20-20-20 Eye Break

A lightweight Windows desktop app that enforces the 20-20-20 rule to prevent eye strain: every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

How It Works

The app runs silently in the system tray. Every 20 minutes, it covers all monitors with a black overlay showing a countdown timer and the message "Look at something 20 feet away." After 20 seconds, the overlay automatically dismisses. Press Escape to skip a break early.

Features

• Multi-monitor support -- overlays all connected screens
• System tray -- runs unobtrusively with right-click menu
• Take Break Now -- trigger a break manually from the tray menu
• Sound notifications -- chime on break start/end (toggleable)
• Start with Windows -- optional auto-start via registry
• Pause/Resume -- pause the timer from the tray menu
• Session-aware -- pauses on lock/sleep/screen-off, resets timer on unlock/wake/screen-on
• Single instance -- prevents duplicate processes via named mutex
• Escape to skip -- dismiss any break early with Escape or Alt+F4

Tray Menu

Take Break Now
--------------
Sound Enabled     (toggleable)
Start with Windows (toggleable)
--------------
Pause Timer
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Exit

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 with .NET 8 runtime (ships with Windows 11)

Build & Run

dotnet build
dotnet run --project src/202020

Test

dotnet test

Settings

Settings are persisted as JSON in %LOCALAPPDATA%\202020\settings.json.

Setting	Default
IntervalMinutes	20
BreakDurationSeconds	20
SoundEnabled	true
AutoStart	false