Flora is a free, habit-tracking and focus app that helps you stay on track with work and study. I also use it for reading and writing when I know I want to spend a certain amount of time doing these and other tasks. You set your timer, pick a tree and/or plant, put down your phone, and let it grow. It helps me stay focused and away from the distractions of social media as well as make me more excited to do the work.
When I have a lot to do it seems daunting and even if they are tasks I enjoy, I will do anything to put them off. Flora has adorable plants and trees and I love watching my collection grow. I also know that I will have built-in breaks depending on the amount of time I set for my tree to grow. The most motivating factor is that Flora is partnered with Trees for the future, which is an organization that has planted over 145 million trees around the world. Due to this partnership, Flora has something called the Flora Real program. For a small yearly payment (or lifetime subscription), you can plant a real tree once you’ve focused for a certain number of hours.
The app is free to use, unless you want to plant a real tree or stake a bet. If you stake a bet, it means that you choose an amount of money to lose if you kill your tree. You don’t pay anything if you grow your tree and if you lose, the money goes to planting real trees.
There are three plans distinguished by the number of hours you need to grow in order to plant a real tree. To plant a real tree every 120 hour it is $1.99 a year or a flat $120 for a lifetime subscription. This price goes up for the 60 and 24 hour plans, but they are all worthwhile costs. Plus, I love that by staying focused and growing adorable gardens I can help contribute to the 41,000+ trees already planted in rural communities.
While the timer is going you can’t use your phone or your tree will die. If you listen to music though, you don’t have to worry. As long as you don’t want to change albums/stations, you can press play and your music won’t go off after you start growing your tree. If you tend to get lots of calls or texts, I believe your tree will die if you answer them, but if you leave them alone it should be fine. I don’t get many calls, but I’ve never had a problem with texts while using Flora.
The only real problem I have with Flora, which is sort of a non-problem problem depending on the type of person you are, is that I forget about it if I don’t desperately not want to do something. If you are forgetful or not used to timing your study sessions I recommend putting the app on your main screen and setting up push notifications. You also need to have a Facebook page so if you don’t have one and don’t want to get one you would be better off with something else such as Forest which is $1.99. Personally, I have a Facebook page and I like the simpler set-up and cuter tree designs Flora has though both are good apps.
Carlisle In Wonderland 