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Intelligence

NowDoing tries to stay out of the way when you are deep in a task and to ask only when there is something to ask about. The helpers below run quietly in the background. All toggles live under Settings → Intelligence.

If you confirm the same activity three times in a row, NowDoing assumes you are in flow. The prompt popover is then skipped and the running block continues silently — no popover, no sound, no interruption.

  • As soon as you act yourself (hotkey, menu bar click) or switch activity, the regular mode returns.
  • Pause, snooze, and discard break the streak.
  • Toggle under Settings → Intelligence → Auto-confirm.

The tracking interval is not set in stone — with this toggle on, NowDoing tunes it to your behaviour:

SituationEffect
3× the same activity in a rowInterval doubles (max. 1 hour)
Multiple activity switches in quick successionInterval halves (min. 1 minute)
Activity switches after a longer phaseInterval drifts back toward your configured value

You get quiet during focus sessions and stay fine-grained during reactive work. The base value (the one NowDoing returns to) is still set under Tracking interval.

After every logged entry a small banner appears at the bottom of the popover for 8 seconds, with an “Undo” button. One click (or ⌘Z while the toast is visible) removes the just-created entry and restores the previous state.

Handy if you mistyped, picked the wrong activity, or hit the wrong quick-pick key. After 8 seconds the entry behaves like any other and can be edited — see Day view.

If a macOS Focus is active on your Mac — Do Not Disturb, Presentation, Sleep, a custom Focus —, NowDoing suppresses the automatic prompt entirely. Neither popover nor sound interrupts you.

  • Tracking still runs in the background — the current activity is not stopped.
  • When the Focus ends, NowDoing asks again on the next regular interval.
  • Manual paths stay open: the hotkey ⌃⌥⌘L or a menu bar click logs at any time.

This detection uses the standard interface macOS exposes to every app — no data about your Focus modes is stored or transmitted.

The four helpers compose: adaptive intervals stretch the gap between prompts, auto-confirm skips them entirely, Focus pauses them temporarily, and the undo toast catches rare misclicks. Disable individual features under Settings → Intelligence if you prefer a strict cadence.