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"In a minute," you think, and swipe the notification away. An hour later, the task has left your mind completely.
Most reminders fire once, and a one-time alert is easy to dismiss. Some tasks deserve more persistence. Send the invoice. Reply to the security report. Rotate the key that leaked in a log. For these, a reminder that keeps coming back until you are done works better.
In short
- Pesky repeats a desktop notification for one task until you complete it or call it off.
- You pick the tasks and the interval, from 1 minute to 24 hours.
- It stays quiet in the ways that matter: one notification at a time, no backlog after sleep, and it respects Do Not Disturb and Focus modes.
- Use it for the few tasks that must not slip. If everything nags, nothing does.
What Pesky is
Pesky is a reminder in Focus Pad, the always-on-top checklist in DevWorkspace Pro. Its mascot is a small fly that will not go away.
Today
Pesky
Fix checkout bug from #334
acme-shop
Call off Pesky
Give a task to Pesky, and it sends a desktop notification about that task at a fixed interval, for example every 20 minutes. The notifications keep coming until you complete the task or turn Pesky off.
A deadline tells you when a task is due. Pesky makes sure you do not forget it. You can use both on the same task.
How Pesky avoids becoming noise
A repeating reminder fails the moment it turns into noise. Pesky follows a few design rules to prevent that:
| Rule | Effect |
|---|---|
| You choose the tasks | Only the tasks that you pick nag you |
| You choose the interval | From 1 minute to 24 hours, per task |
| One notification at a time | A new Pesky notification replaces the last one, so the notification center does not fill up |
| Due at the same time? One notification | Two or more due tasks arrive as one list |
| Respect for your system | Do Not Disturb and Focus modes stop Pesky too |
| No backlog after sleep | After unlock, one notification per due task, not one per missed interval |
These rules connect to research on external reminders. People set reminders based on how much they must remember and how likely they are to be distracted. In online experiments, external reminders improved performance on a task that required people to remember intentions for later (Gilbert, 2015). A repeating reminder is a cue that keeps the intention active until you act.
How to turn on Pesky
- Move the pointer over the task. In the toolbox, click the sleeping Pesky. It wakes up when you hover over it.
- Click an interval: 5m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 30m, 45m, 1h or 2h.
- For another interval, type the minutes in Custom and press Enter.
The first notification arrives one interval after you turn Pesky on.
Need Pesky on several tasks? Select them (a normal click on each checkbox) and use the Pesky button in the selection toolbox.
Check what Pesky is doing
- A label at the end of the task shows the interval, for example
20m. Hover over it to see the time of the next notification and how many Pesky has sent. - The top right corner of Focus Pad shows Pesky with the number of tasks that have it. Click it to go to each task, starting from the next notification.
- When a notification goes out, the label and the counter buzz.
Click a notification to open Focus Pad at the task. Focus Pad goes to the correct collection and highlights the task. If the task is in a collection other than General, the notification shows the collection name.
Stop or change Pesky
- Complete the task: ⌘-click (Ctrl-click) the checkbox. Pesky stops.
- Call it off: click the Pesky label in the toolbox, then Call off Pesky.
- Change the interval: click the label and pick a new interval. The count starts again from now.
A normal click only selects a task, and Pesky continues for selected tasks. That is on purpose: selecting is not finishing.
Let an AI agent set Pesky
With the Focus Pad MCP server on, an AI agent such as Claude Code can add tasks with a pesky interval in minutes (1 to 1440).
Say a code review turns up an item that blocks the release. Ask the agent to add it with priority 5 and Pesky every 30 minutes. You get a notification every 30 minutes until you complete it.
Good (and poor) uses for Pesky
Good fits:
- Follow-ups that depend on you. "Reply to Ana about the API contract": Pesky every 1h.
- Short waits. "Check whether the deploy finished": Pesky every 10m.
- Things you avoid. "Write the incident summary": Pesky every 2h.
- Health habits during long sessions. "Stand up and stretch": Pesky every 45m.
The poor use? Everything. If ten tasks nag you, you learn to ignore all of them. Save Pesky for the few that must not slip.
Limits to know
- DevWorkspace Pro must be open. Focus Pad itself can be closed.
- If you change the text of a task, Pesky starts a new count from that change.
- When you restart DevWorkspace Pro, each count starts again.
- If your system blocks notifications from DevWorkspace Pro, Focus Pad tells you after the first blocked one. On macOS and Windows, click Open notification settings to allow them.
References
- Gilbert, S. J. (2015). Strategic offloading of delayed intentions into the external environment. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(5), 971–992. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.972963
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How often can Pesky remind me?
You pick the interval for each task: 5m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 30m, 45m, 1h, 2h, or a custom value from 1 minute to 24 hours.
How do I stop Pesky?
Complete the task with Command-click (Ctrl-click on Windows and Linux), or click Call off Pesky. A normal click only selects the task, and Pesky continues.
Do I get a flood of notifications after my computer sleeps?
No. Pesky does not send notifications while the screen is locked. When you unlock, it sends one notification for each task that is due, not one for each interval that you missed.
Does Pesky work when Focus Pad is closed?
Yes. DevWorkspace Pro must be open. Pesky uses your operating system notification settings, so Do Not Disturb and Focus modes stop Pesky notifications too.
Can an AI agent turn on Pesky?
Yes. With the Focus Pad MCP server, an agent can set the pesky interval in minutes when it adds or updates a task.