Desktop Productivity Apps

There’s been a lot of desktop productivity apps coming out - things like “desktop buddies” that sit above your taskbar, with a little virtual avatar and often a pomodoro timer of some sort. There’ll often be some unique selling point, perhaps a bit of gamification, maybe even some LLM integrated into it. As a class, productivity apps have always seem pretty hit-or-miss for people, and I’m actually not sure how much it helps to have so many options to choose from.

Personally, I’ve played with these:

• Ithya: Magic Studies
• Spirit City: Lofi Sessions (new!)
• On-Together: Virtual Co-Working (new!)

Thus far none have really “stuck” with me for too long (new apps notwithstanding), and I don’t think the pomodoro method has ever really worked for me. Any other tools they have, like a to-do list or journal, seem largely redundant to me since I have SilverBullet for that. I’m certain my productivity isn’t maximally efficient, but I don’t think that it needs to be (and there’s some argument to be had that time spent trying to setup maximally efficient productivity takes more time from being productive than you’ll actually get back). That said, I wouldn’t mind being able to focus a bit better than I currently do.

Their Appeal

But still, I’ve tried several myself because they do appeal to me, at least a bit. I like that on-together wants to make it a bit more social, a sort of ambient presence of those you know who are also working (virtually) alongside you. I also prefer having my full second monitor taken up by something like this over something like a youtube video I’m either only half paying attention to, or am losing productivity to by paying full attention. That’s why the apps I’ve all tried all have full screen modes (my linux setup doesn’t work well with “desktop buddies” anyhow). Kind of a silly way to use a multi-monitor setup though, haha. Although these days I often need to be playing Bluey or Thomas & Friends on my second monitor for my son as he likes to sit in my lap or arms while I’m at the computer.

Perhaps some of this is also just due to my exposure to them. I don’t actually seek them out, but they like having the “Idler” tag on steam, so they all show up in my plusone curation feed! Most I haven’t gone on to buy, but I certainly look at them a lot. And I picked up On-Together because of the similar vibes to WEBFISHING, which I enjoyed playing when it was trendy, and it was recommended in Adrienne’s newsletter.

Interactive Wallpapers

Since I don’t use the tools like the pomodoro timers or anything, really these apps tend to just be wallpapers with customizable avatars, music, and perhaps ambient noises. There are a couple tools out there for just this already! Here’s how I set it up on Linux using wayland.

• Play and cycle through animated wallpapers using gslapper
• Control music playback on a desktop widget using eww (see my config here - you could likely add widgets for a pomodoro timer or other tools as well)
• Play music through Subsonic which has great support for various music servers and integrates with the OS (for media keys and widget support)

Note

I disabled Zen from using MPRIS because it tended to keep the media of closed tabs still showing and having just the actual music player makes media keys etc. more consistent. The setting is in General > Browsing > “Control media via keyboard, headset, or virtual interface”.

These are all free and open source tools, and of course any can be customized or swapped out for alternatives per your preferences. Notably you’ll notice I didn’t use mpd, because subsonic and MPRIS had better options for me when the music is coming from my self-hosted music server, but for others an mpd stack might make more sense (and eww can work with mpd too). I didn’t want to rely on the built-in OSTs or, at best, youtube playlist support because the whole point of setting up the music server was to become independent of those restrictions haha.

Note

If you’re on other operating systems, I don’t have the full stacks worked out but you’d likely want to start by looking at Wallpaper Engine or Lively on Windows, or on Mac.

Choosing Wallpapers

There’s a lot of things to consider when picking these wallpapers, like consistent art style, consistent character(s), and keeping in mind where the widgets are going to be. This is a huge advantage dedicated apps have, since they can coordinate those amongst any participating artists.

One thing I really wanted was to maintain the idea of each video containing a single character, representing either you working or perhaps a coworker working with you (like an ambient co-presence?).

I considered just recording videos of each scene in Ithya, however that game (and all the desktop productivity apps) gamify unlocks for increasing engagement, and in any case its hard to make something loopable after the fact. If I do end up doing this anyways, I couldn't ethically share it here since its from a paid app.

I'd love to see some sort of software or framework to allow people to create the environments and customizable avatars to go in them, and export loopable movies.

I just wanted to also shout out Ensō, an app I don’t personally use but has had a very positive reception. It’s for “write-only” writing - the text you write disappears after a couple lines, so there’s no editing. Then the whole file can be saved later for you to go back and actually edit what you wrote. It apparently really helps for the early phases of writing, or for daily journaling.