Work hours and breaks

Hours go by fast while Claude works. Mooring can remind you to take a break, tell you when your working day is over, and time a block of focused work. Break reminders and the daily cutoff are off until you turn them on in Settings ▸ Work Hours.

These reminders are macOS notifications. If notifications are off for Mooring, Settings ▸ Work Hours says so. Turn them on in System Settings ▸ Notifications ▸ Mooring.

Break reminders

1. Open Settings ▸ Work Hours.
2. Turn on Remind me to take breaks.
3. Set how often. It starts at Every 50 min of active work, and goes from 10 to 180 minutes.

Only time you spend using your Mac counts. Leave the keyboard and mouse alone for a minute and a half and the count starts again from zero.

When the time is up, a Time for a break notification offers two buttons:

• Start 5-min break. Mooring tells you Break's over five minutes later.
• Snooze 10 min.

Turn on Play a sound to hear the reminders as well. Sounds also need Play sounds turned on in Settings ▸ General.

End your working day on time

1. Open Settings ▸ Work Hours.
2. Turn on Alert me at my daily cutoff.
3. Set the Cutoff time. It starts at 18:00.

Half an hour before your cutoff, a Wind down notification arrives, and the status bar counts down the minutes left. At the cutoff, a Time to stop notification arrives. It's only a reminder. Nothing closes, and you can keep working.

Time a work block

A work block is a timer for a stretch of focused work. Start one from the status bar at the bottom of the window:

1. Click Start work block.

2. Choose a length: 1h, 2h or 4h. Or type one under Custom length, for example 90 (a plain number means minutes), 1h30 or 1:30. A block can last from 1 minute to 12 hours.

3. Under Alert me with, choose how Mooring tells you the block is over:

   • Banner, a notification.
   • Sound.
   • Alert, a message box in Mooring.
   • Pulse, a glow around the window's edge. If Mooring is in the background, its Dock icon bounces too.

   Sound and Pulse are chosen at first. At least one stays on, and Mooring remembers your choice for the next block.

4. Click Start 1h block (the button names the length you chose), or press Return.

While the block runs, the status bar shows the minutes left, in amber for the last five. Click it to:

• Add time with +30 min or Add hour.
• Stop the block with End now. No alert plays.
• Change how the end alerts you.
• Pause break reminders with Snooze breaks 10 min.

Half an hour before a longer block ends, a Work block wrapping up notification arrives. When the block ends, the alerts you chose tell you it's Time for a break. The banner and the alert both offer Snooze 5 min, which adds five more minutes.

Change the usual length

Start work block opens showing your usual length, 1 hour at first. To change it, open Settings ▸ Work Hours and set Default work block length, from half an hour to 12 hours. If it isn't 1, 2 or 4 hours, Mooring adds it to the lengths you can choose.