Pause Me

The 20-20-20 rule is a simple method of making sure your eyes are not strained when spending a lot of time in front of a PC monitor. It states that you should look at an object at least 20 feet away, for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes; easy to remember, and it is recommended by many doctors and researchers.

Pause Me is a very straightforward program designed to help you stick to this rule when using your PC. It runs quietly in the system tray and displays a notification on your screen whenever it is time for you to take a break.

The idea behind the 20-20-20 rule is to provide people with a method of protecting their vision that isn’t difficult to remember and should be easy to stick to. Once you’ve read the description once, you are not likely to forget what the name stands for.

It takes around 20 seconds for your eyes to completely relax after focusing on something close to you, and relaxing them every 20 minutes can help reduce or prevent eye strain.

The great thing about Pause Me is that it is remarkably easy to deploy. You don’t need to install anything before using it, provided .NET Framework is already available on your computer.

The program runs in the background, and you can start or stop the timer by right-clicking the tray icon. You can also check the timer’s progress by hovering the cursor over the icon.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to have the application prevent all mouse and keyboard input for the break’s duration, and the notification can be closed at any time. What’s more, the overlay’s appearance cannot be customized in any way.

Overall, Pause Me isn’t the most impressive piece of software you will ever come across, but it is a great choice for users who need a simple way to enforce the 20-20-20 rule and prevent eye strain.