This project is currently in beta, so it may be a little rough around the edges, but it's usable (I've been using it myself for a while), and many improvements will be coming in the very near future.
Gentle Break Reminder is a cross-platform program for Windows and Linux which will remind you to take long breaks, in a very gentle way.
When it's getting close to time to take a break, a glowing, colorful, semi-transparent, pulsing box will appear on your screen. You can move this by dragging it to wherever you want on the screen, and resize it by dragging the top-left corner.
When it's time to take a short break (indicated by the box pulsing blue), you can click on the box and a full screen window will appear for 20 seconds reminding you to look away from your screen. (This generally follows the 20-20-20 rule: At least every 20 minutes, look at something 20 meters away or more, for at least 20 seconds.
When it's time to take a long break (indicated by the box pulsing purple), clicking on the box will bring up a ten-minute timer, during which time you should get away from your computer for a bit. When you are done with your break, click on the "Let me get back to work" button at the bottom of the screen to reset the break timers and continue using your computer.
For both types of breaks, the glowing box will appear a little early to show that a break is coming up. During this time its alternate color will be white, and the pulses will start slowly, but gradually become more rapid. Once the break is due, the alternate color will change to yellow and the box will pulse at a steady and rapid pace.
Other break reminders that I've tried will either try to pester you into taking a break, or will automatically go to the break screen. I found this disruptive, especially when I was concentrating on something, or "in the flow". Even though I want to take care of my health and use best practices, I often found myself disabling the break reminder so that I could get some work done, uninterrupted.
Gentle Break Reminder is meant to give you a gentle visual reminder to take a break without being annoying, but let you decide to take it when you're ready. It won't force you to take a break, or steal focus from whatever you're doing. (If you're in the middle of typing when it pops up, or playing a video game, you can keep typing or playing as normal.) All it does is give you a gentle nudge to take care of yourself.
(The glowing box can be a little disruptive when it first pops up in the middle of your screen, but you can easily move it wherever you like, and it will appear there for future breaks. I like to keep it on the right-hand side of the screen, about 3/4 of the way down, as a rectangle that's a bit skinny and tall. But you can place it wherever you want.)
I hope that Gentle Break Reminder helps make your life a little bit better.
Note: The current installation process is temporary and will be improved in future versions.
git- A supported version of Python
pip, the Python package manager- Usually this will be installed with Python, but if not you can follow the instructions for installing it.
Run the following commands in your terminal:
-
Go to a directory where you'd like to install Gentle Break Reminder.
- Right now, this project is portable in the sense that it doesn't modify anything outside of it's own directory. If you decide that you want to place it somewhere else, it's as simple as moving the project folder/directory somewhere else.
-
Clone the project and enter the project's directory:
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/lr42/gentle cd gentle-
If you forget to use the
--recurse-submodulesflag you can install the submodules after-the-fact by using the following:git submodule init git submodule update
-
-
Set up a virtual environment to install the dependencies of the project:
python3 -m venv --prompt . venv -
Start using the virtual environment:
- On Windows, run the following:
venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
- On Mac or Linux, run the following:
source ./venv/bin/activate -
Install the dependencies:
pip install -r requirements.txt
-
Run the program:
python3 gentle.py
A flower icon will appear in your system tray, indicating that Gentle
Break Reminder is running. (If you don't see the icon in your system
tray, check to make sure it is not hidden in an overflow area,
especially on Windows.) Every once in a while, a colorful box will pop
up on the screen reminding you to take either a short break (to look
away from the screen) or a long break (to get away from the computer and
stretch your legs). (The times and breaks can be customized in the
config.toml configuration file.)
-
Open a terminal in the project's directory.
-
Run the following commands:
- On Windows:
venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 python3 gentle.py
- On Mac or Linux:
source ./venv/bin/activate python3 gentle.py -
Enjoy!
The program can be customized by editing the values in the config.toml
configuration file. There is further documentation there on what each
option does.
This has been tested on the following platforms:
- Windows
- Linux
- X11
- Cinnamon
- XFCE
- LXDE
- OpenBox
- X11
Note that window transparency does not work on non-compositing window managers, simply because it's not a feature the window managers support. The program should still be usable otherwise.
This program will run on MacOS, but exhibits some weird behavior. If you run MacOS and would like to help me troubleshoot and fix this, please reach out.
- Wayland on Linux
The flower icon in the system tray is used under the Flaticon license. Please see Flower icons created by Freepik - Flaticon for more information.
The long chime sound is used under a Creative Commons 0 license:
Singing Bowl Male Frequency by steffcaffrey -- https://freesound.org/s/44991/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
The image used in the splash screen is used under a Creative Commons 0 license.
