So you want some daily inspiration or motivational quotes? Or you want to stay focused? You got it.
I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for these kinds of things. Getting up and seeing some random quote that makes you pumped about your day is an excellent way to start productively. In fact, some sources say that how you start your day is how your day will end up being since it carries on.
For example, if you wake up energized and in a good mood, you’re more likely to keep that mood throughout the day. The converse is also true. But with some inspirational quotes thrown it, it just may save your day.
I used to go about reading these quotes by searching on Google Images for “motivational posters” or “inspirational quotes.” It’d be a pain since I’d constantly see the same ones over and over unless I changed my search keywords. But even then, I’d see the same stuff.
[the_ad id=”2478″]So, naturally, like anyone would do, I looked for the next best thing- an app to do this for me. That’s everyone’s next option, right?
It turns out there’s a ton of them- and I mean a ton. You can get stuff that’ll send you a quote directly to your phone every hour, or a quote directly to your email every day. Whatever you want, there’s probably an app for that. No joke.
However, for my purposes, I wanted an inspirational quotes app for my Chromebook laptop. I wanted something that would greet me with a warming quote and offers some customization options.
Finding the perfect inspirational quote and productivity app
Since I do most of my work on my laptop, I wanted something that I’ll definitely see every day I wake up. And yes, I’m addicted to my laptop (and computer). I didn’t need anything for my phone since I like to keep it simple and I’m not really a phone addict. I check my computer before I look at my phone.
Of course, both my computer and Chromebook are running Chrome OS (who’d have guessed?), so that means it’s gotta be a Chrome Store app. What is it?
Momentum.
Yeah, even the name sounds motivational, doesn’t it?
I just got super stoked over this since I found an app that does it all, and it’s free without any spam. If you’re like me, you’ll probably appreciate this app as well. Apparently, it’s also been mentioned by TheNextWeb, Tim Ferriss, BuzzFeed, Lifehacker, Product Hunt, Reddit, and TheDailyMuse as well.
Let’s go over the details and if sounds like something you’d like, go ahead and try it. If not, you can click here to go over to the Chrome Store to find one for yourself. There’s a ton.
Momentum is a free app for Chrome OS that’s made to do exactly what I wanted. It has several uses that it’s intended for, but for motivational quotes, it delivers.
From their site, Momentum is advertised as something that:
“Momentum is a personal dashboard designed to eliminate distraction and provide inspiration, focus, and productivity.”
What I found to be especially true are the “inspiration” and “productivity” parts.
If you want to try it out while reading this article, you can grab the app here.
How Momentum works, and how it can help you
How it works is like this:
You add it Chrome and then install it. After you activate it, you’re prompted to sign up for an account using your email and create a password (don’t worry, this is optional).
Whenever you open a new tab (Ctrl + T), it’ll show a personalized “dashboard” as they call it, that’ll greet you by your name (or a variety of randomly-chosen-feel-good-titles).
You’ll also get a nice photograph in the background, along with the time in big, bold font. The weather widget is displayed in the top-right, showing the current temperature, weather conditions, and your location. Your to-do list in the bottom-right, which pops up with a small checklist that you can add and check off tasks.
The top-left has a “links” text which is clickable and opens up the usual links you get when you open a new tab, such as the “apps” and search bar. The bottom-left has the photo credits.
The best part is that you can customize it to act as a photography app, to-do list app, weather app, productivity app, and of course, an inspirational app. Although each section of the app isn’t as good as a dedicated app, it’s still good enough for most users.
It’ll help boost your productivity and keep you motivated
The app takes over your new tabs that you open. It looks like a website with the way it’s presented. The images are crisp and clear and draw attention. The time is displayed in real-time in a huge font, which really reminds me of an iPhone. The words and typeface are appealing to look at. And the variety of greetings it throws at you will keep you satisfied. You can tell the developers put in a lot of work to make it flow and such.
It’ll greet you according to the time of day (“good morning…”) or call you a name (“superstar”) or even recognize your actual name (“Andy”) and whip up some combination of text to put it all together- “Good morning, Andy” or “Greetings, smarty pants.” I haven’t seen any weird combinations, yet. They all seem to work without sounding too awkward. Though what you see depends on if you’ve set up an account with Momentum.
Sure, it’s all a computer algorithm, but it’s beautifully programmed to just work and give you that extra motivation to power on. It really does feel like it was personalized just for you. And that’s an empowering feeling. That’s instant gratification.
So basically, every time you pop open a new tab, you’ll be greeted with a personalized message and a factor of randomness, whether it be an image, quote, or both. Since you see this with every tab you open, you’d think it gets boring or stale fast. It really doesn’t.
It doesn’t change every time, only every day. So you’ll see something new every time a new a day begins.
I found myself stopping what I was doing and taking a quick glance, even if just to read the text. A few other times it actually distracted me from my work because I ended up playing around with the notepad. Ironic, huh? Heh.
Accomplish your goals
Every morning, Momentum will prompt you with a question- “What is your main focus for today?”
You can’t help but fill something in. It’ll then display it towards the bottom of the screen every time you open a tab, so you stay focused on your main goal. It has a checkbox that you can tick off when you complete it.
You can also set up multiple goals and tick them off one-by-one using the to-do list, but it can’t be integrated as your “main focus” unless you use the premium version. So that means you can only have one main task assigned at a time.
Don’t get this confused with the to-do list. The “main focus” is something that’s always shown right in front of your face. The to-do list is tucked away in the corner and requires that you click it to open it, though you can change the options and have it always expanded.
It’s like a productivity, inspirational quote, and motivational app in one
So, this app is like a whole bunch of apps mix into one productivity app. Again, it doesn’t do any of the minor things, such as weather and to-do lists as well as an actual app made for that, but it works. Where it shines is the productivity and staying focus arena.
