Working can be prone to a lot of distractions. Personally I feel being able to keep track of the time I do things and having a to-do list helps. Since I’m a fan of cute things, I looked up tools or apps that can help me with it that have cute visuals to motivate me some more.
There are also times I want to stream while working, but I don’t really know what to show on the screen and I wanted to show something else besides my character model. I found some programs (I’m not sure to call them games?) that can be useful for that.
Here’s a quick short video of the productivity tools I will talk about here:
@devpotata Sharing some cute & cozy#productivity tools I like from Steam! #productivitytips #cozygames #pomodoro #studytips #steamgames #cutegames #cozygamest ♬ original sound – Devonazure
Pomofarm
Pomofarm is a cute productivity tracker tool, based on the Pomodoro method – in this method, we’ll work for 25 minutes with 5-minute breaks between, then take a longer break after 4 cycles. Pomofarm helps as a timer for those cycles and we can customize the time durations on our own as we like.
Pomofarm has cute pixel graphics and gamified style, where there’ll be a cute duck on the screen tending to a farm to grow crops and chill. After each timer cycle, you can get points to buy more crops, harvest and sell your crops, and other things to progress such as unlocking skills, companions, and seeing season changing as time progresses.
I was surprised to have one of the creators of the game dropped by on my stream when I streamed this, and it was a pleasant surprise to have a conversation about Pomofarm there!
I personally find this useful and adorable to look at. I do like farming simulations like Harvest Moon so I was quite eager to progress the farm to grow more things and unlock new stuff, which added extra motivation for me to complete working for my time cycle.
What works for me is that I usually set a small goal for each cycle, such as ‘finish lineart for the hand’ or ‘finish coloring the hair’ so I can feel accomplished when the timer ends for that cycle. Sometimes I also set a small reward for myself like eating a snack in the break time or getting to doodle something I like.
I made a drawing of Tomato the duck with my character Kokoba here:
Virtual Cottage
Virtual Cottage is a companion tool that while it does not have gamified features or ingame reward for progression, it helps one focus by creating a chill environment to work with. I often use it when streaming while doing just chatting and doing some work on the side, but I don’t want to show what I’m working on. It’s a simple and straightforward tool to keep you company when working.
It provides a selection of chill lo-fi music to keep you company, and you can customize the sound effects to add ambience to your liking – for example, rain, snow, wind, and fireplace sounds. Personally, I find subtle rain sounds to be the most relaxing and immersive.
Visually it also has a nice art style, it starts with asking you what you want to do and set the timer. You can also add some to-do list to write on the screen. The lighting of the environment matches your local time in the computer to suit the mood. A small cute feature I noticed is you can switch between showing a cat or a dog in the room!
Cozy Time
Cozy Time is another companion tool for working that, as the name implies, provides a cozy environment to work with.
It has timer and to-do list features, and a cute room visual. There is a selection of chill music and you can customize the ambience of sound effects. You can also see a calendar view to track your progress.
It has more personalization options that you can play your own music playlist and customize the background with your own choice of color or image. You also have some in-game currency as you progress with the timer, which you can use to ‘buy’ more items to decorate the room.
Cozy Time
Download: Steam (paid)
These are some of the productivity companion tools I’ve tried out so far! I do use a mix of them for variety and depending on my mood when working on my projects to give a motivation when doing the work in chunks of timeslots. Each comes with their own perks and approach that you can pick to suit your preference.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts or experiences with these productivity companion tools, or if you have other recommendations! Hope this post can be helpful somehow for others!
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