Most of this blog is about your phone. This post is about the other screen: the laptop you sit at all day for work. I've released a small free Mac app called Meander that reminds you to get up and move for a few minutes every hour, and I wanted to explain what it does and why I made it.
The problem with break reminders
On a busy day I can sit at my desk for three or four hours without standing up. I knew I should take regular breaks, so I tried a few break reminder apps. They all had the same flaw. They popped up at fixed times, which meant they interrupted me in the middle of video calls, while I was typing, or halfway through something I was watching.
After a few of those I switched them off, and then I stopped taking breaks at all. I wanted a reminder that waits for a sensible moment before it asks me to stop.
Why move every hour
Long stretches of sitting without a break are linked to worse health, even for people who exercise. A 2017 study of almost 8,000 adults by Keith Diaz and colleagues found that people who sat for long unbroken periods had a higher risk of death than people who broke up their sitting more often. A 2016 study by Audrey Bergouignan found that a 5-minute walk every hour reduced tiredness and food cravings and improved mood across the day, while one longer walk in the morning did not.
So Meander's default is one break an hour, lasting 5 minutes, long enough to stand up, walk around and stretch your legs. These are only the defaults, and you can change the time between breaks and the break length to suit how you work.
It doesn't interrupt calls, videos or games
This is the main reason Meander exists. It won't interrupt a Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams call, a video, a game, or a screen share, and it won't cut you off while you're typing or dragging something. If a break is due during any of those, it waits until you've finished.
Thirty seconds before each break, a card appears at the top of your screen and a small pill follows your pointer, so a break never starts without warning. You can snooze it or start the break early.
It counts breaks you take yourself
If you lock your Mac, put it to sleep, or step away for 5 minutes, Meander counts that as a break and resets the countdown. You won't get asked to take a break straight after you've come back from one.
It lives in the menu bar and shows how long until your next break. From there you can start a break now, snooze, or pause reminders.
Something to look at during the break
When a break starts, Meander covers the screen so you're not tempted to keep working. By default it shows a quiet valley scene that changes with the time of day: dawn, day, dusk and night. If you'd prefer something else, you can choose a breathing light, a frosted desktop, or a plain dark screen.
Free, with no tracking
Meander is free. There are no accounts, no ads, no analytics and no tracking. Everything it notices about what you're doing stays on your Mac. It needs macOS 13 or later.
If you spend most of the day sitting at your Mac, download Meander for free and try it for a week. If you have feedback, email me at hello@waittounlock.com.