My Tesla kept telling me to pay attention. So I made an app with a cat.

The idea for Pomolume came to me while driving my Tesla with FSD.

The car kept reminding me to look straight ahead. Fair enough. Even with the driving assistance, I still had to pay attention. But after another reminder, I started thinking about how useful something like that might be when working or studying.

A Pomodoro timer tells you when to start and when to take a break. What it doesn’t know is whether you actually spent those 25 minutes doing what you planned.

You might have been studying. You might also have spent ten minutes staring out of the window, followed by a quick check of your phone that somehow became a completely different activity.

The timer is happy either way.

So I wondered: could I make an iPhone app that notices when your attention wanders and gives you a gentle nudge to come back?

That was the beginning of Pomolume.

Of course, being reminded to concentrate at your desk should feel a bit different from getting a warning in a car. I wanted something you would actually enjoy having next to you while working.

So I added a cat.

This was an important engineering decision.

You place your iPhone in front of you, start a focus session, and your companion keeps an eye on you. If you look away, leave your desk, or get a bit too noisy, it reacts. The camera processing happens on the device.

The idea is simply to help you notice those moments when you drift off. Sometimes a small reminder is enough to get you back to what you meant to be doing.

And somehow, a nudge from a cozy cat feels more welcome. It still wants you to work, but at least it looks comfortable while supervising you.

As I developed the app, I also wanted it to help with what happens before you start the timer. Sitting down to focus is easier when you know what you’re working towards and what to do next.

So Pomolume also has goals, task planning, and progress tracking. You can break a goal into tasks, estimate the work involved, and give them due dates. There’s also room to remind yourself why a goal matters and what achieving it would mean to you.

On some days, you need a nudge to pay attention. On others, you need a reminder of why you’re making the effort in the first place.

My Tesla hasn’t offered to help plan my studies or asked me about my life goals yet. To be fair, it already has quite a lot to do.

That’s how a car repeatedly asking me to watch the road turned into an iPhone app with a cat, a focus timer, and a bit of encouragement.

An unexpected starting point, but there you go.

Now, when the cat tells me to get back to work, I only have myself to blame.

If you’re curious about what came out of all this, you can find Pomolume on the App Store. The cat is waiting.