicholas. “The Daily Me.” New York Times, 18 Mar. 2009,
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/opinion/19kristof.html.
Leigh, Simon and Steve Flatt. “App-based Psychological Interventions: Friend or Foe?” BMJ
Journals, vol. 18, issue 4, 2015, ebmh.bmj.com/content/18/4/97.
Le Pierres, Margaux. "Digital Junkie-Information Overload." Creative Technology and
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