I wrote a small productivity application, [Tomate][1]. Since I'm not a native English speaker, I'm afraid the description of the project may not be clear enough for potential users. Can you help me improve it?

> Like many of us, I suffer from attention and procrastination problems,
especially when in front of a computer. How can one focus on the mundane task at
hand when the appeal of the Internet is just two clicks away?

> I started a quest for tools and ideas to help me concentrate (I know, I
know...). I found a very good book, unfortunately written in French: "Comment ne
pas tout remettre au lendemain", by Bruno Koelz.

> It turns out the diagnosis is as follows: the hardest part of not
procrastinating is getting to work, by which I mean staying concentrated long
enough to really get into the problem. Once this stage is passed, you usually
enter a state of flow and continuing to work is a lot easier and more rewarding.

> For this reason, I wrote a very small applet that allows me to pass a contract
with myself: by clicking the icon, I commit to fully concentrate on a given
problem for no less than 10 minutes. The icon becomes red for ten minutes, after
which it turns green. I am then free to either continue working or do something
else.

> The duration is voluntarily small because no matter how boring the task is, ten
minutes is always doable. Knowing I have an escape, it is easier to commit.

> Since tweaking productivity application parameters is a great way to waste time,
the applet has absolutely no configuration options, dialogs, logs, etc. I tried
to make it as simple as possible and to avoid including any feature that is not
absolutely necessary to accomplish the goal.

> Why "Tomate"? Tomate is the French word for tomato, or "Pomodoro" in Italian,
which is the name of a similar and popular technique. The Pomodoro technique
consists in working in sets of 25 minutes, with mandatory breaks between the
chunks. I feel my method is more efficient, because it is a waste to take breaks
when you're concentrated and don't need them.

> About the code: the applet is written in Python 2 and PyGTK. It is only tested
on linux, but it should work on other platforms as well. Feedback welcome!


  [1]: https://gitorious.org/tomate#more