Momentum will constantly remind you of your main focus of the day, and it’ll keep you inspired by showing you random quotes to keep you going. The focus can be checked-off as you get it done, so you’ll constantly be reminded to work on whatever task you set. You can add a new task anytime, or delete your current one.
However, you can only have one task assigned at a time, unless you upgrade.
I found that this is where the app was most useful. It keeps you motivated to get your tasks done and keeps you going with the quotes it displays.
How Momentum helped me personally
[the_ad id=”2591″]Often, I’d be working on one task until I have to research something. Then, I’d get distracted by looking up random things or researching more than I initially needed to. Ads, products, shopping, links- they’re all distractions which brought my productivity down.
You know exactly what I mean. You’re supposed to be doing something, but then you get distracted. Email, Facebook notifications, new Tweets, another selfie on Instagram, going from link-to-link on Wikipedia- we all do it. Whatever your poison is, this app can help keep you focused on your tasks when using the computer.
With Momentum, I see my main task every new tab, so I’m reminded to stay productive and work on it. Although it doesn’t work all the time, it does break the cycle. It’s easy to get off-track online, and anything that helps keep you going where you should be going is a necessity if you’re working to accomplish something.
So all in all, I’d say my favorite feature is the focus setting. And probably the second best is the quotes.
Other features of the app
As a photography app, the images are very good quality and give you that “wow” factor. They’re pretty interesting to look at and gaze for a bit, but then you’ll quickly resume what you were previously (or about to be) working on. Keep in mind that I’m not really a photography person, so it’s just cheap thrills for me. It’s very similar to Bing’s homepage with the rotating images. You also get a caption and source of the images if you want to investigate it further.
The to-do list is also pretty cool. It’s simple and it works. You click on it and you get a little task box that you fill in with tasks. It’ll tell you how many you have left, how many you’ve completed, and your progress. It also has a smiley face when you’re all done, and changes as you go through your tasks.
The weather is super basic. It displays your location, the current temperature, and the weather conditions, such a sun for sunny. That’s it. If you’re looking for more, you’re best off using an app made for weather. The one built for Momentum is used for a quick glance.
And the inspirational part…the quotes. They’re displayed at the bottom of the screen on every new tab you open. So pretty much every new day you’ll get something to read. When you’re about to research or look something up, you’ll see a quote to eat up. The selection is wide enough to not get repetitive and good enough to get you amped up. You can even save your favorites in a list.
Premium features
Momentum does have some paid features as well.
You can also use it as a note-taking app. It has a slim, simple interface that just pops out when you click on it so you can jot down your thoughts quickly. But if you’re looking for something to do some serious note-taking, it’ll probably be best to use a dedicated app for that. It works by popping out a list of stuff you wrote down previously so you can add to it. The note-taking is a premium feature, which means you have to pay for it.
The to-do list can also be auto-focused to be your main focus of the day, but this is a premium feature. You could simply just click on the to-do box rather than sign up for this, but then again, it’ll be useful to keep track of multiple tasks.
You can set up a countdown timer that can be used to track an important meeting or appointment. Although I personally have no use for this and probably wouldn’t pay for it, I can see it be useful for people who want to keep track of a goal that spans over the course of time rather than a specific day.
You can add integration with many popular apps, such as Wunderlist, Trello, Todoist, Google Tasks, and even Github. A few of the apps are still under development for integration, so they may not work properly. You can click on the “issues” text to read about it, which is very nice that they provided this.
Customizing the font and theme is also possible. You can choose from a variety of fonts such as modern, startup, retro, quirky, classic, and warehouse. You can also set the theme to light or dark mode, or customize it.
But if you’re just using this for motivation or inspiration, you don’t really need the premium stuff unless you really dig the app.
Customization, personalization, and options
You can customize Momentum straight out-of-the-box without paying for anything. Here’s a complete list (as of this writing) of all the things you can customize to personalize it.
You can make the following changes for free:
- change the weather display units from F to C, or vice versa
- add your own background images
- customize and favorite backgrounds
- change the feed source for backgrounds
- change the clock format
- switch to a percentage-based format for completing your tasks
- switch your default search engine between Google and Bing
- sync your account across multiple devices
- keep your to-do list expanded instead of having to click on it when you open a new tab
- add your own quotes to the feed
- customize, favorite, and change the source of quotes
As you can see, you can pretty much customize the app on how you like it. Whether you want it to be focused on inspirational stuff, photography, productivity, to-do list, or focus on focus itself.
Drawbacks of Momentum
There are two main things I could point out about the app that could use some improvement.
First, the app slows down your new tab “load time.” When you pop open a tab, it takes significantly longer to display the screen. If you’re in a hurry to look something up, it can get annoying.
Second, the fact that the to-do list can’t be set as your main focus unless you pay. I understand that this is a premium feature that many people would use it for and that the developers need to support themselves. However, many users can simply get around it by only setting a single goal at a time and then completing it (or deleting it), and then adding another one. It just makes the process more tedious.
However, many users can simply get around it by only setting a single goal at a time and then completing it (or deleting it), and then adding another one. It just makes the process more tedious. Then again, if you like the app, by all means- upgrade.
But, they were nice enough to let us have a to-do list that can be customized to stay open upon a new tab, so that’s very generous in its own right.
Try it for yourself
[the_ad id=”2593″]So far, Momentum is the best inspirational app I’ve used on Chrome OS thus far. I have yet to find another that does what I need it do as well as this, so I’ll stick with it. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can get it here. It works for any device running Chrome OS- laptops, desktops, Chromebooks, etc.
If you have any other motivational or inspirational apps, let me know and I’ll check them out.
