Verified purchaser
Nice time tracking app
(Edited after discussing with dev Macgill)
Rize is a useful app and I really like the app, but maybe the biggest issue is that there’s no distractions calculated or indicated anywhere.
Everything is productive, or maybe I’ve understood the app incorrectly:
Watching Youtube for 2 hours is categorized as “Focus”
having one hour long nonsense Meetings is categorized as “Focus”
Shouldn’t they be categorized as “Distractions”?
Pros
- Super clean & minimalist UI
- Support is responsive
- Break to work ratio
- Metrics are looking great
- Fairest refund period in AppSumo: 6 months (after Windows release)
Cons
- It doesn't wake up after you come back from sleep / close lid / offline, or it has calculated the time when in sleep mode
- It doesn't start up properly when you start your mac / restart, you need to quit the app and relaunch it, almost every time you restart your device
- "Meetings" main category would be better named as "Distractions" since meetings can be productive or distracting. And I try to avoid meetings, some clients want to talk daily on phone / whereby, I tell them no, unless there's really something that's not important.
- Can't edit nor delete categories
- Why is watching Youtube categorized as “Focus”? I think it should be categorized as “Distractions”
- Break to work ratio - could be shown in the metrics view as well, it’s shown only for current day, then it disappears?
- I would like to see the break timer scaled to full screen countdown timer, since the break time font is so small that you need to watch the timer seated in front of your computer
Overall, it’s a great beginning for the app, but the value is somehow confusing, since time tracking should be categorized correctly, otherwise distracting and a REAL focus are mixed together. Hope you could fix it.
GLWS!
Macgill_Rize
May 9, 2024Hey there,
Thank you so much for taking the time to try Rize and provide feedback. We really appreciate it. I've responded to your feedback below. Let me know if you have any follow up questions!
1 ."Everything is productive, or maybe I’ve understood the app incorrectly: Watching Youtube for 2 hours is categorized as “Focus” Having one hour long nonsense Meetings is categorized as “Focus”"
- I'm sorry about the confusion on this. Everything in Rize is fully customizable so you can determine what is considered Focus and what is not considered Focus. If you head your Settings, you can update which categories are excluded from Focus time in Settings > Exclude from Focus Time. Here's a quick tutorial video that shows how we calculate Focus, Meeting, and Break Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-9xEYkm7ic
2."Fairest refund period in AppSumo: 6 months"
- I'm really sorry about the confusion for this but we actually can't support this due to AppSumo payment restrictions. I followed up on a previous post and I'm really sorry if that wasn't clear. We can only support the 60 day refund period.
3. "It doesn't wake up after you come back from sleep / close lid / offline, or it has calculated the time when in sleep mode. It doesn't start up properly when you start your mac / restart, you need to quit the app and relaunch it, almost every time you restart your device"
- I'm so sorry you've been running into this issue! We haven't heard this bug report from any other users yet. If you message us in the support chat in the bottom right corner of your dashboard, we can get some more info and figure out what's going on!
4. ""Meetings" main category would be better named as "Distractions" since meetings can be productive or distracting. And I try to avoid meetings, some clients want to talk daily on phone / whereby, I tell them no, unless there's really something that's not important."
- Thanks for this feedback! If you're interested in our decision behind Focus/Break/Meeting, we've roughly based our Time Breakdown on the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. I highly recommend it! Here's a link if you're curious: https://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/
5. "Can't edit nor delete categories"
You should be able to create custom categories and edit categories! Unfortunately we still need to add the ability to delete categories. It's on our TODO list! Here's a quick video that shows how to create a custom category if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYe8C8m4coM
6. "Why is watching Youtube categorized as “Focus”? I think it should be categorized as “Distractions”"
- If you head your Settings, you can update which categories are excluded from Focus time in Settings > Exclude from Focus Time. So you can customize this!
(continued in second comment)