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Focus Lock: free focus game to train selective attention
Notifications keep popping up. Tap only the one that matters and ignore the rest.
What is Focus Lock?
Zip has one task, like "Reply to your manager", and the phone won't stop buzzing: sales, likes, game rewards, other people. Tap only the notifications that match the task for 60 seconds. A wrong tap costs 3 seconds, and every 3 hits the task changes.
Focus Lock is a free 60-second focus game with Zip. A task sits at the top of the screen, like "Reply to your manager" or "Pay the electricity bill", while made-up notifications pop into a phone: flash sales, likes, game rewards, news, and messages from other people. Tap only the notifications that belong to your task and let the rest fade away.
A wrong tap costs 3 seconds, so guessing doesn't pay. Every 3 hits the task changes, and the notifications you were hunting a moment ago become distractions. Hits in a row multiply your points up to ×3, and the phone gets busier as the minute runs out.
At a glance
- Category
- Quick Games
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Play time
- 1 min
- Price
- Free, in your browser, sign-up optional
How to play
- Read the task
- It sits at the top: reply to your manager, confirm the dentist, pay a bill…
- Tap the match
- Notifications pop into 5 slots and fade after a few seconds. Tap only the ones for your task, or press 1 to 5.
- Ignore the rest
- Sales, likes, games and other people's messages are distractions. A wrong tap costs 3 seconds.
- Score
- 10 points per hit plus up to 5 for speed, ×2 after 4 hits in a row, ×3 after 8. Every 3 hits the task changes, +20.
Scoring
Each right tap scores 10 points plus up to 5 for tapping within 1.5 seconds, multiplied by your streak: ×2 after 4 hits in a row, ×3 after 8. Every 3 hits the task changes and you get a 20-point bonus.
A wrong tap costs 3 seconds and your streak; a missed match only breaks the streak. Your best score is kept in this browser.
What it trains
- Selective attention
- Picking the one signal that matters out of a noisy stream.
- Impulse control
- Letting tempting notifications fade instead of tapping them.
- Task switching
- Dropping the old target the moment the task changes.
Strategy and tips
- Read the sender first
- The name tells you more than the text: "Jo (manager)" is your task, "Jo's Pizza" isn't.
- Watch for near misses
- Some distractions look like a task on purpose: a message from Maya's mum isn't from Maya.
- Reset after a new task
- When the task changes, old matches turn into traps. Take half a second to reread the top.
- Let them fade
- Ignoring a distraction costs nothing. Only wrong taps cost time.
- Use the number keys
- On a keyboard, 1 to 5 tap the slots from top to bottom.
Why play Focus Lock?
Selective attention is the skill of picking the one signal that matters out of a noisy stream. Phones train the opposite habit, checking everything that buzzes. Focus Lock practises staying on one goal, spotting what's relevant fast and letting the rest go, in a minute.
Frequently asked questions
Is Focus Lock free?
Yes. It is free and runs in your browser, with no download. Signing up is optional.
What happens if I miss a matching notification?
Nothing on the clock: it just breaks your streak. Only tapping a wrong notification costs 3 seconds.
Are the apps and people real?
No. Every app, sender and message is made up for the game.
Can I play with a keyboard or a screen reader?
Yes. Keys 1 to 5 tap the slots, every notification is a button with its full text, and new arrivals are announced as a short summary like "3 new notifications".