Work, Rest, Repeat N times. A procrastination hack.

Registered by Fernando Ossandon

I want to second a feature request made on the questions by Enrico Sciascia (https://answers.launchpad.net/alarm-clock/+question/116873).
The basic idea is to implement the barely known "Procrastination hack": '(10+2)*5' http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/procrastination-hack-1025
But NOT necessarily of: (10 minutes of work, 2 of rest) repeat 5 times.

The idea would be something like:
(a) Alarm to indicate the beginning a period of x minutes.
(b) Alarm (different sound) to indicate the end of the X minutes period and the beginning of a new period of Y minutes [normally a fraction of the X minutes].
At the end of the Y minutes, should be trigged again the (a) alarm followed by the (b) alarm in a loop process by Z times.
(c) A final alarm to indicate the end of the Z times process.

There are several implementations of the idea, but none for Linux.
Just to mention some:
A very old Yahoo widget called TenPlusTwo: http://widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/tenplustwo
(and the non-working copy of it as a Gnome Screenlet) http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Ten+Plus+Two?content=77177&PHPSESSID=6
An online implementation (click on settings): http://procrastinationdashtimer.com/
A Windows, iPod, iPhone version: http://procrastinationkiller.wordpress.com/

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
None
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
None
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
Shervin Emami
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

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I would use this. I use alarm clock to time breaks from typing: 35 minutes of work followed by 5 minute snooze. I would like to put this on an infinite loop, instead of having to restart the alarm every 40 minutes. This "procrastination hack" proposal includes my use case as a special case. --enoksrd, 1 sept, 2010.

I would also love this feature, because I use it in the same way as enoksrd just mentioned. I would be happy if timers could just repeat forever until you disable them. For example, you set a 40 minute timer and click "repeat: forever", and then every 40 minutes you get alarmed. At the moment I have to re-enable the alarm every time it goes off AND I have to enable it every time I bootup the computer, which I often forget and then I end up missing my breaks! A "repeat forever" feature would solve this for me and I'd be very happy :-) --shervin, 27 jul 2012.

I would like to add: you should be able to choose whether the 'chained' alarm/timer starts when the first goes off, or only after the first is acknowledged. So, for example, if you're doing the procrastination hack, you have to say "Yes I've finished my work burst, start the break", but if you're setting up alarms for something like timers for various parts of cooking, you don't necessarily want those to depend on previous alarms having been acknowledged. Sure the cooking use case might be better served by setting absolute times rather than relative, but still, it would useful -- Chops II, 26 oct, 2011

Love this, but maybe for begining a simple repeating (loop) timer will be good? --Burbuliukas, 3, Sep, 2012

(?)

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