Timeless's Redesign

Screen Time, Siri Shortcuts, and iOS 12

10/5/2018

If there’s one new feature we’re most excited about in iOS 12, it’s Screen Time, seconded by Siri Shortcuts.

Screen Time

Screen Time offers insights about how you use your device at a glance, while also providing a means to set daily limits for certain apps and services. It’s accessed in the Settings app. We strongly recommend putting a 10 minute limit on Facebook, Instagram, and anything else you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through. We already have, and it’s greatly improved our lives.

The best apps honor real experiences and real people. Maps helps us navigate to beautiful places, and AirBnB makes sure that we’re comfortable and inspired once we get there. Messages makes meeting up with friends and family easy and natural. Spotify and Apple Music provoke spontaneous dance parties. Similarly, Timeless helps us tune into our breath and connect with the moment. We love this category of ”real life” apps, and we’re committed to making technology that is mindful and expansive.

Screen Time is a huge step forward in helping all of us use our devices intentionally, ensuring that the apps we go back to again and again truly improve our lives. We’re thrilled about it.

Siri Shortcuts

The other big feature we’re excited about is Siri Shortcuts. With Siri Shortcuts, the actions and tasks you perform everyday can be triggered with just a single tap or by asking Siri. Here’s how it works:

Siri recommends tasks on the Lock screen or in Search, based on your routines. For example, if you meditate with Timeless each morning, Siri can recommend when you wake up, “Start a self-guided meditation,” and you can begin your practice by tapping on the suggestion.

You can also add custom phrases to invoke actions. With Timeless, we love saying, “Hey Siri, start a 12 minute meditation,” and “Continue my multi-day course.” We’ve compiled a list of our favorite actions that Timeless can perform, and customizing your phrases for them is easy.

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Veteran's PATH - Featured Non-Profit

8/12/2018

Veteran’s PATH has a beautiful mission: to enable returning veterans to rediscover meaning, purpose, and joy in their lives through mindfulness, meditation, and a safe community. Through a combination of nature, physical activity, mindfulness practices, and a supportive community, veterans are discovering peace, acceptance, transformation, and honor.

Veteran's PATH'S programs have helped hundreds of veterans across the country and their goal is to reach more veterans in need. Hundreds of thousands of veterans silently suffer the invisible wounds of war, and Veteran’s PATH provides a way for veterans to journey forward.

Applying proven and practical tools of meditation and mindfulness, veterans are supported in the process of addressing trauma and moral injury, and reintegrating into civilian life. Veterans learn how to reconnect to their bodies and breath, learn to respond instead of react, and experience coming off of ‘autopilot.’

Veteran’s PATH provides introductory single-day programs aimed at introducing mindfulness, plus more intensive programs teaching the discipline and principles of a daily meditation practice.

Get in touch, make a donation, and help Veteran's PATH support veterans through meditation and mindfulness.

Posture Basics

8/2/2018

These simple tips on posture can transform a meditation practice. Give them a try and see how your state of mind subtly shifts.

Knees Below Hips

A meditation posture is constructed just like a house: from the ground up. With a relaxed lower body as a stable foundation, the rest of the body is free to sit upright.

One useful trick for relaxing the lower body is to sit on a cushion, or to elevate the hips above the knees. The goal is for the knees to rest at a level below the hips, which instantly takes away muscular tension in the legs. It’s like magic.

Long Spine

The central feature of a meditation posture is a long, straight spinal column. In many spiritual practices, this is even the object of meditation.

Try it out: starting from the base of the spine, trace each vertebrae upwards, one at a time. Imagine each vertebrae stacking one upon another. Observe any tendency to lean forward, back, or side-to-side, and subtly adjust yourself so that the spine is balanced upon its center.

Crown to the Sky

Lower the chin slightly, and allow the top of the head to reach toward the sky. Imagine a string attached to the crown of the head, pulling the spine tall.

Shoulders and Hips

The shoulders and hips are the places where most of our life stress and emotional turmoil tend to accumulate. The shoulders and hips serve as a gateway to relaxation — by releasing muscular tension in the shoulders and hips, anxiety and emotional tension will automatically ease up, and the mind becomes calm and serene. This is precisely where we most benefit from practicing relaxation.

Imagine the hips and shoulders melting, gravity pulling the flesh and bone downwards, toward the earth. If you find any places of muscular tightness or patterns of holding, gently soften around it. Be patient, breathe to these parts of the body, and allow yourself to slowly, gently let go.

In Summary

Sit with the knees lower than the hips, and consciously relax the legs. Stack the spine vertebrae by vertebrae, and reach with the crown of the head toward the sky. Finally, allow the physical body to relax. This is a strong yet soft posture — exactly what we need to turn the mind inwards.

