touch grass

to make you want your breaks. touch grass is a pomodoro timer for your mac: you work, the timer runs out, and a meadow takes over your screen for a few minutes. the more breaks you take, the more it grows.

it’s what the internet tells you when you’ve been at a screen too long: go outside, touch some grass. this app takes that a little too literally.

anything that isn’t work, and isn’t another feed. look away from what you were doing, breathe, move a little. touch grass gives you a meadow to look at and play with until the break is over.

a little, yes. in a 2015 study at the university of melbourne, 150 students did a dull attention task with a 40-second break in the middle. half looked at a picture of a roof covered in a flowering meadow, half at bare concrete. the meadow group made fewer mistakes afterwards. the study

yes. you just miss the vitamin d that break would have paid. nothing is taken away.

you get a heads-up before it starts, and “5 more minutes” puts it off. while you’re on a call it waits by itself.

no. it never records your screen, your keys or your websites, and it asks for no permissions. it only notes which app is in front and for how long, and you can turn that off. no account needed. if you sign in to link your iPhone, only your meadow’s progress is shared.

yes. touch grass is free to download for your mac and your iPhone. paid extras are coming later.

that touch grass isn’t finished yet. it works, but things will still change, and something may break now and then.

yes. this is for the other eight hours.