Plantie: A Great (and Free) iOS Productivity App
A Pomodoro app that combines gamification and task disruption to increase work motivation
Introduction
Recently, I’ve been trying to get into the habit of setting up a Pomodoro timer whenever I need to work (if you don’t know what the Pomodoro technique is, check out this article). However, I constantly forgot to set up a timer. I needed a way to motivate myself into setting up a Pomodoro timer for efficient work sessions. And then, I found Plantie — a great (and free) Pomodoro app.
What Is Plantie
Plantie is a Pomodoro app that combines gamification and task disruption to increase work motivation. It’s a simple and free app, and most ads shown are small and tucked away at the bottom of the app. Like similar apps such as Flora or Forest, it uses a system of “tree gamification.” Your goal is to harvest and grow your tree, and each time you get distracted, your tree doesn’t grow.
Each time you start (and successfully complete) a Pomodoro session, you gain coins. Successfully completing Pomodoro sessions can help you grow your tree, and coins can help you unlock new trees. As trees grow, you can harvest more and more from these trees. However, leaving the app while working on a Pomodoro session means that your tree will not grow. This gamification feature is truly outstanding. And this doesn’t just apply to Plantie. Any Pomodoro gamification app with this feature can be a powerful tool for productivity.
Another nice feature in the app is the ability to earn various badges for achieving different accomplishments. For example, you can receive Workaholic badges for completing 10, 100, or 1000 tasks, or Gold Miner badges for collecting 10, 100, or 1000 coins.
The app has a relatively simple design, which I personally prefer. For this reason, I prefer Plantie over competitors like Flora. And as I previously mentioned, the ads that do appear on the app do not interfere with the user experience.
How I Use Plantie
Entering “Work Mode”
I use Plantie when I’m working on “long-term” tasks like writing or working on a major project. These tasks tend to take a significant amount of time, and splitting them up into Pomodoro sessions can be useful for effective work. In fact, I’m using Plantie as I’m writing this article right now.
Because I use Plantie for a certain genre of projects (longer, creative work), setting up a Pomodoro timer on Plantie has become a “sign” that I’ve entered my work mode. By creating this pattern of setting up a Pomodoro timer before creative projects, I’ve found it easier to focus on creation. I’ve also seen that I’m usually more efficient in content creation when I’m using Plantie’s Pomodoro timer.
Finding Motivation
As you’ve probably experienced before, one of the worst feelings is when you enter an anti-productivity stage. You know that you need to do some work, but you just can’t find the motivation to do it. Even though you know that there’s work, another distraction, whether it’s YouTube, TV, or social media, is mentally “forcing” you to procrastinate.
We’ve all been there. And it’s hard to get out.
Using an app like Plantie on a consistent basis could help solve this issue. Similar to what I said in the previous section, using Plantie whenever I’m working on creative projects has made me more efficient with content creation. Consistent usage also helped me enter my work mode.
When facing procrastination, the first and hardest step is to complete one task. More often than not, completing one task can be the key to fighting procrastination and getting back to your work. With Plantie, all you need to do is simply set up a timer, and you’re on your way to ending your procrastination. It’s a quick, 15-second task that should take little to no effort. However, the rewards of taking this action are unmeasurable.
And by constantly repeating the action of using Plantie to motivate yourself, you create a psychological pattern where opening the Plantie app leads to motivation which leads to work.
Enjoying the Journey
A recent productivity tip that’s been becoming popular is the idea to enjoy your journey. Proponents of this idea say that enjoying your journey is a powerful tool for becoming more efficient, completing more work, and remaining focused on necessary tasks. And this idea, from my point of view, makes sense.
One way to “enjoy the journey” is to use gamification. Gamification is a great method for anyone. But as a very competitive person who enjoys competition, gamification is absolutely incredible for me. And Plantie’s integration of gamification with fighting procrastination is a tool I love.
As many of my fellow Medium writers know, writing isn’t always fun. I personally don’t consider myself a writer, and I’m pretty sure my English teacher doesn’t either. Instead, I’m a content creator, and I get excited and energized when I create content. And writing isn’t exactly the most fun type of content to make. Because of this, I often struggle with finding motivation to get back to writing. However, Plantie’s gamification features have helped with this.
By creating a fun game with competition against myself, Plantie’s gamification uses my competitive nature to help me become a more productive person. Enjoying the journey also means that I can spend more time on my work, and that I can get more satisfaction from working than I get from mindlessly browsing on the internet.
As you can see, I use Plantie as a productivity tool to motivate me to work. In fact, the primary reason I wrote and published this article today was Plantie. It helped me get out of a procrastination state, motivated me to get back to working, got me into my work state, and helped me enjoy the journey.
Conclusion
As I’ve mentioned throughout this article, Plantie has a variety of features that I love. The app’s simple design with non-intrusive ads makes it easy to use. I personally use Plantie to not only as a Pomodoro timer, but as a motivational tool to make me work instead of procrastinating.
However, a lot of the benefits of Plantie that I’ve mentioned can also be applied to other apps like Flora or Forest. And you may even find that these apps are better for you. I personally prefer Plantie over Flora (I haven’t tried Forest because it is now a paid app), but any Pomodoro gamification app can become a powerful productivity tool for you.
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