fragwatch 0.1.0

Measure your brain's fragmentation tax — context switch tracking for knowledge workers.

fracture

Measure your brain's fragmentation tax.

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Every time you switch windows, your brain pays a tax. Research shows it takes ~23 minutes to fully regain deep focus after a context switch. Most knowledge workers switch windows 200+ times a day. Nobody tracks the cumulative cost.

fracture is a background daemon that watches your active windows and measures your fragmentation score — the real cost of all those micro-switches you don't notice.

Quick Start

pip install fragwatch
fracture             # start tracking (foreground)
fracture --daemon    # run in background
fracture --dashboard # open the fragmentation dashboard
fracture --status    # show today's stats

How It Works

A lightweight daemon polls your active window title once per second via pygetwindow. Every time the window changes, it classifies the switch by zone and records it to a local SQLite database. No cloud, no telemetry, no accounts.

Zones

Zone	Examples	Classification
Creation	VS Code, terminal, Obsidian, Figma	✅ Productive
Communication	Slack, Teams, Discord, Outlook, Zoom	❌ Fragmentation
Consumption	Chrome, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit	❌ Fragmentation
Admin	Settings, Explorer, Finder, task manager	❌ Fragmentation

The Dashboard

Run fracture --dashboard to see:

• Total window switches today
• Minutes lost to context switching
• Effective work hours (active time minus fragmentation tax)
• Zone breakdown with visual bars
• Contextual insights and recommendations

Example Output

fracture — today's fragmentation
  total switches:   214
  productive:       47 (creation)
  lost to switching: 492 min (8.2 h)
  active window:    9.5 h
  effective work:   1.3 h
  breakdown:
    creation: 47
    communication: 89
    consumption: 62
    admin: 16

FAQ

Q: How accurate is the 23-minute number? A: It's based on peer-reviewed research (Mark et al., 2005, UC Irvine). The actual cost varies by person and task, but 23 minutes is the widely cited empirical finding.

Q: Does this send data anywhere? A: No. All data stays in ~/.fracture/events.db. No network requests, no tracking, no accounts.

Q: What platforms are supported? A: Windows, macOS, and Linux. Requires a GUI environment (window title tracking doesn't work over SSH).

Q: Can I reset my data? A: Delete ~/.fracture/events.db to wipe all history.

License

MIT

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Your brain is not a browser tab.