Why and How I Built A Study Platform to Help Readers Stay Focused and Productive (focreadus)
Introduction
Ever found yourself juggling multiple apps just to stay focused while studying? Switching between tabs for flashcards, timers, and music can be frustrating and distracting. What if there was a better way? Let me take you through the journey of how I built focreadus — a platform designed to keep readers engaged, distraction-free, and productive.
The Problem of Distraction
We all face it — the problem of getting distracted while trying to read a book. Sometimes, out of curiosity, you want to watch a couple of videos about the material you’re reading, then you have to check YouTube. But there’s a problem, after watching your video, you get caught by the other videos recommended by the YouTube algorithm and so you decide to watch them, which eventually causes you to lose focus.
But it’s not YouTube’s fault, because otherwise, it wouldn’t be wise to recommend videos you aren’t interested in.
For students and lifelong learners, this poses a big problem. Many students, in the name of finding the best way to be productive while reading, try to browse online for many studying techniques and see if they work.
Some of these proven techniques are: having a clear goal, active recall, flashcards, quizzes, spaced repetition, pomodoro technique, mind maps, listening to music, and many like that.
In a bid to implement these techniques, technology has made things a lot easier. We now have platforms that help you to implement these techniques.
You can listen to music on Spotify, create flashcards and practise spaced repetition on Anki, use any Pomodoro timer available or just your phone timer, convert your study materials to quizzes, and so on.
But here’s another problem. Different platforms help you with all of these, so how do you keep track of all these platforms without getting distracted?
That’s the same question I asked myself. How do people listen to music, use a pomodoro timer, use an app to create flashcards, use another one to open the book all at once?
And the answer is that you basically open the corresponding platform for the study technique you’re trying to implement.
But this poses a bigger problem, how do you listen to music on Spotify without getting distracted by your favourite songs? How do you watch tutorials on YouTube without getting distracted by the recommendations? Don’t people get tired of switching between tabs while reading?
The Birth of focreadus
While just randomly thinking at a quiet place, an idea came to my mind — create an ecosystem of all these study techniques. And that’s why I created focreadus.
We’ll talk about the name later. Sounds Latin, right?
So, I decided to build an EdTech platform that helps you study productively, minimizing your distractions as much as possible, and helping you make most of your study time.
It solves the “problem of distraction” or lack of focus. It’s hard to focus when you’re keeping an eye on too many things. So why not just stay in one place and focus there?
focreadus and A Black Hole? How?
focreadus creates a study environment or a zone of concentration, where you have all the tools you need, at your disposal, without having to leave the platform. Or when you leave, it’s because you need to do something outside that requires you to come back.
This concept can be analogous to a black hole 🕳️ in space (or wherever it is, haha). I’m not an astronomy enthusiast (at least I love the cool discoveries), but I read that black holes have so much gravity in them that they tend to pull everything to their centre, not even light can escape!
Relating focreadus to a black hole, you have to be so immersed in what you’re reading that it’s so hard to leave the “focus zone”. All other things you need are at the focus zone, and you guys are all pulled to the centre by gravity, or focus, in this case. Does that make sense? :)
Regarding the branding and why focreadus is just in dark mode, we’ll come to that later in the future. But the idea is that you strain your eyes less when the light is not so bright.
Let’s talk about the features
Allow me to give a list of some of the essential features offered by focreadus:
- Distraction-Free Reading
- YouTube Tutorials
- Spotify Music Integration
- Built-In Timer
- Flashcards
- Sticky Notes
- Collaborative Reading
- Analytics
Now I’ll talk about them one by one, and how focreadus presents these features to you.
Distraction-Free Reading
Distraction is already a huge problem when trying to read anything, especially with digital technology. Let’s try to think about some of the distractions you face while reading.
Are you done thinking? Well, I asked ChatGPT and here’s the response:
When reading on a phone or laptop, people often face the following distractions:
- Social Media Notifications — Alerts from Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc., can constantly interrupt reading. At this stage, focreadus is still just a web app, so it might not be possible to help silent or remove your notifications. However, we will tell you to cancel notifications. If we want to help you, you have to be ready to be helped.
- Emails & Messages — Work or personal emails, as well as texts, can break concentration. Whenever you’re reading, know that it’s not time for work, and therefore you shouldn’t worry about work (unless you’re a programmer, and you have a bug to fix). The more you get distracted by your emails, the easier it becomes, to leave your focus zone.
- Background Noise — Loud environments, like music, conversations, or TV sounds, can make focusing difficult. To solve the problem of background noise, focreadus helps you cancel it out with the soothing background music you listen to, on Spotify. We have our recommendations, but you can as well add links to your favourite playlists and listen. It’s recommended to listen to background music without any lyrics. Studies have shown that they help better, compared to songs with lyrics, where your brain has to actively follow the lyrics.
