The easiest way to describe Focus Mode is, ‘It’s the Pomodoro technique — designed exclusively for Slack.’

It lets users add the task they’re working on, set how long they’d like to focus on it, and how long the break should last between each focus period.

In essence, it’s a nifty way to bring more focused work to the busy workspaces of Slack. The creators of Focus Mode are my team at Geekbot: the custom Slackbot that helps remote-first companies (including the likes of Zapier, Shopify, Zendesk) better manage routine tasks, like daily standups, in Slack. So to say we’re at home in Slack is an understatement: and our Geekbot experience was invaluable in helping us see what else was needed to make Slack a more focused, less distracting workspace.

We’re really proud of Focus Mode because it’s simple to use (just three fields to fill in), it keeps your teammates in-sync with what you’re working on (that’s what the Geekbot mission is all about), and it auto-enables ‘Do Not Disturb’ — meaning you can get on with important tasks and avoid notifications from dominating your day.