Blog post: Focus Has a Blind Spot

Author: armilam

_posts/2026-03-25-focus-has-a-blind-spot.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Focus Has a Blind Spot
+date: 2026-03-25 15:47:00 -0500
+tags: [macos, indie, tools]
+---
+
+I miss meetings. Or, I _did_ miss meetings. Enough times that I finally got annoyed enough to do something about it.
+
+Working from home, deep in a technical problem, I'd have the kind of focus where the rest of the world just stops existing for a while. And somewhere in that window, a notification would appear in the corner of my screen, linger for a few seconds, and disappear. By the time I surfaced, I had a Slack message from my manager asking if I was going to join the call.
+
+It happened more than a few times.
+
+The built-in notification is fine for most things. For calendar events it's just not enough - not if you're the kind of person who actually gets into a flow state and stops processing ambient information. I needed something that couldn't be ignored.
+
+## Looking for an existing solution
+
+I did what I always do first: I looked for something that already existed. I found one app that did basically what I wanted. It had good reviews. It also wanted a monthly subscription.
+
+That was a non-starter. Not because of the price specifically (a few dollars a month), but because the thing runs entirely on my machine, against my calendar data, with no backend, no sync, no ongoing infrastructure. There's nothing subscription-worthy happening here. Paying recurring fees for local software is a dealbreaker for me, so I closed the tab and opened Xcode instead.
+
+## Hey Listen
+
+The result is [Hey Listen](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hey-listen/id6758747746), a macOS menu bar app that shows a full-screen alert before calendar events.
+
+![Hey Listen alert screenshot](/assets/2026-03-25-hey-listen/alert.png)
+
+Not a notification badge. Not a banner that slides in and out. The whole screen. Every screen, if you have more than one like I do. Event title, start time, description if there is one, and action buttons. It's impossible to miss, which was the entire point.
+
+Beyond the core overlay, I built in a few things that turned out to matter in practice:
+
+_Snooze options._ 1, 5, or 10 minutes, or snooze until a specific number of minutes before the event starts. Useful for when you get the alert and genuinely need two more minutes to finish a thought.
+
+_Join Meeting button._ It detects Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams links in the event and surfaces a one-click join button right in the overlay. No hunting through the calendar app mid-alert.
+
+_Configurable alert timing._ You can set a global default, then override it per-calendar, per recurring event series, or per individual event. The most specific setting wins. I have a few recurring events I want 10-minute warnings on and most things at just 1. This notifies me when I need to be notified for each event.
+
+_Mute controls._ You can mute a specific event, a recurring series, or any event whose title matches a pattern. I have a "Focus Time" block on my calendar that I never want an alert for. One pattern rule, done.
+
+_Work hours._ Alert only during the hours and days you define. No Saturday morning alerts for something you scheduled two weeks ago.
+
+_Multi-monitor support._ Show alerts on the active screen only, or all connected displays. I use two monitors in addition to the macbook's screen and wanted the alert wherever my attention actually was.
+
+No accounts. No analytics. No network calls. Everything stays on your Mac. It reads from whatever calendars you already have in macOS Calendar - iCloud, Google, Outlook, Exchange, anything CalDAV.
+
+It's on the Mac App Store now. If you miss meetings, it'll fix that.
+
+[Hey Listen on the Mac App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hey-listen/id6758747746)