As Suzuki Roshi once said, “To take this posture itself is to have the right state of mind.”

What We’re Reading

5/22/2018

Here is a highlight of what we have been reading, why we find these titles so impactful, and where you can pick up a copy for yourselves. (You can also see these recommendations in the Timeless app by following this link.)

Work, Sex, Money

Chögyam Trungpa’s modern portrayal of Buddhist philosophy is a must-read. It illuminates daily life as fresh and full of opportunities for enlightenment. Removing any dogma or religiosity, Trungpa takes a straight-forward, almost obvious approach to how we view our experiences and their significance. Each chapter reveals to the reader “Duh!” moments — those life-transforming lessons that are so obvious that we often forget them. Work, Sex, Money, while steeped in philosophy and Buddhist practice, reads more like a crystal clear window into the inner workings of our own lives.

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

We like reading this one slowly. We try to adopt the perspective of each and every sentence, making this read less an exercise of the intellect and more a genuine spiritual practice.

This work is a compilation of live teachings from the esteemed zen master Suzuki Roshi, who came to California from Japan in the late 1950s. As a teacher, he is at once audacious and subtle, gentle and bold. This is his method: present seemingly opposite sides of reality and allow the student to resolve any conflict, opening the mind along the way. This is a true masterpiece of zen and contemporary Buddhism, and a book worthy of reading and re-reading again and again.

The Dhammapada, translated by Eknath Easwaran

The Dhammapada is the best written record we have of the teachings of Gautama Buddha some 2500 years ago. Compiled by his most-engaged students, the Dhammapada is both a manual to the spiritual path and an illuminating philosophical adventure.

Each verse is a distillation of lectures and episodes from the Buddha’s life: they are clear, concise, and easily memorized. The intention behind this compilation was to make the path of the Buddha available, not just to monks and nuns, but to regular people as well. In spirit of this democratization effort, Eknath Easwaran’s modern translation is accessible and readable, while honoring the depth and precision of the original teachings. It is the translation that we read (and re-read), and the one we recommend to students.

The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali

Composed roughly 1600 years ago by a master of yoga, the Yoga Sutras provide a detailed map of the yogic path. ‘Sutras’ are threads that weave together to form an illuminating tapestry. They are aphorisms, both technical and precise, that not only serve as guidance on the spiritual path, but also lay out the landscape to provide meaningful context.

The text is designed so that if you are ready, the first word of the first sutra will be enough to attain enlightenment. If, like us, you’re not there yet, keep reading. Subsequent sutras and chapters provide further instruction that is more actionable. Like the spiritual path it describes, this book is intense, challenging, and deeply rewarding. It is a powerful guide for dedicated yogis and meditators.

We love and recommend Iyengar’s translation and commentary, ‘Light on the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali.’

Timeless’s Redesign

5/14/2018

We love the Timeless app. As meditators, we use it every day. As designers and builders, we are always thinking about how to make it better.

In our recent update, we set out to accomplish several goals. The first goal is to better align Timeless with the spirit of meditation. We emphasize minimalism in design, and features built around true functionality. We always insist on quality.

The second goal is to foster community. Contrary to the stereotype of the ‘hermit sage,’ meditation is a practice of compassion, connectivity, and working within the rich, fertile soil of relationships. It’s about personal growth and sharing that growth with others. Timeless is centered around the experience of a personal practice, and we love that, but we’re also aware of the importance of bringing this practice out into the world around us.

Today we’re introducing two community features that we hope you find useful. The first is the Community tab. We will feature non-profits doing solid work in the fields of social justice and environmental stewardship. We’ll also feature stories from our team, conscious businesses, meditation tips, and really any resource that will serve us as a community. If you have something you wish to share, get in touch with us so that we can include it in the app.
The second feature for fostering community is the ability to share guided sessions. It’s really easy, and anyone you share with (whether or not they are subscribing members) will have access to them.

Our final goal in this update is to cultivate ourselves as designers and creators. We’ve made our codebase better, and we also made our internal communication more integrated and consciously aligned. We see our work as a craft: our product can only be as good as our discipline, our effort, and our commitment to the highest ideals. We continually make leaps and bounds in this department, and Timeless gets better and better as a result. It’s an ‘under-the-hood’ improvement, but it has a deep impact on the quality of Timeless, so we believe it’s worth sharing with you.

There are many new features in this update. Check them out, tell us what you think, and — most importantly — enjoy your meditation.

