Hey all, I’ve been a paying customer of FlowState since 2016 and wanted something similar for Obsidian.
It’s really fun. And stressful. But mostly fun.
Basically, you start a timer for X minutes and during those X minutes you must write continuously. If you pause longer than 5 seconds, everything you’ve written is deleted.
I’ve used it to learn how to really, really not care about a first draft (because there isn’t time to care)
If anyone is interested, I could build it to where it’s a community plugin.
Ha, I was going to build something similar—really glad I don’t have to! Excited to try this out.
Edit: Any thoughts on the “delete everything” paradigm vs. other options? I was thinking about deleting one word per second to keep the pressure on, but allowing some pauses. Like a forgiveness mode or something.
Oh, I just realized: FlowState does it in a way. The text starts to fade with each idle second until it’s gone. @ryanjamurphy what do you think of that option?
Yeah! I see this kind of option as valuable if you’re trying to keep the pressure on for a longer document. Deleting everything is alright if the content is small, but a less mass-destructive route would be nice if you stand to lose a lot. It makes it easier to use on e.g., draft 2.
Do you have it working in obsidian, or still thinking about the idea of making a plugin?
I’ve been trying to be better at writing by making a 20 min timer and not having to publish the result so keep drafting, but maybe I need more incentive like this
Fantastic that you did this!!! In terms of intervals, I would definitely add a 5-minute option (300 seconds), I think that 10 and 15 minute options might also be good to have. But what might be easier (and more urgently needed, for me) is a keyboard hotkey that makes it possible to keep going by resetting the clock quickly, perhaps after taking a sip of water, coffee, or something stronger!
Hello!
I loved the dangerzone plugin, have been using it for incredible 30minutes now.
Since the discussion for functioinality is still going, I would like to suggest a behavior I thought about for very big files, essentially creating a concept of “saving” or some “checkpoint”.
Disabled checkpoint: X sec, everything deleted
Enabled checkpoint: X sec, all saved until last checkpoint
Checkpoint could be automatic, such as “everything written until the last activation of the timer”, or an shortcut that could play on the writers ability to remember saving, deleting everything under a header…
I think that this could help with creating smaller blocks of work and in-between stops to think about the text, or to use the dangerzone for getting into flow. I dont know of many people that have written a full essay on one sitting
Great to have the counter – and the notification of completion.
For me the crucial thing is to have some options for different types of writing. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of needing some help in getting the pump primed, of not dallying in starting to write about something. For those cases, 2 minutes is actually just fine. Sometimes, though, it’s a matter of really forcing myself to stay with something, and then either 5 or 15 minutes seems best. So, if I had to pick one, I’d go with 5 minutes, but 2 and 15 minutes would be great lengths to have.
For the cutoff timer, I’d probably go with 5. I tried 10, but a felt myself getting soft…
The other thing about having a 2 minute timer that it fits well with David Allen’s “2-minute rule” on a task. I could imagine having Obsidian open next to my email app, and then I have to focus on writing (in Obsidian) what I want to say in response to the email. Then: select all, cut, paste into email, and send.
