{"id":4203,"date":"2026-07-22T09:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=4203"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:35:17","slug":"flipper-busy-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=4203","title":{"rendered":"Flipper Busy Bar Review: An Expensive Focus Tool"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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I used the Busy Bar in WIRED\u2019s open office, and my coworkers mostly just ignored it. One person jokingly asked if I was too busy for him, but then we just talked about other things anyway. When I needed to record audio in our studio, I flipped the Busy Bar to ON AIR mode and faced it outside on the glass. While the screen is bright, the small device isn\u2019t exactly easy to spot from across the vast expanse of an open office. (To be fair, we also have a much larger ON AIR sign on the studio as well, and people still ignore that.) Mostly, I keep the bar on my desk in clock mode.<\/p>\n

The Busy Bar is much better for keeping yourself busy. You can change the timer settings, but the Busy Bar\u2019s countdown system defaults to the Pomodoro technique<\/a>, which divides work into 20-minute segments separated by five-minute breaks. As the timer ticks down, a little Dr. Mario\u2013esque pill around the BUSY icon fills up, adding an extra visual stimulus to indicate that you\u2019re getting through the session. It starts to feel very rewarding to fill up the little pill, then slap the timer on top and hop up for a break. (I\u2019m using it right now as I type, only 1 minute and 42 seconds to go!)<\/p>\n

Flipper does say more features are coming to the Busy Bar, like a more expansive app library and the ability to better modify the open source operating system within. That will be the test of how people really use the Busy Bar, watching the settings and features people add to it. (You know someone\u2019s going to play Doom<\/em> on it.)<\/p>\n

For now, the Busy Bar will likely be seen as an overengineered focus tool that only certain people find useful. It\u2019s hard to recommend at $250, especially since it syncs with the Busy app<\/a> that you can already download and use for free. But if this thing is for you, you\u2019ll probably be enamored with it. Hell, it\u2019s the only thing that got me to focus enough to write this story on time. OK, almost on time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used the Busy Bar in WIRED\u2019s open office, and my coworkers mostly just ignored it. One person jokingly asked if I was too busy for him, but then we just talked about other things anyway. When I needed to record audio in our studio, I flipped the Busy Bar to ON AIR mode and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[746,41,557,254,137,136,42],"class_list":["post-4203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-digital-wellness","tag-home-office","tag-office","tag-productivity","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-shopping"],"yoast_head":"\nFlipper Busy Bar Review: An Expensive Focus Tool - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It didn\u2019t keep my coworkers at bay, but Flipper\u2019s expensive productivity tool did help me focus on the task at hand.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=4203\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Flipper Busy Bar Review: An Expensive Focus Tool - 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