The Leaderboard
Healthy competition to keep you focused and motivated.
What is the Leaderboard?
The leaderboard is MainQuest's competitive layer. It ranks players based on how much focus time they have logged through focus sessions. The more time you spend in focused work, the higher you climb.
Unlike systems that punish inactivity, MainQuest's leaderboard only rewards effort. There are no penalties for taking a break, no demotions for missing a day, and no pressure to grind beyond what feels healthy. It is competition in its purest form: who put in the work?
Whether you are a power user logging hours of deep work daily or a casual player doing 20-minute Pomodoro sessions, the leaderboard gives you a way to see your effort reflected and celebrated.
The Primary Metric: Focus Time
The leaderboard ranks players by a single metric: focus time. This is the total duration of focused work logged through MainQuest's built-in focus session modes.
Focus session modes that contribute to leaderboard time:
- Pomodoro: Structured work/break intervals (e.g., 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off).
- Timer: Set a custom duration and focus until the timer runs out.
- Breadcrumbs: Log small increments of progress as you work.
- Flowmodoro: Start working and stop when you naturally lose focus — the session adapts to your flow state.
All four modes contribute equally to your leaderboard score. Choose whichever mode fits your working style.
Weekly, Monthly, and All-Time Rankings
MainQuest offers three leaderboard views, each serving a different purpose:
Weekly
Resets every week. Great for short-term motivation and seeing who is putting in the most work right now. A fresh start every Monday.
Monthly
Resets every month. Rewards sustained effort over a longer period. Useful for tracking month-over-month improvement.
All-Time
Never resets. Your cumulative focus time since you started using MainQuest. The ultimate measure of long-term dedication.
Each view gives you a different lens on your progress. Use the weekly board to stay sharp day to day, and glance at the all-time board to appreciate how far you have come.
Rank-Up Animations
When you climb the leaderboard rankings, MainQuest celebrates your progress with rank-up animations. These visual celebrations play when you overtake another player and move up in the standings.
Rank-up animations serve as a dopamine hit — a small but satisfying reward for the hard work you put in. They turn the abstract concept of "I focused for 2 more hours this week" into a tangible, visible achievement.
The animations are designed to feel rewarding without being disruptive. They celebrate your effort and then get out of the way so you can keep working.
Healthy Competition, Not Toxic Pressure
MainQuest's leaderboard is built on a core principle: competition should motivate, not stress. That is why the system is designed with several guardrails:
- No penalties for inactivity: If you take a day off, your ranking stays where it is. You are never punished for resting.
- Effort-only ranking: The metric is pure focus time — not XP, not level, not streaks. It measures one thing: did you show up and focus?
- Weekly resets: The weekly leaderboard gives everyone a fresh start, so you are never too far behind to catch up.
- Optional participation: You can completely ignore the leaderboard and still enjoy every other feature in MainQuest.
The goal is to give competitive players an outlet while ensuring casual players never feel left behind.
Friends on the Leaderboard
The leaderboard becomes even more engaging when you have friends on MainQuest. Seeing a friend just above you in the rankings creates a natural, friendly rivalry that pushes both of you to do more.
You can filter the leaderboard to show only your friends, making it easier to track how you compare to the people you know. This is especially powerful for accountability groups, study partners, or coworkers using MainQuest together.
Combine leaderboard competition with the social features — if a friend is slipping in the rankings and their HP is low, reach out and encourage them before they need a Second Chance Scroll.
Making the Most of the Leaderboard
- Set a weekly focus goal — decide how many hours of focused work you want to log each week, then use the leaderboard to track whether you hit it.
- Use it for accountability — tell a friend your leaderboard goal and check in with each other at the end of the week.
- Pair with achievements — some achievements reward consistent focus session usage, which naturally boosts your leaderboard rank.
- Don't chase the top — competing with yourself (beating your own previous week) is often more sustainable than trying to be number one.