From Rock Wall to Flow State: Why I Built FlowTimer Pro

The personal story behind creating a timer app that actually helps you focus

The Thing About Falling

I've been rock climbing for over a decade, which means I've spent roughly 3,650 days thinking about falling. Not in a morbid way—well, sometimes in a morbid way—but in the way you think about anything that could kill you if you fuck it up badly enough.

Here's what nobody tells you about climbing: it's not really about the rock. It's about your brain shutting the hell up for once.

When I'm on a wall, my mind doesn't wander to the seventeen unread work emails sitting in my inbox like digital tumbleweeds. It doesn't spiral into existential dread about whether I'm wasting my life or if I remembered to pay my electric bill. There's no mental real estate available for the usual neurotic chatter because every neuron is laser-focused on not becoming a cautionary tale.

It's the only time my brain works the way I want it to.

But the moment my feet hit the ground? Game over. The focus evaporates like morning fog, and suddenly I'm back to being a regular human with the attention span of a caffeinated goldfish.

The Uncomfortable Truth About My Brain

Let me be honest about something: I am spectacularly bad at focusing on things that won't immediately kill me if I mess up.

Give me a challenging work project, and within ten minutes I'm researching climbing gear I can't afford. Ask me to do a workout, and somehow I end up three YouTube videos deep into conspiracy theories about energy drinks. Try to meditate? My brain treats it like an open mic night for every anxiety I've ever had.

But here's where it gets really pathetic: I can't even focus on basic parental responsibilities without my mind wandering. I'll be driving my daughter to dance class and suddenly realize I've been mentally planning my next climbing trip for the last ten minutes instead of listening to her excited chatter about pirouettes. I'll sit down to help her with homework and find myself checking my phone while she's explaining why 7+8 equals 16.

Don't even get me started on the domestic stuff. Last week I was teaching her how to ride a bike—one of those sacred parental moments that's supposed to be all Norman Rockwell and meaningful—and halfway through, my brain decided this was the perfect time to spiral into existential dread about the state of the country. She's wobbling around on two wheels for the first time in her life, and I'm mentally catastrophizing about democracy.

And the glamorous parts of parenthood? Cleaning hamster shit every night while my daughter brushes her teeth, I'm somehow thinking about work deadlines. Dealing with a lice outbreak that turned our house into a toxic wasteland of special shampoos and obsessive combing sessions, and I'm distracted by climbing videos on my phone. These are the moments that matter, the mundane sacred stuff of being a parent, and my brain is off somewhere else entirely.

I knew I was capable of razor-sharp focus—I had proof every time I didn't plummet to my death on a rock face. So why was it so impossibly difficult to maintain that same mental discipline when the stakes were just "getting shit done" instead of "staying alive"?

This bothered me in the way that only truly stupid problems can bother you. It was like being a professional chef who couldn't boil water at home.

The Great App Hunt (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate Everything)

Naturally, I did what any self-respecting millennial does when faced with a personal failing: I downloaded apps.

Timer apps. Focus apps. Productivity apps that promised to turn me into the human equivalent of a Swiss watch. I collected them like a digital hoarder, convinced that somewhere in the App Store was the magic bullet that would fix my broken brain.

What I found instead was a wasteland of apps that seemed designed by people who had never actually struggled with focus, for people who didn't exist.

The Drill Sergeant Apps

These apps believed motivation came from being yelled at by your phone. BEEP BEEP BEEP! TIME TO WORK! BEEP BEEP BEEP! TIME TO REST! They were like having a personal trainer living in your pocket, except the personal trainer was having a nervous breakdown and wanted everyone to know about it.

I don't need to be screamed at to focus. I need the opposite of that. I need my technology to be the friend who says, "Hey, you've got this," not the friend who shows up at your house drunk and demanding you reorganize your life immediately.

The Swiss Army Knife Apps

Then there were the apps that tried to be everything to everyone. Want to time your workout? There's a setting for that. Want to track your mood? Different setting. Want to align your chakras while timing your Pomodoro sessions? They probably had a setting for that too.

Using these apps was like trying to perform surgery with a multi-tool. Sure, it has a knife, but it also has seventeen other things you don't need, and good luck figuring out which is which when you're trying not to cut yourself.

The ADHD-Optimized Everything

Look, I have nothing but respect for people with ADHD, and I'm glad there are tools designed specifically for their brains. But somehow, every focus app seemed to assume that everyone needed constant stimulation, flashing lights, and dopamine hits delivered intravenously.

For someone like me, who finds focus in stillness and quiet confidence, these apps were like trying to meditate at a rave. Theoretically possible, but missing the entire point.

The Revelation (Or: When Your Hobby Becomes Your Therapist)

The breakthrough came during what I now think of as The Route That Broke Me.

I'd been working on this particular climb for weeks. It was technical, demanding, and had a reputation for making grown adults question their life choices. Every time I attempted it, I'd get halfway up and my brain would start its usual helpful commentary: "This is stupid. You're going to fall. Everyone is watching you fail. Did you remember to pay your car insurance?"

But one day, something shifted. Instead of fighting the mental noise, I just... let it be there. I acknowledged it the way you might acknowledge a neighbor's barking dog—annoying, but not worth changing your entire day over.

And suddenly, I was moving. Not thinking about moving, not planning to move, just flowing up the rock like water finding its way downhill.

When I reached the top, I realized something that should have been obvious: my best performances happened when I stopped trying to force my brain into submission and started creating the conditions where focus could happen naturally.

