Time Out from dejal

 

Description

It is very easy to fall into bad habits when using a computer for hours on end. You care about what you are doing, so can sometimes push yourself too far, or over-strain yourself. The human body isn’t built to sit in one position for endless hours, gripping a mouse or typing on the keyboard. Dejal Time Out is here to help. It will gently remind you to take a break on a regular basis.

Time Out has two kinds of breaks: a “Normal” break, typically for 10 minutes after 50 minutes of work, so you can move about and relax, plus a “Micro” break: a very brief pause of typically 10 seconds every 10 minutes, so you can remember not to tense up too much for long periods. You can disable either kind of break if desired, and the breaks are automatically paused when you go away from your computer, and can be reset when you come back.

You can configure how long each kind of break lasts, and how long between breaks. Each Time Out is announced via the screen slowly dimming, with related graphics materializing, and when the break is complete, it fades out again. You can change the time these transitions take… and you can even change the color and the level of transparency during the break. So if you like, you can make it mostly transparent so you can continue reading while on your break… though it’s better for you if you give your eyes a rest during the Time Out.

While in a break, a progress bar shows how long till it is over, and buttons are available to postpone or skip the break if you can’t be interrupted right then. Starting with version 1.5, you can change the number of minutes for the postpone buttons, or even hide them and/or the skip button, if you want to encourage yourself to take the breaks.

What’s more, you can optionally play a sound and even run an Automator workflow, AppleScript, Python script, or application at the start and/or end of each break. So you can have it pause iTunes and play a short soothing piece of music at the start of a break, then a buzzer and resume iTunes when the break is over. Some useful scripts are provided built-in, plus updates and user-submitted ones available on the Time Out Extras page.

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