89% of ALL devs WASTE Hours—Could THIS tool fix that?

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

Lately, I’ve been working on a concept for a productivity plugin built specifically for Roblox Studio. In the past I have thought deeply about productivity, like a post I made about deep research I did on strategies. In this, I identified methods like the pomodoro technique, which I have been using recently, but I have found that these work timers dont really feel smart but rather something in the background. And because of that I feel like it doesnt really adress the root of my lack of productivity: an partner that works with me, that motivates me, and actually helps me. Im thinking of creating a new plugin that helps you stay on track in the way developers really work.

If you’ve ever found yourself bouncing between scripting, modeling, tweaking UI, and suddenly realizing 45 minutes went by without meaningful progress, this is for you. As I mentioned, tools like Pomodoro timers or time trackers work in theory, but they’re not built for the Studio environment. They don’t adapt when you’re in flow—or when you’ve totally hit a wall.

This plugin aims to fix that.

What It Does

It acts like a personal productivity coach right inside Studio. It tracks your activity—mouse and keyboard input, what tools you’re using, when you pause—and builds a real-time picture of how focused you are. It then adjusts your work sessions on the fly. If you’re locked in, it stretches the session. If you’re stalling, it prompts you to take a break. Over time, it learns from your patterns and starts optimizing your daily flow before you even ask.

Here’s what makes it different: it doesn’t just react. It remembers. It learns when you’re typically most productive and schedules longer sessions at those times. If your energy usually crashes mid-afternoon, it builds that into your routine. You don’t have to manage your focus—it starts managing itself.

It greets you each day, asks what you’re trying to get done, and helps you structure your time without being preachy or annoying. You get better sessions, more useful breaks, and over time, clear trends showing when and how you work best.

There’s nothing else like this in Studio right now. WakaTime gives you data, sure, but it’s passive. This plugin uses your data to do something with it.

Free vs Paid

The plan is to make the core features: adaptive timers, basic focus tracking, and goal setting for free. The more advanced stuff like trend graphs, personalized scheduling, and deeper insights would be part of a one-time premium unlock, probably $9.99. No subscriptions unless syncing across devices becomes a real need later.

I Want to Hear From You

I’m not trying to build this in a vacuum. If this sounds useful, the best way to help is to fill out the polls below. It’ll help me know what to focus on and whether this is something worth fully developing. If there’s enough interest, I can actually make this a reality.

But if you’re not interested I will drop it.

Thanks for reading. Let’s make Studio a little smarter to work in.

Would you use a productivity plugin like this?

• Yes, I’d use it and want to test it early
• Might use it, depending on features
• No, I wouldn’t use it

Which features sound most useful to you?

• Adaptive Pomodoro timer that changes session/break lengths
• Tracks your activity (scripting, modeling, etc.)
• Shows productivity trends & stats over time
• Suggests when to take breaks

If it had a free version and a $10 one-time unlock for the advanced features, would you pay for it?

• Yes, $10 is fair for the full version
• Maybe, depends on how useful it is
• No, I wouldn’t pay for a plugin

How do you currently stay focused in Studio?

• I use Pomodoro or some other method already
• I take breaks when I feel tired
• I just work until I’m done or burnt out

Let me know in the comments too. The more real responses I get, the better I can shape this into something that’s actually useful.

[McGamerNick]

Your polls are broken! But wow, this seems like a pretty good plugin concept. I am interested in it and will be willing to test it whenever you publish it / need testers.

Edit: You just fixed the polls haha, but seriously a plugin like this would be nice to have. Get a bare bones prototype working then you could worry about all the snazzy designing later.

A cool little thing you can add is moods, as a programmer I notice sometimes i get stuck it would be nice to log it when I’m stuck mentally and to add little notes to it example Stuck -> Tuesday -> Trying to add daily rewards but can't save/load data/time properly. This way overtime i can track if a project is really challenging me or not

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it! this kind of encouragement is honestly super motivating. I’m planning to start with a lightweight prototype to get the core logic working first (mainly adaptive session timing and basic activity tracking), and then build up from there.

It’s also reassuring to hear you think it’s a good idea! I was a little unsure at first, since getting adoption for Studio plugins can be tough, especially for non-gameplay tools. But feedback like this definitely helps keep the momentum going.

Im currently figuring out a huge amount of variables to track (through academic research) like:

1. Consistency: whether the user has been working in one go or is it chopped up. This can help determine if they are working on a stressful task and I could prompt something like a reflection (letting them break it down)

2. Activity type: tracking whether they are scripting, modeling, gui design, etc can help tailor work sessions and type.

3. Input tracking: like clicking can indicate actuvity which can be tracked historically for natural slumps for work sessions to push through. Can also determine outliers in preformance (like if theyre sick or exams are coming up) to be more leniant. If users are more productive at certain times of day it recommends long work sessions to maximize productivity, and shorter sessions during non productive times to avoid burnout.

4. Self reporting: at the beginning of the day users can select difficulty levels. After each session users can give confidence. The software can learn what combinations of sessions (long session with lomg break or short session with short break) leads to the most productivity based on this self reporting personalized to the user.

5. Bed time tracking: users can set bed times so the tool does not try to push them past that time, and instead adjusts goals to cap at that bed time.

Etc you get it! If you have any advice I would love to hear it!

