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Definition

What exactly is a “break-timer”? For our purposes, let’s say it’s a timer that runs for 25 minutes and then shows up a notification with a message: “Time to take a break!”. After the notification is shown for a few seconds, the screen locks automatically. That should be enough to get us started.

Pre-requisites

First, get Hammerspoon. Quoted from the site:

This is a tool for powerful automation of MacOS. At its core, Hammerspoon is just a bridge between the operating system and a Lua scripting engine.

We’re going to update our init.lua file in .hammerspoon directory to implement our timer. As an aside, to quickly reload the changes, can use the following keybinding:

hs.hotkey.bind({ "alt" }, "r", function()
	hs.reload()
end)

Implementation

To do something at every x seconds interval, we can use the hs.timer.doEvery function. The function takes two arguments - time interval and function to execute:

hs.timer.doevery(60 * 25, function()
    -- Function to execute
end)

Notice the 60 * 25 - this is the time interval for 25 min in seconds.

Next, let’s show a notification. We can do that using the hs.alert.show function:

hs.timer.doevery(60 * 25, function()
    hs.alert.show("Time to take a break!")
    -- TODO: lock screen
end)

And finally, let’s lock the screen automatically 5 seconds after the notification is shown. We can do that using the hs.caffeinate module, leading to our final break-timer implementation:

hs.timer.doevery(60 * 25, function()
	hs.alert.show("Time to take a break!")
	hs.timer.doafter(5, function()
		hs.caffeinate.lockscreen()
	end)
end)

And there! Make sure you stand up, walk around and actually take a break. Stay healthy!

Exercise

1. Show a menu bar icon with remaining time left

2. Bind a hotkey to toggle the timer

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