Automatic Stretch Reminder
A screenshot of the full-screen stretch reminder.
I’ve been sitting a lot lately. Recently, my back has been hurting, and I suspect the pain is coming from sitting statically for prolonged periods of time. To encourage me to move around more, I wrote a script that reminds me every hour to stretch (and to drink water). The code only works on MacOS, so if you are using another operating system, please copy paste this whole post into an LLM, tell it your operating system, and do what it says. Most likely, the LLM will guide you to create a CronJob or something. If the program isn’t working, please email me.
The Python script creates a full-screen reminder application that interrupts work every hour, while the accompanying plist file ensures this reminder runs automatically every hour (you can change the frequency if you’d like). The .py file can go anywhere, but I placed the script under the directory ~/scripts. The .plist file must be placed under the directory ~/Library/LaunchAgents.
Make sure to edit the .plist file to include the path to your .py file and the path to your Python interpreter (run which python3 in your terminal to determine your Python interpreter path).
After saving the files, open your terminal, and run
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.stretchreminder.plist
# file: "~/scripts/sretch_reminder.py"
import tkinter as tk
from datetime import datetime
class StretchReminder:
def __init__(self):
self.root = tk.Tk()
self.root.title("Time to Stretch!")
screen_width = self.root.winfo_screenwidth()
screen_height = self.root.winfo_screenheight()
self.root.geometry(f"{screen_width}x{screen_height}+0+0")
self.root.lift()
self.root.attributes("-topmost", True)
self.root.attributes("-fullscreen", True)
self.root.attributes("-alpha", 0.95)
main_frame = tk.Frame(self.root, bg='black')
main_frame.pack(fill='both', expand=True)
content_frame = tk.Frame(main_frame, bg='black')
content_frame.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor='center')
tk.Label(
content_frame,
text=datetime.now().strftime("%I:%M %p"),
font=("Helvetica", 48, "bold"),
fg="white",
bg="black"
).pack(pady=30)
tk.Label(
content_frame,
text="Time to stretch and drink water!",
font=("Helvetica", 42),
fg="white",
bg="black",
justify="center"
).pack(pady=40)
tk.Button(
content_frame,
text="Done! (Dismiss)",
command=self.root.destroy,
font=("Helvetica", 24),
bg="white",
fg="black",
padx=30,
pady=15
).pack(pady=40)
self.root.bind('<Escape>', lambda e: self.root.destroy())
self.root.bind('<Button-1>', lambda e: self.root.destroy())
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = StretchReminder()
app.root.mainloop()
<!-- file: "~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.stretchreminder.plist" -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.user.stretchreminder</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<!-- Path to Python interpreter (assuming Anaconda's Python installation).
Make sure to replace the path below with your Python interpreter.
You can determine your interpreter by running `which python3` in your terminal.) -->
<string>/Users/davebanerjee/anaconda3/bin/python3</string>
<!-- Path to the stretch reminder script.
This script can be located anywhere in your file system
but make sure to update the path below accordingly-->
<string>/Users/davebanerjee/scripts/stretch_reminder.py</string>
</array>
<key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
<dict>
<key>Minute</key>
<integer>0</integer>
</dict>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>
Happy stretching!
