You finish a session. The timer stops. A particle appears on your screen — proof that you showed up and did the work.
But something is missing from that particle. It knows how long you worked. It knows the project, the time of day, the duration. What it doesn't know is the thing that matters most: how did it feel?
#The question nobody asks
Productivity tools count. Hours logged. Tasks completed. Streaks maintained. They are excellent at measuring the quantity of work. They are blind to its quality.
Not quality in the deliverable sense — whether the code compiles, whether the design is polished, whether the report is thorough. Quality in the human sense: Did this work energize you or drain you? Did you finish feeling alive or feeling hollow?
This distinction matters more than most people realize. Because the work that drains you isn't just unpleasant — it's unsustainable. And the work that energizes you isn't just enjoyable — it's where your best output lives.
#A five-point spectrum
After each session, Particle now asks a single question: How did that feel?
Five options. No numbers. A spectrum from Energizing to Draining. You tap once, and the moment is captured. If you don't feel like answering, you dismiss it. No guilt, no reminder, no streak broken.
That single data point, multiplied across weeks of sessions, becomes something remarkable.
#Patterns you can't see in a calendar
With enough rated sessions, Vitals reveals four insights:
Project Energy shows which projects energize you and which drain you. Not which projects take the most time — which ones cost the most energy. The difference is profound. You might spend three hours on creative work and feel recharged. You might spend thirty minutes on admin and feel depleted.
Best Hours maps your energy across the day. Not when you're most productive — when you feel most alive during your work. For some people, mornings are electric. For others, the evening is where the magic happens. Your calendar doesn't know this. Your body does.
Sweet Spot finds the session duration where energy peaks. Twenty-five minutes might feel light and focused. Fifty minutes might push into heavy territory. The inflection point is different for everyone. Vitals finds yours.
Feeling Trend tracks whether your work energy is improving, stable, or declining — this week versus last week versus last month. It's the vital sign of your professional life.
#The scale that explains itself
Each insight shows your position on a visual spectrum: Energizing, Light, Neutral, Heavy, Draining. No numbers to interpret. No scores to optimize. Just a clear picture of where you stand.
A marker on a gradient. Left is good. Right is costly. The active zone lights up. You understand it in a glance.
#Why this matters
We built Vitals because we believe something the productivity industry ignores: work should build you up, not break you down.
Your wearable measures that you were stressed. It doesn't know why. Your calendar shows where your time went. It doesn't know what it cost. Particle sits in between — the only tool that knows both what you worked on and how it felt.
This is Layer 1. Subjective. Based on your own perception. In the future, we'll connect objective data — heart rate variability, sleep, recovery scores from your wearable — to reveal something even deeper: the gap between how you think work feels and how your body responds.
But perception is where it starts. Because the first step to changing how you work is noticing how it feels.
#Start with a feeling
Every session already asks the question. You just have to answer it. Over time, the patterns become undeniable. The project you thought was fine turns out to be heavy. The morning routine you take for granted turns out to be your peak. The session length you default to turns out to be ten minutes too long.
These aren't optimizations. They're revelations. Small shifts in awareness that compound into a fundamentally different relationship with your work.
The work of a lifetime consists of many particles. Each one has a feeling. Now you can see them.