Focus Flow Timer
Direct answer: Focus Flow is a session mode built on a single timer that runs across the whole app. It offers five methods — Pomodoro, Flowtime, Time Tracker, Quick Task and Time Blocks — and when a session starts, a full-screen overlay covers the rest of Kora and shows one task, the context behind it, and what is queued next. At the end, time is logged against the work.
It is not a standalone timer app bolted onto a project tool. The session knows which project or contact it is anchored to, which is what makes the logged time and the end-of-session prompts useful rather than decorative.
What are the five focus methods?
| Method | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pomodoro | Structured cycles of work and break |
| Flowtime | Work until you stop; breaks scale with effort |
| Time Tracker | A simple stopwatch |
| Quick Task | A one-shot countdown |
| Time Blocks | Run a stack of focus and break blocks |
Flowtime is the one worth understanding if you have bounced off Pomodoro. Rather than interrupting you every 25 minutes, it counts up and sizes the break proportionally — elapsed time divided by five, clamped between 60 seconds and 30 minutes. A 40-minute stretch earns an 8-minute break; a two-hour stretch caps at 30. For work where the cost of interruption is high, which describes most mixing, that is a materially different model.
If you navigate away mid-session, the timer pops out into its own native window rather than stopping.
What session lengths are available?
Presets are Focus · 25/5, Extended · 45/15, and Custom, which accepts anything from 1 to 240 minutes. Quick Task offers 5, 10, 15 and 25.
Open-ended is genuinely supported — both Flowtime and Time Tracker count up with no predetermined end.
Time Blocks ships with five built-in schedules named after the work they suit:
- Mix Day — 45/15
- Delivery Sprint — 25/5
- Outreach Sprint — 25/5
- Deep Work — 60/10
- Album Push — 60/10
What does a running session show?
The overlay hides the rest of Kora by covering it completely and locking page scroll. What it puts in front of you instead:
- Daily focus — the one task
- Anchor context — the project or contact the session is attached to
- Linked tasks and linked goals
- Up next — the following three items
- A mood card, the timer, and a rotating quote
One suppression control exists: Flow Protection, off by default, described in the app as “Silence nudges until you stop.” Enabling it silences checkpoint nudges and the 15-minute deliverables warning.
How does Kora decide what to work on next?
The #1 priority shown at the top of a session is composed from several scoring
signals rather than a single sort:
| Signal | Weight |
|---|---|
| Overdue by 1 day | 620 |
| Overdue by 2 days | 605 |
| Overdue by 3 days | 590, tapering thereafter |
| Dependency pressure | min(260, open tasks × 14) |
| Relationship pressure | min(190, follow-up weight × 0.45), ×1.15 when already urgent |
| Mood bias | 10 presets — drained applies quick win +70, deep work −50, outreach +25 |
Scores fall into tiers: ≥ 500 needs, ≥ 300 should, ≥ 150 could, ≥ 50 want.
The most explainable piece is the bump rule for people. A contact follow-up is promoted to #1 only when it is overdue and one of: the contact is high-priority or Dream tier, there is active linked work in flight, or there are hard deadlines attached. When it fires you get the reasoning, not just the result — a generated string such as “overdue · quick win · active work in flight”.
Worth being precise about: this is several scoring engines composed together, not one unified model. The Home screen and Focus Flow apply slightly different filters — Home excludes archived items before ranking, Focus does not — so the two surfaces can occasionally disagree about what is most urgent.
What happens when a session ends?
Not a summary screen. A “Session complete” prompt appears in the bottom-right, alongside a logged time entry, a sound, a native notification, and a saved “last session” that powers a Quick Start button next time.
The prompt’s primary button changes with what you were doing: “Follow-up sent” for an outreach or contact anchor, “Plan updated” for planning, otherwise “Made progress”. Secondary options are Blocked, Another session, Ready to deliver and Schedule next follow-up.
Three of those change state downstream: Blocked sets the linked task to Blocked, completing a task sets it to Done, and Schedule next follow-up reschedules the contact to tomorrow.
Frequently asked
What Is Focus Flow?
Focus Flow is Kora’s project-aware session mode: a timer with five methods and a full-screen overlay that hides the rest of the app and surfaces one task, its anchor context and the next three items. Time is logged against the project or contact the session is attached to.
How Does Kora Help With Focus?
By tying each session to active projects and priorities, so you spend less time
deciding and more time executing. The session opens on a single task with its
context already attached, and the #1 priority is computed from due-date urgency,
dependency pressure, relationship pressure and your current mood rather than left to
you to work out.
How Do I Plan My Creative Day in Kora?
Plan around clear project-priority blocks with defined outcomes, then run focused sessions against those blocks. The five built-in Time Blocks schedules — Mix Day, Delivery Sprint, Outreach Sprint, Deep Work and Album Push — exist as ready-made shapes for the most common kinds of studio day.
Is Focus Flow just a Pomodoro timer?
No. Pomodoro is one of five methods. Flowtime counts up and scales breaks to effort, Time Tracker is an open-ended stopwatch, Quick Task is a one-shot countdown, and Time Blocks runs a stack of focus and break blocks such as Mix Day at 45/15.
Can I run an open-ended focus session?
Yes. Flowtime and Time Tracker both count up with no fixed end. Flowtime then sizes your break proportionally — elapsed time divided by five, with a floor of 60 seconds and a ceiling of 30 minutes.
Does Kora track how much time I spend on a project?
Yes. Every completed session writes a logged time entry against the project or contact the session was anchored to, so studio time accumulates against real work rather than sitting in a separate tracker.
What is Flow Protection?
Flow Protection is an opt-in setting that silences checkpoint nudges and the 15-minute deliverables warning for the duration of a session. It is off by default.