ZenBell

ZenBell is a meditation bell that lives in your menu bar (or the Windows tray). You set how many minutes you want to sit each day; it rings until you get there, then leaves you alone.

Everything is counted in minutes, not in sessions. Three short sits add up the same as one long one, so a busy day never has to become a missed day.

Highlights

1. A daily minutes goal - pick 5 to 90 minutes. The menu bar - the tray on Windows - shows how far along you are without you opening a window.
2. Reminders that stop - nudge you every few hours, or at fixed times like 07:00 and 21:00. Either way they go quiet the moment the goal is met.
3. Quiet hours - nothing outside the window you choose, and that window may run past midnight if your day does.
4. Settle before the clock starts - a few seconds to put the phone down. The timer begins on the opening bell, not on the button.
5. An interval bell - a soft strike every 3, 5 or 10 minutes to bring you back to the breath.
6. Pause and resume - an interruption does not cost you the sit, and stopping early still logs the minutes you actually sat.
7. Seven bells, or your own - singing bowl, temple bell, gong, crystal bowl, wind chime, tingsha, wood block. Or point it at any sound file you like.
8. A background bed - optional rain or room tone while you sit, silent again the moment you finish.
9. Streak and history - 7, 14 or 21 days at a glance, or any past month, with a running streak of the days you finished.
10. Start from anywhere - one keystroke begins a sit from whatever app you happen to be in.
11. Yours alone - no account, no cloud, no network. Your history is one file on your own machine.

How it works

Set the goal once. ZenBell keeps a quiet count up in the menu bar and rings a reminder every few hours until you have sat your minutes. When you are ready, press Begin - or the keyboard shortcut, from any app - settle for a few seconds, and the opening bell starts the clock.

Closing the window stops nothing. ZenBell stays up there, so the bells keep their side of the arrangement even on the days you have forgotten all about it.

Perfect for

1. Building the habit - the streak counts the days you finished, not the days you opened the app.
2. Sitting at your desk - ten minutes between meetings, started with one keystroke and no setup.
3. Anyone who forgets - the reminder reaches you with the window closed, and stops the second you are done.
4. Keeping a practice private - nothing is uploaded, because there is nowhere to upload it to.