Let me preface this by saying, this is simply my opinion rather than a fully-objective review. And if I butcher any terms, don’t sue me.
I only write about things I REALLY, care about. I won’t bore you with a review or an article on something I believe is mediocre. I actually think this extension is amazing in so many ways.
If you don’t already use it, it’s called Momentum; easy to find on the Chrome Web Store. And yes, it’s free.
I love Momentum because it is simple yet sophisticated. Every function is presented simply yet extremely useful functions. It features a:
- Clock — large, dominating, and centered, which you can toggle between standard and military time.
- Welcome Message — centered under the clock. When you first download it, Momentum asks for your name and email, so whenever you open a new tab, it welcomes you directly, making the extension feel more personable.
- Focus Message — under the welcome message. Allows the user to enter a daily focus/objective goal to his/her day. It acts as a great, centralizing message to stay motivated to complete tasks throughout the day.
- Motivational Quote — under the welcome message. A new quote appears every few hours.
- Link and Search — on the top left. It is essentially a bookmark tool and a search bar that can work as a second option rather than the url bar.
- Weather — on the top right. It displays current temperature and can be toggled between Fahrenheit and Celsius with a double click.
- Background Image — high quality pictures of places around the world; changes daily.
- Settings — gear on the bottom left which is where functions of Momentum can be shown, hidden, or toggled in other ways.
- To-Do list — on the bottom right. It is a list that can be constantly modified by entering in things a user needs to complete in day. Users can check off an item off the list when something is completed (and will be deleted after 24 hours), or delete an item from the list at any time.
There is also a Momentum Plus extension which can be upgraded for $2.50/month. The premium option allows more user control/options, like changing the background image/quote, or personalizing your to-do list with custom fonts and colors, or even being able to sync other external planning tools such as Trello, Todoist, Wunderlist, Google Tasks to Momentum.
Conclusion:
The old “new-tab” page offered by Chrome was nice but useless: it offered pages I frequented which I could easily navigate to. But I found it no different than searching for a page with the URL bar. I also found after downloading Momentum that it made me less distracted to easily link myself to Youtube or Facebook and continue my train of procrastination when I needed to focus on my work.
Momentum combines all the useful planning tools in any person’s busy day into one, aesthetically-pleasing layout. I really believe it keeps me motivated to finish the work I have and serves an important, yet simple function in my productivity everyday. Say goodbye to the chaotic and cluttered Yahoo or Google new-tab page and hello to Momentum.