[McGamerNick]

Of course! Do not get demotivated at all. There may be negative comments but, my girlfriend uses that Pomodoro timer for her college work ( I never used it because I do all my work with discipline) but she loves it! So it would be nice to try it with something like Roblox Studio (where i don’t discipline myself ).

Don’t worry about making everything over the top first release. It happens to a lot of people who make things. A lightweight prototype and push it to get genuine feedback, looking forward to it. You can always scale this and turn it into a daily goal feature as well Monday -> Create Player Data, Tuesday -> Build A Map, some stuff like that to also give yourself more sales and users.

Looking forward to this and will be watching this topic closely if you plan to put updates here

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

I appreciate the feedback and its really true that rapid prototyping is effective. Something I love doing is researching and I know from papers that its really effective in product creation. I also know that things like short breaks can really make people a lot more productive as it “resets their brain” not only making them get more done but prevent getting overwhelmed and burnout, giving a new perspective on their work when they return.

The largest concern for me is that users will see the prototype version, and they will never interact with the product again. This is the largest reason why I feel like it needs to have so many features—because first impression really can be the only impression.

So while its safer and more efficient (and backed by research) to release a lighter version, I want to make sure users don’t leave because its just another timer. What do you think I should do to balance prototyping with first impressions?

[McGamerNick]

I think you should have a select amount of people join a whitelist. Let’s say 5 Programmers, 5 Modelers, 5 UI designers. Or how ever many you can get. See how each Developer interacts with your plugin through feedback. A whitelist is good because you won’t have any first impressions on the public. If they want to join the whitelist they will have to direct message you so you can question them there and what role do they play in developing on Roblox.

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

I have been considering the survey results and Im beginning to believe that the majority of Roblox devs lack an understanding of maximizing productivity through work strategies like the pomodoro technique.

I feel like this skews the results, primarily in fields like (would you buy this) and (would you use this) as the users vote it significantly lower (whereas in the maybe fields its significantly higher.)

This means most developers view the idea as “This sounds good but I dont fully understand it” or perhaps “This sounds good but needs to prove itself”.

I believe therefore that it will be critical at this point to not only sell the tool, but to educate developers on the problem.

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

Also guys I would love to hear if anyone else has anything else to say about the topics. I will keep you guys updated as well on new insights from the poll and progress on the plugin.

Btw what do you think youre looking for in this tool? I was thinking some people might only use it for analysis of trends (and not actually use the rests). What do you think?

@McGamerNick

[McGamerNick]

I’d use it for the timer and the analysis of trends and suggesting to take breaks. I can’t think of much off the top of my head until the prototype is made and then ideas will come more.

[ScrollFrameRotation]

i would definitely get a free plugin with this… especially because of my poll answer

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

Thanks for the response and I def see were you are coming from. I think the best idea is a free/pro version where the free has all the fundemantal stuff like time tracking and where the pro offers premium features such as activity analysis, trends, and adaptive timers.

Another thing is that I could give daily free pro options to give users a feel of what the pro would be.

And everyone here is kind of a general design

I think im going to use for the tool. Im still waiting on more survey option though before getting too deep into scripting so I can strategically design an initial prototype

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

By the way something I noticed a lot also is that developers feel like they deserve hours of work for free and unwilling to support plugin developrrs.

I think its partly because developers have this weird view of money—seeing $5 or $10 for a plugin as “a huge amount” despite that amount barely paying for a single mcdonalds meal.

Like look at rational communities like Unity or Shopify. Plugins easily range from $20 to $100 for much simpler functionality. Perhaps its because those developers are more professional, and understand the importance of tools in their workflow.

And thats also why most Roblox plugins offer poor functionality. Better pricing = Better Quality. The talent for revolutionary plugins exist—look at games like bloxburg, phantom forces. Look at large studios like big games. But Roblox Developers—and their weird view of money—disable them.

What do you think?

[McGamerNick]

You can’t compare Unity or Shopify to Roblox Studio. Roblox is a targeted as a Kid’s game. A lot of developers are young, and don’t have to money to spend $20-100 on a plugin or even $5. If the plugin doesn’t provide anything useful then people are not going to buy it. People buy Moon Animator because it is useful vs a Reclass Plugin that is not useful.

As for large studios they are professional and pay for plugins because pushing out quality games back to back is their thing. Versus a solo developer trying to juggle everything.

If you were making your own game in Unity would you pay $50+ for a plugin that can increase workflow or would you just do it by yourself? I personally would just do it by myself.

[KrimsonWoIf (ClassicDev)]

You make some valid points especially about the demographic of Roblox developers and the limited budgets of younger users. I agree that the purchasing power of the average developer on Roblox is much lower than those using Unity or Shopify, and that solo developers are often trying to do everything themselves.

That said, I think the comparison still has merit when we consider the maturity of the ecosystem, not just the age of its users.

Part of what I’m highlighting is that this mindset limits the evolution of the Roblox development space. If developers continually devalue time-saving tools, we create an environment where plugin creators are discouraged from building serious infrastructure that could benefit everyone, like Moon Animator, which, as you said, is valuable and monetized.

You asked whether I’d pay $50+ in Unity to improve my workflow—honestly, I would if I knew it saved me hours.

That trade-off becomes logical when you see time as your most valuable asset, especially if you’re juggling everything solo. That’s the mindset shift I think the Roblox dev community needs to grow into over time.

So while I fully agree pricing needs to be appropriate for the audience, I also believe part of moving the community forward is gradually raising expectations in both users and plugin devs.