You’re probably familiar with a number of apps, such as Lumosity and Time Out, that are geared towards helping you relax and focus your mind. While these are certainly great in their own rights, I’m here to tell you about another revolutionary app designed to help you focus your attention in intervals while studying and doing homework.
Forest, an app offered for both iPhones and Androids, encourages users to not use their phones for a certain period of time by rewarding them with a virtual growing tree.
For example, if you want to study without distractions for 30 minutes, simply plant a seed in the Forest app. While you’re studying, it will grow into a full-fledged tree by the end of the 30 minutes— but with one caveat. If you exit the app at any time (say, to use Facebook or Snapchat), the tree will die. So if you care about your virtual tree, preventing it from dying will encourage you to not touch your phone for that designated period of time.
If you continue to plant trees in the app, you’ll eventually be able to create your very own forest.
But what makes this app significantly more noteworthy is that it gives you the chance to go beyond the virtual world and plant real trees as well. Partnered with a tree-planting organization called Trees for the Future, Forest offers its users virtual coins that they can use towards planting real trees in various countries. So far, with 234,109 real trees planted through Forest, users seem to be getting good use out of this app. Not only are they able to spend more time uninterrupted on their work, but they also get to help the environment in some small way. If that isn’t productive, I don’t know what is!
If you’re struggling to stay focused on your work, consider downloading Forest for only $1.99. You won’t regret it!