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Come back · DoppiNow feature

Comeback ring

The Comeback ring is DoppiNow's main number: the focus minutes you reclaim in a session after you come back from a distraction, shown as the minutes reclaimed ("12 min") in the middle of a ring. The ring fills as you win back the time the distraction took and closes once you've reclaimed at least that much. The minutes are part of your focus time, never extra on top of it, and the ring comes first everywhere: live in the popup during a session, in the session recap, on the Progress page and on the optional dashboard.

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Key facts

Category
Come back
Where to find it
Always on. Nothing to set up: it shows in the popup, the session recap and on your home page at doppinow.com.
Availability
In the DoppiNow Chrome extension: a 7-day free trial, then $3.99/month or $29.99/year. Desktop Chrome 120 or newer (other Chromium browsers such as Edge or Brave may also work).
Status
Available now.

How it works

  1. You drift

    Time on a page away from your goal starts it. A glance under 2 seconds doesn’t count.

  2. You come back

    The first related page after it is your comeback, with a reminder or on your own.

  3. The ring fills

    Every focused minute after that is reclaimed and fills the ring: minutes reclaimed against your time away. Breaks never count.

  4. Ring closed!

    Win back as much as the drift took and the ring closes. 3 minutes away, then 15 focused: 15 min reclaimed, ring closed. No time away is a clean run.

  5. See it everywhere

    Live in the popup, as the headline of every session recap, at the top of the Progress page, and first on the web dashboard.

All the details

  1. It starts with a distraction. During a session, any time DoppiNow counts as away from your goal adds up, with or without a reminder. A glance shorter than 2 seconds, like flicking past a tab, isn't a distraction (quick glances add up until you're back on a related page). Choosing "Not now — back to my goal" at a doorway pause counts as one, however short, and its seconds count as time away.

  2. The first page related to your goal after it is your comeback. It doesn't matter whether you tap "Back to where you were" or find your way back on your own. Marking the page you're on as "It's related" says that page wasn't a distraction: its own time away is handed back to the ring. If other pages before it were a distraction (2 seconds or more, or a "Not now"), that time stays away, and reaching the marked page counts as coming back from them. Otherwise marking isn't coming back, just as it isn't a comeback for the bonus.

  3. From then on, every focused minute of that session counts as reclaimed. Breaks, free-zone pages and time outside Chrome never count. Reclaimed minutes are part of your focus time, never more.

  4. The ring fills with the minutes reclaimed against the time you were away, up to a full ring. Close it by winning back the time a distraction took:

    • no time away: a full ring, "Clean run"
    • time away and nothing reclaimed yet: an open ring, "Come back to close it"
    • some reclaimed: the ring fills part of the way, "Keep going to close it", and keeps filling as you focus
    • as much reclaimed as the time away, or more: "Ring closed!"

    The minutes reclaimed stay the big number in the middle.

  5. For example: you focus for 10 minutes, drift to a feed for 3, come back and focus for 15 more. That's 25 minutes of focus, and 15 of them are reclaimed. 15 minutes reclaimed is more than the 3 minutes away, so the ring is closed.

  6. You see it everywhere, and always, even at zero:

    • the popup during a session: a small live Comeback ring in the stat row, between the combo and the XP, with the minutes reclaimed so far ("12 min"). Hovering it says "Comeback ring: 12 min reclaimed. Close it by winning back the time a distraction took." Each comeback, and the ring closing, gets one small pop (none with reduced motion).
    • the page, when you come back after a reminder: "Back on course!" (or your world's words, like "Back to the books!") with "↩ Reclaiming focus", or the minutes reclaimed so far ("↩ 7 min reclaimed so far")
    • the session recap: the headline, right under the goal: the session's large ring with its minutes in the middle, "↩ Comeback ring" and its state ("Clean run", "Come back to close it", "Keep going to close it" or "Ring closed!", with one small celebration)
    • your home page on doppinow.com: today's ring on Today, a ring for the chosen range (7, 30 or 90 days) on Progress, and a small ring next to each session in the logbook
    • the welcome page: one line with the idea and a small ring, in your world's words
    • the optional focus dashboard: a big ring for the range you pick, first and biggest, with the change from the range before; each recent session has a small ring, and each day says how many minutes it reclaimed

Settings: Always on. Nothing to set up: it shows in the popup, the session recap and on your home page at doppinow.com.

Why it helps with ADHD

Adults with ADHD report more mind wandering (Mowlem et al. 2019), so DoppiNow expects drifting and counts what happens after it. In a megastudy of 54 interventions with 61,293 gym members, "the top-performing intervention offered microrewards for returning to the gym after a missed workout" (Milkman et al. 2021). That study was about exercise, not ADHD. In four experiments, people prompted to be self-compassionate after a failure were more motivated to improve (Breines & Chen 2012). And progress monitoring improved goal attainment, more so when progress was recorded (Harkin et al. 2016). No study has tested the Comeback ring itself.

DoppiNow is a productivity tool, not a treatment for ADHD.

Sources

  1. Mowlem, F. D., Skirrow, C., Reid, P., Maltezos, S., Nijjar, S. K., Merwood, A., Barker, E., Cooper, R., Kuntsi, J., & Asherson, P. (2019). Validation of the Mind Excessively Wandering Scale and the relationship of mind wandering to impairment in adult ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 23(6), 624–634. doi.org/10.1177/1087054716651927
  2. Milkman, K. L., Gromet, D., Ho, H., Kay, J. S., Lee, T. W., Pandiloski, P., ... Duckworth, A. L. (2021). Megastudies improve the impact of applied behavioural science. Nature, 600(7889), 478–483. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04128-4
  3. Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143. doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599
  4. Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229. doi.org/10.1037/bul0000025

Comeback ring: common questions

What does the Comeback ring show?

The focus you reclaimed in a session after you came back from a distraction, as "N min reclaimed". Close it by winning back the time a distraction took. Drifting happens, and getting back to work is the skill DoppiNow celebrates.

When does the ring close?

When the minutes you reclaimed reach the minutes you were away. Three minutes on a feed, then three focused minutes back on your goal, closes it. With no time away at all, the ring is full: a clean run.

Are reclaimed minutes extra time on top of my focus?

No. They're part of your focus minutes, never more. They show how much of your focus came after a comeback.

Do I need a reminder to reclaim focus?

No. Coming back on your own counts too, and so does "Not now — back to my goal" at a doorway pause.

Does the ring earn extra XP?

No. It's a measure, not a reward. Those focused minutes earn XP as usual, and the comeback itself can pay the +25 XP comeback bonus.

Why is my ring open?

You drifted and haven't come back yet, or the session ended before a comeback. Come back to close it: every focused minute after your comeback counts.

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