We're excited to announce improvements to Focus Mode, designed to help you balance deep work with the realities of complex, interconnected projects. ## What's New ### Related Tasks The biggest change is the addition of intelligent related task discovery. Focus Mode now automatically identifies tasks connected to your current focus task through: - **Project relationships**: See other tasks in the same project - **Area relationships**: Access tasks in the same area of responsibility - **Context tags**: Find tasks with the same context tags (e.g., @home, @office) These related tasks remain hidden by default to maintain your distraction-free environment but can be revealed with a single click when you need them. This gives you the best of both worlds: deep focus when you need it, and awareness of the bigger picture when appropriate. ### Task Interaction Improvements We've made several improvements to how you interact with tasks in Focus Mode: - **Quickly see all your tasks**: You will see that "tasks" in "Today's tasks" is a fast hyperlink to get you to all your tasks - **Refresh button**: Update your view with the latest information by clicking the refresh icon (or using Cmd/Ctrl-R or F5) - **Automatic task visibility** (in active timers): If your timer has a related task, it's now always visible without needing to click "Show Details" ### Performance Enhancements We've also made several behind-the-scenes improvements: - **Accurate time calculations**: Fixed caching issues that affected task time estimates - **More responsive interface**: Tasks now update their "achievable" status correctly without needing to refresh ## Why This Matters These improvements address a fundamental challenge in knowledge work: maintaining focus while dealing with complex, interconnected projects. Traditional focus techniques often ignore the reality that tasks are rarely isolated. Your most important work usually exists within a web of related activities, and context-switching costs can be high when you need to mentally jump between completely unrelated tasks. With these enhancements, MakeTimeFlow now helps you: 1. **Enter deep focus quickly** with a clean, distraction-free interface 2. **Stay in the flow** by making related tasks available without leaving Focus Mode 3. **Adapt to changing priorities** with sortable task lists and context awareness 4. **Build trust in your system** with accurate time calculations and responsive updates ## How to Use the New Features 1. **Enter Focus Mode** as normal from the timer view or task dashboard 2. **Start your focused work** in the clean, minimal interface 3. When you need context, click **"Show Related Tasks"** to see tasks connected to your current work 4. **Sort and prioritize** related tasks by dragging and dropping 5. **Click the refresh button** anytime you want to update your view Feel free to learn more about [[Focus Mode]]. As always, we'd love to hear your feedback on these new features. Our goal is to help you do your best work while respecting your attention and supporting your goals. Happy focusing! — The MakeTimeFlow Team