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⏱ LifeLoggerz StudyTimer — Turning Focus into Feedback Loops

Every morning before diving into my research, I open a small dark-themed window titled Study Timer. It sits quietly in the top-right corner of my screen, tracking time spent in deep work without internet, accounts, or distractions.

And when I cross a milestone — 15 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours — a little sound plays. A meme. A cheer. A reward for focus.

This is LifeLoggerz StudyTimer, a minimalist app I wrote in Python using CustomTkinter and Pygame to turn long hours into measurable, audible progress.

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🧩 1. Why I Built It

I needed something simple — something that:

• Tracks exact time spent actually working (excluding breaks)
• Logs timestamps for start, pause, resume, and finish
• Runs locally, even during Wi-Fi outages
• Feels satisfying instead of sterile

Most timers were either overbuilt or locked behind accounts and subscriptions. So I wrote my own.

Now it’s the backbone of my daily study routine — every serious session starts here, and its logs flow into my productivity sheets later on.

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⚙️ 2. The Interface

The UI is deliberately minimal: a big digital timer and a tight row of buttons underneath.

• ▶️ Start — starts or resumes the session
• ⏸️ Pause — pauses and records break start
• ✅ Done — ends the session and shows a summary

Each button has a small tooltip that appears on hover (“Start or resume study”, “Pause study session”, etc.), which keeps things intuitive without adding clutter.

There’s also a 📌 Snap button to pin the window in the top-right of the screen, and a 📊 Stats button that opens a live stats panel with:

• Current study time
• Total break time
• Number of breaks
• Milestones hit
• A scrolling log of timestamps (Start / Pause / Resume / Done)

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🎧 3. Victory Sounds & Milestones

The StudyTimer rewards consistency through milestone sounds. Every time you cross a focus checkpoint — 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, and so on — it checks if that milestone has already been hit. If not, it:

1. Plays a sound file (chime, meme, or music clip)
2. Flashes the timer text green for a second
3. Shows a short motivational message for about 10 seconds

Here’s a simplified version of the milestone map, written in plain Python:

milestones = {
    1:   ("ding-sound-effect_2.mp3", "🚦 We’re going!"),
    15:  ("success-chime.mp3", "✅ Nice pace!"),
    60:  ("bad-to-the-bone-meme.mp3", "🔥 You beast!"),
    120: ("vine-boom.mp3", "🚀 2 HOURS! LEGEND!"),
    300: ("heavenly-music-gaming-sound-effect.mp3", "🌟 5 HOURS! Demigod."),
    600: ("que-lindo-que-lindo-que-lindo-evaldo-jose-cbn.mp3", "🎯 10 HOURS! Beautiful!"),
}

Some of the messages you’ll see along the way:

“💰 Stacking minutes!” “🙌 7 hours. Hallelujah!” “📈 Right on track.”

It’s a small dopamine loop, but it makes long sessions feel like progress instead of just clock time.

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🧮 4. Ending a Session & Seeing the Summary

When you click ✅ Done, the app asks if you’re sure and then compiles a clean summary using the timestamps it has been collecting:

🕐 Total Study Time: 2:47:13
☕ Total Break Time: 0:22:19
🔁 Number of Breaks: 3

⏱️ Timestamps:
Start: 8:32:01am
Break 1 Start: 9:15:02am
Break 1 Resume: 9:20:45am  (⏳ 0:05:43)
End: 11:19:14am

I usually copy this summary straight into my Google Sheets:

• Raw Data logs
• Daily Snapshot
• Weekly productivity review

Over time, that gives me a clear record of when I worked, how long I actually focused, and how many breaks I took.

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🧠 5. Building Flow through Feedback

StudyTimer isn’t about grinding; it’s about acknowledging focus.

• 🎵 The audio feedback makes progress tangible
• 📊 The stats window keeps you honest about breaks
• 🧘 The minimal UI removes decision fatigue

There are no projects to set up, no tags, no to-do list. Just a timer, a few buttons, and a feedback loop.

Every “Start → Pause → Resume → Done” cycle is a tiny experiment in flow.

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🧰 6. Under the Hood (for the Nerds)

A few technical notes for anyone curious (or wanting to build something similar):

• CustomTkinter handles the dark-mode GUI, tooltips, buttons, and stats window
• Pygame powers the audio playback for milestone sounds
• datetime + timedelta track study time vs. break time precisely
• Toplevel windows provide a separate, always-on-top stats panel
• A resource_path() helper keeps file paths working in both dev mode and compiled .exe builds

Everything runs locally. No accounts, no servers, no API calls.

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🪶 7. Planned Upgrades

I’m slowly adding features while keeping the core experience simple. On the roadmap:

• 🪄 Session naming (e.g., “Thesis – Chapter 4”, “Calorimetry Data Cleanup”)
• 📤 Automatic CSV / Google Sheets export with date, duration, and break stats
• 🎧 Sound themes — Classic, Meme, Chill, etc.
• 🕹️ Compact overlay HUD for multi-monitor flows

When these land, I’ll update the app and this post with a small changelog.

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💾 8. Download the App

You can grab the Windows build from the Templates page:

→ View StudyTimer on the Templates page

Or, if you just want the direct link:

⬇️ Download StudyTimer (Windows .exe in ZIP)

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🧩 Final Thoughts

The LifeLoggerz StudyTimer is how I measure the invisible: the quiet hours that actually move projects forward.

“Focus doesn’t need to feel heavy — it just needs to feel acknowledged.” — LifeLoggerz