Bottou
Systems Atlas Project
A focus stamina tracker
There's no pause button.
You tap start when you drop into work, and stop the moment your attention breaks. A distraction doesn't pause the block — it ends it. Pause would let you hide a break inside a block and still call it unbroken.
The loop
Start, stop, and two taps to close it out.
One tap
One big clock, counting up. No countdown, no presets, nothing to configure before you begin.
The moment focus breaks
That block is over. If you sit back down afterwards, that's a new block — not a continuation of this one.
Two taps
Why you stopped, and how the focus felt. Anything under a minute is thrown away as a misclick.
The two taps
Why did you stop?
Four answers, because the reason a block ends is data too. Over a month it tells you whether you're finishing or being finished.
- Done
- Distracted
- Interrupted
- Ran out of steam
How was your focus?
The scale is anchored to attention, not output. A short block you were locked into scores higher than a long one you kept dragging yourself back to.
Progress
The timer is just the sensor. The picture is the product.
It isn't about growing a tree or winning today. Every number is shown against the previous equal period, because a lone average means nothing — the movement is the insight.
Avg focus block
47m
+6m
Avg break
14m
−3m
Avg focus level
3.8
+0.2
Total focused
31h
+2h 10m
When do you actually focus well?
Weekday against time of day, coloured by your average focus rating. This is the question the app exists to answer, and you can't answer it from memory.
In the app
Four tabs, and nothing hiding behind them.
Focus
The clock and one button. It reads "Ready to focus?" when idle and "Focusing" when it's running. That's the whole screen.
Calendar
A month grid, each day dotted in its average focus colour. Drill into any day to see its blocks. You can write a reflection for today or the past six days — after that it's closed, because a reflection should be timely.
Progress
Averages against the previous equal period, a breakdown of why you stop, a day-by-day chart, and the weekday heatmap. Seven days, thirty days, all time, or a custom range.
Settings
Account, lifetime totals, about, reset. An account is optional and only exists to sync between your iPhone and your Mac.
Deliberately absent
A mirror for your focus, not a monitor.
- No pause button. A break ends the block.
- No countdown or presets. The clock counts up.
- No leaderboards, no friends, no feed.
- No trees to grow and no streaks to protect.
- No automatic tracking. Nothing is measured without your tap.
- No advertising — Systems Atlas Project doesn't do advertising, on principle.
Nothing is automatic and nothing is scored against you. The numbers are only as honest as your taps.
On the name
sink, submerge
head
没頭 — bottou — is the state of being so absorbed you lose track of time. This app measures how often you reach it.
The Japanese naming isn't decoration. English lacks single unclaimed words for these compressed ideas. Japanese has them.
In development
Bottou isn't out yet.
The app is built and finishing up. When it reaches the App Store, it will be here.
iOS · macOS