Guided Instruction

We added more high-quality sessions to our library, and we built a session filter tool to help you find the right ones. You can choose by instructor, duration, and style of meditation. You can even limit the results to the ones you’ve marked as favorite. A word of advice: don’t think too much about the sessions you choose and the associated criteria. The most important part is simply practicing.

Every session can now be favorited, whether or not it is conducted within a multi-day course, and you can also share these sessions with anyone.

Progress

The Progress tab now displays more data in more meaningful ways. The current streak and best streak kindle motivation. The history chart highlights weak and strong points. Goal setting helps to formalize intention, and setting reminders makes the follow-through easy.

The whole dashboard is customizable. Tap on the settings button, scroll down to the bottom, and organize your dashboard anyway you’d like.

All of these new progress features are centered around helping meditators be more consistent in their practice. It works for us, and we’re confident that your practice will appreciate the extra motivation as well.

iPad and Apple Watch

If you use Timeless on your iPad, you’ll be thrilled about this update. From the bottom up, Timeless is optimized for the larger displays. We rebuilt our multi-day courses experience, added support for landscape orientation, and integrated with Cloud Sync. Timeless truly honors the iPad, and it looks gorgeous.

Timeless’s Apple Watch experience also saw improvements. The visual design matches our red, yellow, blue, and green. We added native Siri support, meaning that no matter where you are you can say, “Hey Siri, start a 12 minute meditation with Timeless,” and the session will simply begin. We have even bigger improvements planned for Timeless on Apple Watch later on, including enhancements for how we integrate with the Activity rings. Please bear with us as we roll these features out!

Fresh Design

We did change our visual design, without straying from the original subdued and gentle tone. We’ve embraced larger, heavier-weighted font that is left-aligned (it looks amazing on Apple’s large displays). We stripped out almost every social icon. Lastly, we reconsidered the relationship between each element on screen: buttons and text are better spaced and some elements are completely removed. The effect is that Timeless is both more beautiful and easier to use.

More Member Benefits

We enlisted our good friend Gian Torri (find him on instagram) to create custom sounds for the personal practice timer. Instead of suddenly being met with a loud bell sound at the end of a meditation, these sounds slowly grow in intensity, ensuring that you aren’t startled. They are inspiring sounds, drawn from the practice of meditation and optimized for use right here in Timeless.

Also for members, Cloud Sync enables course progress and personal progress stats to seamlessly exist across devices. You can turn it on/off by visiting the Community tab, and tapping ‘About.’

There are other improvements too many to enumerate, and we’re excited for you to discover them. If you notice any bugs, or have any questions or comments, please let us know. We love hearing from you.

We try to be intentional about everything we do. This update is no exception. As we make Timeless better, our practices get deeper. We learn about ourselves and connect with others. We discover the moment all over again. It’s a wonderful experience that we are grateful to share with you through Timeless.

– The Team at Timeless

(If you’ve already updated Timeless on your iPhone or iPad, you can read this story from within the app by following this link.)

Protecting Landscapes - Featured Non-Profit

5/2/2018

The Teton Regional Land Trust (TRLT) serves as a beautiful example of community-driven ecological preservation. Headquartered where we live in the Teton Valley, it is responsible for protecting the vistas and landscapes that we see every day. In a very real sense, their work has infused the Timeless app and our lives with a commitment to beauty. We also believe that it is a model organization that can be emulated in communities all over the world.

The land trust was originally inspired by a group of locals who love this landscape, its rich agricultural character, and the vibrant wildlife that call this valley home. With awareness of its fragility, they created TRLT to develop and formalize principles and practices that truly work. Partnering with multiple conservation groups, TRLT has grown into a solid organization that works with hundreds of landowners, their families, and locals to protect over 33,000 acres.

As locals who observe and appreciate what the land trust does, we have a few ideas about why they are so effective. First and foremost, compassion drives their effort. The team cares, and they bring this passion into their work. Their strategic approach is holistic, meaning that all facets of the system are included. Agriculture and ecology, science and tourism, soil and water… they all factor in to the decision-making process. TRLT is all-inclusive and non-political: farmers, environmentalists, local businesses, and families all work together. Importantly, the land trust applies scientific observation to target their effort for maximum impact.

Thanks to TRLT and their willingness to do meaningful work, we have access to beautiful horizons, clean rivers and streams, healthy wildlife, functioning farmland, and a thriving economy. This is idealism put into practice.

Screen Time

Siri Shortcuts

​Knees Below Hips

Long Spine

Crown to the Sky

Shoulders and Hips

In Summary

​Guided Instruction

​Progress

​iPad and Apple Watch

​Fresh Design

​More Member Benefits