Auto-Forward — Keep Your Rhythm Going

The hardest moments in any focused work session aren’t the time slices themselves — it’s the gaps between them. You finish a time slice, and now you have to rate it, then start a break.. set up the next time slice.

Each of those little hand-offs is an open door, and procrastination is very good at walking through open doors. You glance at the browser “just for a second” and twenty minutes are gone.

Auto-Forward closes those doors for you. It carries you through the routine transitions of the Vitamin-R workflow automatically, so you stay in your rhythm.

The little badge

Look at the default button on the bottom right, and notice the small badge overlay:

• Start Time Slice (when defining a slice)
• Log (when rating a finished slice)
• Start Timed Break (when preparing a break)

These are exactly the three “next step” buttons in the standard workflow. The badge is how you arm and disarm Auto-Forward for each step. Out of the box, the badges are hidden and nothing happens automatically: Vitamin-R never advances on its own until you ask it to. The first time you switch Auto-Forward on for a step (see below), the badges appear on all three buttons. A grey play icon means Auto-Forward is off for that step.

How it works

Click on the greyed out button overlay, and instead of waiting for your click, the button starts a short visible countdown — 10s, 9s, 8s… When it reaches zero, Vitamin-R clicks the button for you: it starts the slice, logs the rating, or starts the break, and moves you to the next step of the workflow. Arm all three and a full define-rate-break-repeat loop runs on its own, while you keep your attention — and your hands — on your actual work.

It stays out of your way

Auto-Forward is designed to feel like an assistant, not an autopilot you have to fight:

• It waits until you’re actually working. Before starting a time slice, the badge shows an hourglass and holds off the countdown until it detects you’re active at the keyboard. If you walked away, it waits for you.
• It backs off when you reach for the mouse. Move the pointer near the button and the countdown pauses, with the badge switching to a pause symbol — so it will never fire the instant before you were about to click something yourself. Move away and it resumes.
• The countdown is always visible. There are no silent timers. You can see the seconds ticking down, so nothing is ever a surprise.
• One click cancels it. Click the badge at any time to stop the countdown for that step.

Switching it on

Each of the three steps is armed independently, so you can let Vitamin-R handle the parts you find tedious while keeping manual control of the rest.

• The first time: choose Workflow ⇒ Toggle Auto Forward Button Countdown (or press Option-Command-Return) while you’re on the step you want automated. This arms Auto-Forward for that step and reveals the badges.
• From then on: click the badge on the button. When it shows the grey play symbol it’s off; click it to arm Auto-Forward for that step.
• From the keyboard: press Control-R to open the Command Pop Up and choose Resume Auto-Forward Countdown for the current step (it reads Pause Auto-Forward Countdown when already armed), or use Option-Command-Return to toggle whatever step you’re on.

A typical setup is to arm the Log and Start Timed Break steps — the routine bookkeeping at the end of a slice — and leave Start Time Slice to your own judgement so you decide when the next slice begins.

Setting the pace

The countdown gives you a few seconds to change your mind before each hand-off. To choose how long that pause is, open Vitamin-R’s Preferences (Command-,), select the Miscellaneous tab, and find the Auto Forwarding section. The Autoforward after _ seconds slider sets the delay for all three steps — shorten it once the rhythm feels natural, or lengthen it if you’d like more time to react.

Turning it off

• Click the badge (or use Option-Command-Return) to disarm a single step.
• To remove the badges entirely, open Preferences (Command-,) → Miscellaneous → Auto Forwarding and tick Disable auto-forward buttons. The buttons go back to working exactly as they always have.

Getting Started with Time Slices · The Command Pop Up