There are many apps on the market that help you become more productive. Some are free, while others are paid. Despite all this, you may not gain much from them. Some are just too technical, while others are too simple.
But what if your productivity session could be emotionally engaging? The Flora App lets you grow a tree as you work. And if you choose to peek into your phone while working, your tree might die. Let’s take a closer look at the app:
What Is the Flora App?
Flora is a free application available from the App Store. It helps you be more present and engaged in your everyday life. It’s one of those applications that turn off your app notifications to compel you not to use it.
With Flora, you plant a virtual garden seed. The seed grows as you don’t touch your phone. Although social media is a natural medium for mindless browsing, it puts your brain to work. When you use your phone between work sessions, the virtual seed you plant will die.
Flora encourages productivity and environmental awareness. With Flora Price, you wage money on your productivity. Flora will then plant a real seed with this money. And when a virtual seed dies, you must pay the fee to rebirth as a seedling in real life.
You bet on your productivity, and the “cause”, if you lose, is planting a tree. Flora partners across the world with rural communities and real-life planting organizations. Even if you’re not an environment enthusiast, you can cultivate some amazing plants using “Flora” both virtually and in reality. Here are some of its features:
1. Stay Calm and Concentrated
Flora uses the Pomodoro technique to get your productivity going. It does not label itself a productivity app, but rather a tool for “staying present.” You may specify the amount of time that your seed takes to develop, making it adaptable for people with varied habits to study.
If you like to spend huge blocks of time grinding tasks, you may set the time required to develop your seed to one hour. You may also set it to 25 minutes if you like to use the Pomodoro approach and study in smaller spots with pauses.
Any seed you let without the use of your smartphone will blossom during the week in your virtual garden, and the garden resets.
2. Tour of the World
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One of the most attractive characteristics of Flora is the globe tour. You may uncover plants from different areas of the world and add them to your garden as you log more focus time.
You start with Northern American oak trees and roses and proceed to Canadian blueberries. Then maple trees and bunchberries, and then into Mexico’s avocados and Dahlia Pinnata blooms.
3. Flora Care
Flora does not plant true trees that match the virtual trees that you cultivate unless flora care is on. This extra feature allows you to spend $9.99 for the app to donate an IRL tree for up to 24 hours of attention.
The $1.99 plan gets you planting a real tree every 120 hours. “Your regular concentration actions will offer our partnered rural areas continual cash support,” the app claims. There’s no restriction on how many trees you may plant when you buy Flora Care. Each purchase gets you a year of your donation rate.
4. Setting the Price
As Flora users expect the app to be free, not too many use Flora Care. The app is a virtual garden for casual users. But Flora allows you to “bet” money for those who need a greater stake.
You bet on whether or not you’ll complete a session, and if you lose, the amount goes to planting real trees. The app refers to Flora Care as a negative complement. It enables you to reward yourself by planting actual trees.
As gloomy as the feature is, our minds think we need to pay money to save the environment. It’s effective because your loss leads to a good cause.
5. Group Sessions
You can plant seeds with your friends. Group planting is fun, but it is difficult to organize. You must first add a buddy by scanning QR codes for each other (you can text them to each other). You may then email the passcode to your buddy to join your room.
It becomes complex if you lose sync on your screens. Once you and a pal are in a room, it is effective because your tree will die if you check your phone and notify anybody else. Yet, this feature requires simplification.
6. To-Do List
Flora also comes with a ‘to-do list’. Just add a to-do item and make a reminder, so you won’t forget anything.
You may also mark your trees with an item to keep track of your progress towards your objectives.
Does Planting a Tree Really Help?
To the environment, yes! But does it help you be productive? Flora is a pretty simple productivity app. It does not have detailed statistics, habit trackers, and other such features. Also, it can only shut off your smartphone, so if you work offline you’re fine.
But Flora fails if your work involves going online now and then, or working on the internet. The good thing is that it’s free, and if you do invest money, you’ll be doing a good cause.
There is the Forest app that you can try as an alternative. It is also based on the same concept, but it isn’t free.