Why I Built Another Break Reminder

If you search for break reminder apps, you'll find hundreds of them. Some are free, some are paid, and many of them do exactly what they promise. They remind you to take a break every so often. So it is fair to ask why I decided to build another one.

The honest answer is that I was not trying to improve the reminder. I was trying to improve the experience.

Over the years I downloaded a handful of break reminder apps. Some looked like they had not changed in a decade. Some interrupted me at the wrong time. Others had so many settings that I spent more time configuring the app than actually using it. A few simply did not feel at home on macOS.

None of them were bad. They just were not something I wanted running on my computer every day.

That made me realize something interesting. A break reminder is not an app you open and use. It is an app that quietly lives with you. You see it every day, but only for a few seconds at a time. That means every interaction matters. If it feels annoying, you will disable it. If it feels ugly, you will ignore it. If it interrupts you at the wrong moment, it becomes another problem instead of a solution.

I wanted to build something that felt different. An app that respected the platform it was built for. An app that stayed out of the way until it was needed. An app that looked like it belonged on macOS instead of feeling like a web page inside a desktop window.

I also wanted to keep it simple. There is a temptation to keep adding features because every new feature sounds useful. I have learned that the hardest part is deciding what not to build. Every setting, every button, and every notification has a cost. The goal was never to create the most powerful break reminder. The goal was to create one that people would actually keep installed six months later.

Maybe TouchGrass will not be the right app for everyone, and that is okay. There are already plenty of good options available. I built this one because it solved the problem the way I wanted it solved. If other people find it useful too, that is the best outcome I could ask for.