Do you find yourself checking your email when you should be coding? Reading Reddit while your test suite runs? Finally, comes an app that is off to a great start when it comes to focusing on the task you’re performing. Concentrate!

You can set up profiles based on the context of your action. My contexts are set up as follows:

Away

• Sets Skype status to “Away”
• Sets Adium status to “Away”

Blogging

• Opens up MarsEdit
• Opens up Things – I often track blogging ideas there
• Closes my GMail Prism Instance
• Closes Tweetie
• Sets Adium status to Away as “Writing”
• Sets Skype Status to Away

Code

• Launches MacVim
• Launches Gitx
• Launches iTerm
• Launches Lighthouse Keeper – Bug Tracking
• Launches PivotalTracker Prism Instance – Story/Feature Tracking
• Launches Propane.app – Campfire Client
• Launches RallyClock Prism Instance – time tracking
• Closes Tweetie
• Closes GMail Prism Instance
• Opens Ruby on Rails API Documentation in Firefox
• Opens Rdoc.info in Firefox
• Opens JQuery Docs in Firefox
• Sets Adium status to Away as “Coding”
• Sets Skype status to Away

Conference Call

• Launches Google Calendar Prism Instance
• Launches GMail Prism Instance
• Launches Skype
• Sets Adium status to Away as “On a Call”

GTD

Getting Things Done is a methodology for organizing tasks and projects. I practice it using the following workflow:

• Opens Firefox
• Opens Things.app
• Opens VoodooPad – my personal wiki
• Opens Jott in Firefox – when I’m on the road, I will call in actions as they pop into my head. Jott isn’t great at transcribing my messages but I can re-listen to them when I’m doing my weekly review, etc.
• Opens my RescueTime Dashboard – I use this to analyze productivity and see what apps I’m using heavily

Marketing

• Opens Firefox
• Opens Gmail Prism Instance
• Opens Tweetie
• Sets Adium Status to “Away”
• Opens Google Analytics in Firefox
• Opens my Fat Free CRM instance in Firefox
• Opens up the WWR Forums in Firefox

I will continue to refine this list and add to it. Having used it for over a week, I can say Concentrate.app has helped me become more efficient and focused when I need to switch contexts. There are some problems with it and Vimperator I think, but overall it has become a de facto tool. I hope you find it useful!

Tags: application, concentration, Lifehack, mac, productivity

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