Systems Atlas Project
Bottou 没頭
Free on the App Store · iPhone, MacThere is no pause button.
Tap start when you drop into work, and stop the moment your attention breaks. A distraction does not pause the block — it ends it. A pause would let the break hide inside the measurement.
Not derived from the map · built from a gap noticed directly
The loop
Start, stop, and two taps to close it out.
Nothing is measured without your tap, and nothing runs in the background. The timer is a sensor you operate deliberately.
Start
One tap. One clock, counting up. No countdown, no presets, nothing to configure.
Stop
The moment focus breaks, the block is over. Sitting back down starts a new block.
Close it out
Two taps: why you stopped, and how the focus felt. Anything under a minute is discarded as a misclick.
The two taps
The reason a block ends is data too.
Four answers — done, distracted, interrupted, ran out of steam. Over a month the distribution tells you whether you are finishing your work or being finished by something else.
The focus scale is anchored to attention, not output. A short block you were locked into scores higher than a long one you kept dragging yourself back to.
Progress
The timer is the sensor. The picture is the product.
Every figure is shown against the previous equal period, because an average on its own means nothing.
The weekday-against-time-of-day view is the question the app exists to answer: when do you actually focus well? You cannot answer that from memory or from a total.
Focus
The clock and one button. It reads ready when idle and focusing when it is running. That is the whole screen.
Calendar
A month grid, each day marked in its average focus colour. Drill into any day to see its blocks, and write a reflection for today or a past day.
Progress
Averages against the previous equal period, a breakdown of why you stop, a day-by-day chart, and the weekday heatmap, over seven days, thirty days, or all of it.
Settings
Account, lifetime totals, about, reset. An account is optional and exists only to sync between your iPhone and your Mac.
Deliberately absent
A mirror for your focus, not a monitor.
The numbers are only as honest as your taps, and the app does not pretend otherwise.
- No pause buttonA break ends the block. That is the measurement.
- No countdown or presetsThe clock counts up from zero.
- No leaderboards, friends or feedThere is nobody else in the app.
- No trees to growAnd no streaks to protect.
- No automatic trackingNothing is measured without your tap.
- No advertisingNot now and not later. Systems Atlas does not do advertising.
On the name
没頭
Bottou — total absorption. 没 is to sink or submerge; 頭 is the head. Being so absorbed you lose track of time. The app measures how often you reach it.