You know what it’s like when you’re working when your phone suddenly goes off.  Maybe it’s a text from your friend about meeting for lunch this weekend or your mom just checking in on you.  Whatever the reason, you forget quickly because you soon begin to check your email, Twitter and Instagram accounts and five minutes later you realize that you actually wasted an hour!

No, that hasn’t happened?

Liar.

Let’s face it, our phones are major distractions.  We might think we can be productive with them, keeping lists and reminders handy, but when it comes down to it they cause us to waste time.  If only there was a feature on the phone to keep us from touching it while we’re working.

Well guess what?  There’s an app for that!

It’s called Forest, and it’s amazing!  When you go into the app there’s a circle where you select an amount of time ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours, and once you hit ‘start’ it begins counting down… and planting a tree.  If you go out of the app during the countdown, your tree dies.  If you successfully manage to not go out of the app during the allotted time, your tree grows fully and you earn coins.  As you continually use the app throughout the day you build your own little forest, hence the name.

The app is also good for going out to eat with friends or on a date.  Just set the time and you’ll be able to keep from using your phone while spending time with those people.

I have to give a huge thanks to Thomas Frank at College Info Geek for this app because he talked about it in one of his latest podcasts.  It’s been the most useful app on my iPhone and I highly recommend it for everyone!

… and yes, it’s available for Android!