FAQ: questions about FocusCrew

A productivity app that keeps your plan, your habits and your focus in one place. You plan work on a board, track the habits you are building or breaking, and run Pomodoro sessions to actually do the work — alone or with a small crew. What you finish adds up to one record of XP, levels, streaks and badges.

Because its parts are connected rather than side by side. A to-do you pick becomes the task of a focus session, the finished session earns XP, a habit you tick keeps its own streak, and your crew’s sessions add up to a shared challenge. It is common to run a to-do app, a habit tracker and a timer that know nothing about each other; FocusCrew keeps that whole day in one place.

A to-do list tells you what the work is, and a habit tracker tells you whether it happened. FocusCrew also covers the moment in between: you pick a to-do, start a timed session and work on it, and the session is recorded against it. Add a crew and other people are showing up too, which for a lot of work is what makes starting possible.

No. FocusCrew is five tools — the Pomodoro timer, the planner, the habit tracker, crews and notes — and you switch each one on or off under Settings → Appearance → Your tools. A tool you switch off leaves the menu and the timer screen, and your data in it stays where it was. Use only the timer, or add the rest when it is useful. Nothing is required to start — not a crew, not a to-do, not a label — and nothing you leave unused counts against you.

Create a free account, answer a few onboarding questions, and start a focus session from the Focus page. New accounts come with a small example plan and habits so the screens are not empty; delete them whenever you like.

The app is available in English, German and Farsi, with Farsi shown right to left. You choose the language in Settings and it follows your account to every device. The public pages of the website are in English.

Yes. Make decks of cards in the five types Anki users know — basic, reversed, type in the answer and cloze — and study them on a schedule that brings each card back just before you would forget it. Decks come in from Anki and go back to it as plain text, and selected text in a note can become a card. Free keeps 3 decks and 200 cards, Pro 20 decks and 2,000 cards, and Max has no limit.

Yes. The Plan page is a board with four columns — List, Soon, Now and Finished — that you drag to-dos between, or read as a calendar by month, week or day. A to-do can carry notes, a due date, a flag, a priority, a link, and any number of projects and labels, and can repeat — every few days, weeks, months or years, with the next one appearing when you finish it. Picking one for a focus session records the session against it.

Yes. The planning board has three views: columns for List, Soon, Now and Finished; a calendar by month, week or day for to-dos with a due date; and an Eisenhower matrix that sorts to-dos by how important and how urgent they are.

Yes, on every plan. Connect it in Settings → Integrations: to-dos with a due date appear in a separate FocusCrew calendar, and events from the calendars you choose show on your Plan calendar. FocusCrew reads your own events and never changes them. Disconnecting keeps your to-dos.

Yes. A project can be shared with people you know or with a private crew, and everyone it is shared with can add, edit and finish its to-dos. The project stays yours: only you can rename, delete or stop sharing it.

Yes. On the Habits page you name a habit you are building or breaking and mark it each time it goes well — a simple tick, or a goal such as ten push-ups, fifteen minutes with a timer or three times a week. Each habit keeps its own streak and a ring shows how much of today is done. Skip a day to rest it without losing the streak; archive a habit to keep its run.

Tick it later. The last seven days stay open, so a day you forgot can be filled in and the streak recounts — two runs rejoin if that day was the gap between them. A streak also stays alive until a whole day has passed unticked, so it does not read zero in the morning before you have had the chance.

Yes. Habits has an export that downloads your habits and the days you recorded them as a CSV file, which opens in any spreadsheet app.

Five, twenty-five, fifty or seventy-five minutes, or open-ended until you stop it. Twenty-five is the classic pomodoro and a sensible default; the longer blocks suit work that takes a while to get into.

The session keeps running, because it lives on the server rather than in your browser. Reopen FocusCrew on any device and the same timer is still counting, with the right time left. If a session is abandoned entirely, it is closed and credited what it was planned for rather than the hours the tab sat open.

Yes. Besides the fixed lengths there is an open-ended session that runs until you stop it, which suits work that does not fit a timer. It still counts toward your focus time, XP and streak when you finish.

A small group — usually three to five people — with a recurring window when you all intend to focus. Nobody schedules you and nobody is matched with you: you join a crew with a code, or find a public one, and the window is a shared intention rather than an appointment.

No. The timer works on its own and everything you record — sessions, XP, streaks, badges — is yours whether or not you ever join one. A crew adds people to show up alongside; it is not a requirement for using the product.

Create one and share its code with the people you want in it, or browse public crews and join without a code. A crew is usually three to five people, and it has a recurring window when you all intend to focus.

