Mindfulness at the Computer is a mindfulness and self-care application for people spending many hours in front of the computer
The application reminds you to take breaks from the computer, helps you remember to stay in touch with and be mindful of your breathing and body while sitting at the computer, and helps you concentrate on your inhaling and exhaling when you need a breathing pause
This sounds like a great application. Has anybody tried it and can let us know how it works?
I used to have an old windows-based application that would give you a quote from the Dhammapada every hour. It helped to just give a moment to check in with your feelings and see what you are doing; just to be mindful of the present moment.
I know there are a few apps around for Android that do this kind of stuff. Does anybody have any experience with that?
Just installed it. I find self-regulation in this respect extremely difficult and in recent times I have been feeling that something really ought to change so welcome anything that might help. As such much gratitude!
I will get back to you via one means or another re the āhelp usā call, once Iāve played with it for a while.
We are happy to receive any and all feedback, i know we all have a tendency to be positive when asked for feedback and this is of course nice to get (as well as important because it helps us understand what to keep).
At the stage of development though we are we are also interested in improving the application so anything that you find problematic, can be improved, or an idea for a new feature is warmly received!
Iām not the most computer savy person here- but had a difficult time finding the .exe file after the download and then Norton antivirus got rid of it and told me it was an unsafe file and then proceeded to delete it without offering me an option to keep it. I think some further modifications may be needed!
Windows 10 itself also posts a warning about āunidentified publisherā when you open the exe. You can override it, but it might be alarming to some users.
Okay, we have looked at this warning now and unfortunately to solve it we need to buy a license which costs 100 euro or so each year (or more). Other free/libre (āopen sourceā) software applications are having the same problem on Windows. Can you try the application anyway? Iād be grateful for your feedback on what is valuable and what can be improved
Kind Regards, Tord
This is the published requirement to develop apps for the Microsoft Store. I donāt know how it applies to Windows Defender warnings, but I think it would remove the problem. There is a one-time fee of $19 per individual or $99 per company, but at least thatās a little cheaper than 100 euro per year.
Donāt know if this helps or not, but thought I would post it.
Hello @sunyata_zero. I think the description on the setup screens should be a little more detailed. Itās not clear to me what each feature does. For instance, what does the breathing screen do vs. what does the rest screen do.
In my current user situation, I am trying to set the breathing screen to show once every hour, give me 3 notifications 1 minute apart and then start the breathing exercise. I then want to take a break every half hour just to stretch my legs. For example, at 12:00 remind me to do a breathing exercise then at 12:30 remind me to take a 5-minute break. Then repeat every hour. How would I set this up? It doesnāt seem clear.
@Mat Hi, one of the contributors to our project wrote this text a couple of days explaining the difference from other applications:
How is mindfulness at the computer different?
MATC is different in that it will help you to really focus on your breathing, which is a core component of being mindful. With our interactive and intuitive design, it will help you to focus on inhalation and exhalation, helping you to become mindful. We also give you rest reminders with suggestions on what you can do in that break time. Not only that, but our interface allows for a level of customizing to make the experience perfect for you!
In my experience applications that help with breathing are always about controlling the breathing, for example there might be a 4 second inhalation and 6 second exhalitation. Even if the user can set the time herself this is not in line with my understanding of mindfulness of breathing, where we let the breath be the way it is without forcing it
Btw have you been able to start the application? Weāre grateful for any more feedback you can give us!
Unfortunately the Norton problem i think is connected to the other problem discussed here and iām not sure what we can do about it. I will write a bug/issue report for it though in case there is someone who knows of a solution
About the exe file being difficult to find i agree and we will try to fix this in a future release, grateful for your feedback on this!
This is one of the best features of the program to me. Being able to create oneās own breathing exercise wording and customizing the suggestions in the break reminder are a huge plus!
And I agree that being able to āfollowā the breath with mouse cursor is nice compared to a set breath time!
@aconlan Hi and thank you for this feedback, very valuable for us! (Iāve shared this with the team)
The application is designed so that the breathing breaks occur more often than the rest, so unfortunately your setup isnāt possible. Iāve brought everything you said up with the collaborators on the project though so maybe we will redesign this to allow your ideal setup
Youāre very welcome @sunyata_zero. I donāt know if my ideal setup would be anyone elseās ideal setup and I know you canāt design it to do everything
I was thinking maybe the first time the program is run, you could provide more āstepsā or screens walking the new user through each feature. For example, āHow would you like to be reminded for your breathing exercises? Visual, Audio, or Both?ā āHow many notificatons would you like to receive before the breathing exercise starts automatically?ā
I think walking the user through the settings in this way would give them a much better idea of what the program is capable of. Just a possible suggestion to consider.
@aconlan I like the idea to give more info, we could expand our guide/āwizardā that we have now, iāve brought this up with the team, thank you for the feedback!
@Aminah Hi! Have you had a chance to try it more? We are grateful for any feedback you can give us, we are closing in on BETA now so any thoughts on what we can do to improve the application is welcome!
@Vimala Hi! If you like you can download it and there will be a sort of intro guide launched automatically at first startup (you can launch it again by using the help menu). Basically the application reminds the user to take breaks away from the computer and breathing breaks at the computer. The breathing breaks are interactive making it easier to follow the breath
Weāre very grateful for any feedback you can give us!
Hello, sorry for a) not getting back to you sooner, and b) the slightly disjointed, super quick-fire notes that follow. I think itās a very lovely application, but because of the nature of your Q Iām here only focusing on possible improvements:
Installation: could get it up and running very easily, but to add it to my list of ārecognisedā applications (ie. in my start menu) I had to do some hunting around (my eventual answer).
Once launched and in the system tray: it might be good if a single left click on the system tray icon would open the main settings window (as with other applications).
Right clicking on the system tray icon: immediately below the first option (Enable Rest Reminder) there are a line of little boxes, I could take a guess at what this is / what it indicates, but I donāt really know, and as such what ever use itās meant to have is lost on me.
The edit a dialogue thing seems to have a bug. If, eg. I edit āMake a cup of teaā under the resting column on the right, it stays the the same under that column, but (I think last selected item) under the breathing column to the left will be changed.
Now, this is totally a bug in my human code and not the application, but openness encourages me to tell I stopped using the app. Why? Because it just highlighted that the balance of my life is really out of whack and I mostly felt a bit hopeless and guilty. Where this might feed into the app is with the possibility of building in an auto-launch (/ start on boot up) option.
(as well as important because it helps us understand what to keep).