I didn't need motivation. I needed intention. I didn't need complexity. I needed simplicity that actually worked. I didn't need to be managed. I needed to be gently guided.

That night, instead of celebrating with beer like a normal person, I stayed up sketching ideas for an app that might actually understand how my brain worked.

Building the Thing I Actually Wanted to Use

The Core Delusion: Apps Should Help, Not Hijack

I had one guiding principle while building FlowTimer Pro: the app should make you forget you're using an app.

This sounds simple, but it's revolutionary in a world where most apps are designed to grab your attention and never let go. I wanted the opposite—something that would gently guide you into focus and then get the hell out of your way.

It's like the difference between a good climbing partner and a helicopter parent. A good partner is there when you need them, quietly supportive, and knows when to shut up and let you work. A helicopter parent never stops talking, constantly offers unsolicited advice, and makes everything about them.

Most apps are helicopter parents. I wanted to build a climbing partner.

The Avatar System (Or: Why I Put Animals in Charge of My Focus)

Instead of harsh timer alarms, I created animal avatars that embody different types of focus energy.

Choose the tiger when you need fierce determination for a brutal workout. The sloth when you want steady, sustainable focus for deep work. The lion when you need confident leadership energy for presentations or difficult conversations.

This probably sounds ridiculous. It probably is ridiculous. But here's the thing: it works.

When I select the tiger avatar, something in my brain shifts into a different gear. It's not magic—it's intentional priming. I'm telling my subconscious what kind of energy I want to bring to this session, and my subconscious, bless its simple heart, actually listens.

Voice Cues That Don't Make You Want to Throw Your Phone

Instead of aggressive beeps and bloops, FlowTimer Pro uses clear, calm voice prompts. "Time to rest" instead of "BREAK TIME!!!" It's the difference between having a conversation with a human and being barked at by a robot.

The tone matters more than I realized. When your phone speaks to you like you're a person instead of a malfunctioning machine, your brain responds differently.

An Interface That Assumes You're Not an Idiot

The design is clean to the point of being almost boring, which is exactly what I wanted. When you're deep in a flow state—whether you're working, exercising, or meditating—the last thing you want is to fumble around with a complicated interface that looks like it was designed by someone having a fever dream about the future.

Everything you need is exactly where your brain expects it to be. Revolutionary concept, I know.

What I Learned About Focus (And Why Most People Get It Wrong)

Building this app taught me that focus isn't a discipline problem—it's a design problem.

Most people try to force themselves into focus through sheer willpower, which is like trying to sleep by commanding your brain to shut up. It doesn't work, and it makes you hate yourself in the process.

Focus isn't about controlling your brain. It's about creating the right conditions for your brain to naturally settle into the state you want.

When I'm climbing, I don't have to force myself to focus. The activity itself demands focus, and my brain rises to meet that demand. The key was figuring out how to create that same natural pull in other areas of life.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Productivity Culture

Here's what no one wants to admit: most productivity advice is written by people who don't actually struggle with focus.

They're the people who can sit down, decide to work for two hours, and then just... work for two hours. Like sociopaths, but legal ones.

For the rest of us—the ones whose brains treat every task like a suggestion rather than a command—we need different tools. We need approaches that work with our brains instead of against them.

FlowTimer Pro isn't for the naturally disciplined. It's for the creatively scattered, the easily distracted, the people who are capable of incredible focus but only under the right conditions.

It's for people like me, who know they're not broken but are tired of using tools designed for someone else entirely.

Your Turn to Stop Fighting Your Brain

If you've made it this far, you probably recognize yourself in this story. You know you're capable of deep focus because you've experienced it. You also know how frustrating it is when that focus seems to come and go like an unreliable friend.

The question isn't "How do I force myself to focus better?"

The question is "What conditions allow my natural focus to emerge?"

Maybe it's having a gentle animal companion guide your sessions instead of a drill sergeant. Maybe it's voice cues that treat you like a human instead of a machine. Maybe it's an interface so simple and beautiful that you actually want to use it.

Or maybe it's something completely different. The only way to find out is to experiment, and the only way to experiment is to start.

Why I'm Telling You This

I could have written a standard "productivity tips" blog post filled with generic advice about time management and the power of positive thinking. But that would have been bullshit, and you would have known it was bullshit, and we both would have wasted our time.

Instead, I wanted to tell you the real story: I built this app because I was frustrated, and I couldn't find anything that worked the way my brain actually works.

FlowTimer Pro isn't perfect. Some days it helps me achieve that climbing-level focus in my regular life. Some days, I still get distracted by videos of cats wearing tiny hats. But having a tool that understands my brain instead of fighting it has made all the difference.

If you're tired of apps that feel like they were designed for someone else, if you want focus tools that enhance your productivity instead of overwhelming you, and if you know you're capable of incredible concentration but struggle to access it consistently, then maybe this is for you.

Try It (Or Don't, I'm Not Your Boss)

FlowTimer Pro offers your first three sessions completely free. No credit card, no commitment, no pressure to become the person productivity gurus think you should be.

Whether you use it for workouts, work sessions, meditation, or something I never imagined, I hope it helps you find your own version of that wall clarity.

Because that feeling—when your mind is completely present and engaged—is worth creating space for in every part of your life.

[Download FlowTimer Pro (coming to the Apple App store in November)]

Let's Be Honest About This

What's your version of the rock wall—that activity where focus comes naturally? I'd love to hear about it, mainly because I'm curious about how other people's brains work when they're not trying to sabotage themselves.

Published on Sept 16, 2025• 10 min read • by Sham Sthankiya