Nothing. The window is a shared intention rather than an appointment, so there is no attendance record, no penalty and nobody is notified that you were absent. You can focus at any other time and it still counts.

Working alongside someone else so that their presence helps you start and stay with a task. It is the idea a crew is built on, and it is the reason FocusCrew shows you that others are focusing rather than what they are doing.

Yes. Start a private crew, share its invite code with your group, and everyone’s focus time counts toward the crew. Crews are asynchronous, so people focus whenever suits them; there is no video call and nobody is matched with strangers.

They are a record of showing up, not a score to beat. XP is earned per minute of completed focus and your level is derived from it; a streak counts the days you focused at least once; badges mark milestones — sessions, hours, streaks, XP and levels — a crew’s as well as your own. All of it exists to make starting easier tomorrow.

A second currency, earned rather than bought. You earn one — with 100 XP — when somebody you invited confirms their account. Nothing spends gems yet, and none can be purchased; they are simply kept on your account.

Nothing punishing. FocusCrew never shows red, never scolds and never marks anyone as behind — a restarted streak reads as day one of a new run, and your longest run stays visible. Habits work the same way: nothing records a missed day, a day you choose to skip keeps your streak, and a habit’s best run stays beside its current one.

Many people with ADHD find short timed sessions, a visible plan and working alongside others helpful, and FocusCrew is built around those habits. It is a productivity tool, not a treatment, and it does not replace advice from a clinician.

A free public collection of useful ADHD videos, apps, communities, articles, books and courses, plus practical techniques explained in plain words. It is curated by the FocusCrew team and is for information and everyday support, not medical advice.

No. It is fifteen questions about how often you notice common signs of ADHD, and it suggests whether talking to a professional is worth it. Only a qualified clinician can diagnose ADHD, and nothing is saved unless you choose to keep your score.

Yes. It runs in the browser on any device and can be added to a home screen, and because a running session lives on the server you can start one on a laptop and finish it on a phone with the right time left. An iPhone app is in testing, with Android to follow.

Yes. Turn on push notifications for that device in Settings → Notifications and it is told when a focus session ends, and about the things you chose to hear about — a habit reminder, someone joining your crew — even with FocusCrew closed. On an iPhone or iPad, add FocusCrew to your Home Screen first and turn it on from there. Break endings still need FocusCrew open, because breaks are timed on the device.

Yes, on every plan. Add FocusCrew as a connector in Claude (the website, the desktop app or Claude Code) or in ChatGPT and sign in once — or make an API key in Settings → Integrations for your own scripts and for Cursor. Free includes one key and 200 requests a day, enough to try it; Pro and Max include five keys and 20,000 a day. The assistant acts as you, with your plan’s limits, and you can disconnect or revoke it at any time.

An iPhone app is in testing and will be released in the App Store soon, with Android to follow. Until then FocusCrew runs in the browser on any phone and can be added to your home screen, with the same account and data.

Yes. The timer, the planning board, habit tracking, crews, XP, streaks and badges are free and stay free — that is the core of the product, not a trial. A paid tier with more depth is planned, and it is not available yet.

Pro (3.99 euros a month) and Max (5.99 euros a month) are planned and give more room to build: more projects, labels and private crews. They are not available to buy yet, and everything in the core of FocusCrew stays in the free plan.

No. There is no video, no audio and no screen sharing anywhere in FocusCrew, and there is nothing to install. Your crew sees that you are focusing and how long for — never what you are working on, unless you choose to label a session.

Not unless you share them. Your to-dos, projects, notes and habits are private by default. Share a project with chosen people or a private crew you are in, and they can work on its to-dos — never your habits. A note can be shared by link, with chosen people or a crew, or by filing it in a shared project. Other members can see what you have earned: your name, level, streak and badges. A crew’s chat is read only by that crew’s current members.

Your account, your sessions and what you add: to-dos, projects, labels, notes, flashcards, habits and the days you ticked them, and what you write in crew chats and to-do comments. A Google Calendar connection is kept encrypted, and an ADHD self-check score only if you choose to save it. Sessions are never analysed for content because there is no content to analyse. You can delete your account from Settings at any time.

Your account data is stored in the European Union, with a database hosted in Frankfurt. FocusCrew is run from Berlin, and the privacy policy lists every service that processes data and why.

Open Settings and choose Delete account. Your to-dos, habits, projects, labels, messages and settings are deleted; sessions and crew history stay only as anonymous numbers so crews’ totals remain correct. It cannot be undone.

Yes. In Settings you choose who can see your online status, your profile and your photo: other members, only people in your crews, or — for your status and photo — nobody. You can also keep your flashcard activity off the Learning and Overall leaderboards; your cards themselves are never shown to anyone.