A deep-work setup on Windows with automatic tracking and 25-minute blocks

A Pomodoro timer tells you when 25 minutes ended. It does not tell you that the other six hours were a browser. An automatic tracker tells you where the day went, and then sits there unless you look. The useful setup is both, on the same PC, without a second account.

Flowline is one Windows app that does the two jobs. Tracking is automatic. The 15, 25, and 50 minute blocks are optional and started by you.

Let the log run before you optimize it

Install from the download page and leave the tray icon up for a normal workday. Do not recategorize anything yet. The first day is full of wrong labels, and that is fine. You need the raw mix of editor, browser, and chat before the rules are worth editing.

Idle time is excluded. A walk away from the keyboard should not count as focus or as distraction. The threshold is in Settings, documented under configuration.

Add the extension if the browser is the unknown

If Insights says Chrome and nothing else, load the browser extension. Domain-level time is what makes a rule like “github.com is productive, youtube.com is distracting” possible. Window titles alone will not hold up.

Set one daily target, not five

Pick a deep-work target you have hit before, not the number you wish were true. The streak on the Sessions page is only useful if missing a day means something, and only the deep-work target feeds it. A distraction limit is separate: it just moves the limit indicator on the Dashboard. It does not touch your streak, block a site, or send a notification. Alerts come from the distraction alert, which fires after a continuous off-task stretch.

Open Rules after the first day. Fix the apps that landed in the wrong bucket. The distraction alert is the right tool for sites that are fine for twenty minutes and a problem after that: it notifies you once a continuous distracting stretch runs past the alert threshold.

Use a 25-minute block for the work you already named

Start a 25 minute focus block from the Sessions page or the tray when you know the task. The block is a commitment. The tracker is the record of whether you kept it. They answer different questions, which is why a timer app alone never quite explains the afternoon.

Break reminders are part of the session. They are not a website blocker. Flowline will not close the distracting app. If you need a lock, use a different tool and let Flowline keep score.

Check the week, not every hour

The 7-day report is the page that should change next week’s target. Checking the live stream every ten minutes is just another distraction with a productivity label. Export CSV if you want the rows elsewhere. The file of record remains local.

When the setup is in place, the comparison is only relevant if you are still deciding whether a cloud report is worth the account. For this routine, it is not.