- Multiple Tabs & Apps — Having many open browser tabs or apps tempts multitasking and reduces deep focus. Well, when you’re using focreadus, there will be no need to switch between multiple tabs any more. Everything you need is in one place, we’ve sort of warped all the features in a black hole or, as you might call it, your focus zone. Tell me, what else are you looking for and why should you switch to another tab?
- Ads & Pop-ups — Many websites and apps have intrusive ads that disrupt reading flow. We can’t preach “distraction-free” while we feed you with ads and pop-ups. In order for you to have the best experience, we have decided to make focreadus ad-free. Now you have no excuses.
- Gaming & Entertainment Apps — The temptation to switch to YouTube, Netflix, or games is strong. It’s not easy to fight temptation, I know, we know. But wait, why would you switch to YouTube? Netflix or games? Well, if you really want to focus, it would make sense to switch to them during your Pomodoro breaks, and when the break is over, no more switching! In the future, we will add a monitor to know when you’re trying to switch to another tab, so we can tell you that we know, and you can feel guilty.
- Low Battery Alerts — A dying battery can create urgency and force a break in focus. Well, this is a problem you have to solve yourself, we don’t have a solar city powering all devices using focreadus :).
- Internet Overload — Clicking on hyperlinks or checking definitions can lead to unintended browsing spirals. No worries, you will not have too many links to click and there will almost be no time you’ll have to leave the platform. We’re also including Google search and Wikipedia, so you can browse while still on the platform.
- Physical Fatigue — Eye strain, back pain, or hand fatigue from holding the device can lead to breaks. We don’t want your eyes to get strained, that’s why we decided to make focreadus dark mode, at least for now. Use a phone stand or, better still, read on your laptop. Just find a way not to stress yourself while reading, it should rather be enjoyable.
- Internal Distractions — Thoughts about pending tasks, hunger, or personal worries can break concentration. I can’t enter your mind to pull out these internal distractions, so my friend, you have to help yourself. Eat well, manage your time well, and when it’s time to read, know that it’s time to focus!
What Exactly Are We Timing?
Well, you might wonder what is being timed. Think about this, you open a book and read for so long, get immersed in it, and at the end, you checked the time and discovered that you only read for 30 minutes. It felt like 2 hours, but just 30 minutes?
“I’m pretty sure I spent more than that!”. I believe you, my friend, the clock must have lagged.
Reading with a timer helps you keep track of how much time you’ve spent reading, and with the analytics, you will know the average time spent reading on focreadus. We also have a special timer called the Pomodoro timer, where you basically read for several sessions of 25 minutes, and take 5-minute breaks in-between. You can see your reading timer while reading, to motivate you to keep going.
Flashcards and Sticky Notes
Creating flashcards is an effective way to read actively. When you create short quizzes with flashcards and write short notes with sticky notes, you’re giving some effort and it helps your productivity. For now, you can only create sticky notes when you’re working on a desktop device (ex: a laptop), and the simple explanation for this is because you can’t populate your mobile screen with sticky notes everywhere, without blocking what you’re reading. But I promise you, we’ll find a way around this in the future.
Collaborative Reading
We have a special feature we plan to implement, and we call it “Peer Reading”. As the name implies, you can read with your friend online, quiz each other, discuss topics and read the same material. We don’t give you all the freedom, so both of you get distracted, so you have to stay in-topic. You can also have a short call to explain concepts to each other and share your reading space.
Analytics
Now to the final core feature we offer, you have access to analytics about your usage on focreadus. Before you start any reading session on focreadus, we ask you to set a goal, and we show it to you, as long as you’re reading. After ending a reading session, you let us know if you achieved your goal or not. The number of books you read per week, the average time spent on reading, how many reading sessions you’ve had, who your favourite peer reading partner is, how many goals you achieved or not, how many focused reading sessions, how many Pomodoro breaks you took, how many flashcards you created, how many sticky notes, and so on. All of these will be curated for you, and you’ll get a detailed analytics at the end of each year, or what we call “focreadus unwarped”. Unwarped, because the black hole already warps everything inside and you can’t see what’s inside while you stay focused, so we have to show you an impartial view or analysis, after reading.
Conclusion
We understand the dedication it takes to stay focused, and it gives us so much joy to know that there are people like you who love to read and become leaders. Let’s work together to give you the best experience. focreadus is already here, and it’s growing fast. Join the early access and become part of the first people to use the solution. It’s hard to be distracted when you’re focused on one place.
Check out focreadus here — https://focreadus.vercel.app/
I also created a WhatsApp group for beta users to receive updates, send feedback and get their questions about focreadus answered. Join here.
welcome to focreadus!
stay focused. stay productive. stay informed.
