Fifteen minutes of nonstop writing to pen the Hands-On experience of using Flowstate?
I'm game.
After downloading the writing app from the App Store, I opened up the program, quickly noticing Flowstate taking over my full screen with all my other windows nowhere to be found.
I named my untitled document, "Hands-On With Flowstate," selected Futura as my font style, set the timer to 15 minutes and hit the ground running, typing out my thoughts as fast and furiously as I could in between eating my breakfast.
Already, I see the clock in the upper right corner having ticked down to just under 14 minutes.
The whole idea behind the writing tool is for writers to be fully immersed in spilling their thoughts onto paper without any hint of distractions to take their mind off the task at hand. Five seconds of being idle and your words will begin to disappear from your very eyes. Oh, the horror.
12:54 left.
And, by the way, those distractions included eating breakfast. Every time I reach for a spoonful of my maple and brown sugar oatmeal, I notice the words on my Flowstate document quickly starting to fade away (as seen in the screenshot above).
'Better keep writing, Mark,' I tell myself, as I'm trying to keep up with the on-demand timed writing exercise, which is equipped with severe consequences for not remaining focused.
10:04 remaining.
I've been writing professionally for nearly 15 years and I found myself hitting any letter key, just to keep my document and everything I've written in it alive and well — saved from being wiped away like a marker on a dry-erase board.
Flowstate doesn't allow you to keep your work alive by using the arrows while you're reading your live copy to review what you have down on the page, either. The only way to stop your work from fading away is to actually write, although using backspace or delete and the spacebar will keep your work on the page. The document only gets saved if you complete your timed-writing exercise.
7:27 left.
While writing, I'm imagining my days as a sports writer for The New York Daily News and having to hammer out stories on ultratight deadlines. A writing tool like this would have only added pressure — good pressure, though. I never had an issue hitting my deadlines, but maybe something like this would have made me hit them even sooner. How much time do I have left?
3:05.
OK, here comes the stretch run. I can honestly say that Flowstate is a very helpful tool for a writer. It allows us to do what we need to do — write and convey whatever message it is that we need to, clearly, albeit under the gun.
11 seconds.
And done ... whew. [Wipes brow]. Now, let me get back to this oatmeal.
My final damages in 15 minutes? 477 words and 2,665 characters (counting spaces), numbers that the app calculates for you.
Flowstate can be purchased on the App Store for $14.99 and includes timed increments from five minutes all the way up to 180 minutes. There are five font styles to choose from.
