_why i built it_
i previously led product and engineering at vivino. during and after that, I kept hearing the same thing from friends and colleagues: “i know meditation would help, but i can’t stick with it. the apps feel too spiritual or too long.”
i started experimenting with very small, constrained drills that feel more like “exercises” than “sessions”: stare at a point and watch what your attention does, sit with the urge to check your phone, follow just the exhale for a few minutes, etc. early testers reported they were more willing to start these than a 20-minute meditation, and some of them used them as a pre-work ritual to get into focus.
bebored is that experiment turned into an app.
_what it does_
the app currently has five types of “boredom workouts”, each session is 5-10 minutes. there’s also an in-app journaling feature, “moss”, which summarizes what you wrote after a session and tries to point out patterns over time (e.g. “most of your entries mentioning anxiety are late at night”).
_hat’s different vs typical meditation apps_
- it avoids “meditation” language and spiritual framing; everything is described in pragmatic terms (“here’s the drill, here’s what to pay attention to”).
- sessions are intentionally short and finite; the goal is “i can do one drill now” rather than “i should be a person who meditates”.
- visuals are simple and high-contrast rather than nature scenes; more like a small game ui than a wellness app.
- the focus is specifically on boredom and restlessness as the thing to train, not on calm as the primary goal.
what feedback i’m looking for
? does the “boredom workout” framing make sense, or is it confusing?
? if you try it, where do you hit friction in onboarding or starting the first session?
? does the journaling + summary feel useful, or would you skip it entirely?
? from a developer / product perspective, what would you change first if this were yours?