Free Chrome extension that auto-tracks your focus, labels sites as productive or not, and grows a sheep based on how you spend your time. It’s effortless, private, and a little too honest about your browser habits.
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Yang, one of the makers behind Shepherd 👋
I'm also Co-Founder of Composite (composite.com), and Shepherd came from wanting to understand where my time was actually going in the browser, instead of just feeling guilty about procrastinating.
Why we built this
I used to end every week with the same uneasy feeling: I was busy, but what did I actually do? My days are long as a founder, and I couldn't tell you where any of my time went. I tried pomodoro timers, but they couldn't account for longer work sessions. And manual time tracking felt like another exhausting errand to remember.
My problem wasn't discipline, it was the lack of visibility and granular insights into how I was actually spending my time online.
So I built Shepherd! The name (and the sheep) are a little homage to where I'm from. I grew up in New Zealand, a 10-minute drive from sheep farms, so it felt right to bring a bit of home into the product 🇳🇿
I got our team at Composite hooked on it, then my friends from Stanford started using it too. Turns out everyone had the same blind spot.
What makes Shepherd different
Shepherd quietly runs in the background and tracks how you spend your day in Chrome. No manual input, no start/stop buttons, no friction, super lightweight, and completely passive.
🐑 Simple layout – Your browsing is categorized as productive or distracting in real time. One panel shows you exactly where your day is going, right now.
🐑 Live tracking – We visualize when you're typically distracted throughout the day, and give you a weekly health score. You can stop bad trends before they snowball, or double down on what's working.
🐑 Grow your sheep – This is the fun part! Every day, you get a new sheep that grows based on how you spend your time. Stay focused in long sessions and your pasture flourishes, and your sheep grows up healthy and strong. Get distracted too much and your sheep might get a little dirty. Or sick. It's weirdly motivating to keep a virtual sheep healthy.
Who it's for
Busy professionals, founders, students, really anyone who wants to understand their habits without adding another chore to their day.
I've been using it daily while building Composite and it's genuinely changed how I structure my work. My team has started getting competitive about their sheep, which was not the intended outcome but I'm not complaining 😄
Shepherd’s completely free and takes less than 30 seconds to set up. It's a lightweight Chrome extension, with no accounts or onboarding flows to sit through. I'd love your feedback! Check it out at shepherdtime.com 🐑
What's your biggest struggle with staying focused during the day? Would love to hear from you in the comments!
sers can probably tweak what counts as productive (e.g., Notion good, Twitter bad for some), but how private is the data really? Does it stay fully local/on-device, or is there any cloud sync for cross-browser insights?
Also, do you have integrations or requests for it to play nicer with other productivity tools (like auto-logging focus blocks to calendars, or exporting sheep stats to Notion/ClickUp)?
The productive vs distracting labeling is where these tools either click or feel judgmental/wrong. How did you design the categorization system so it’s both accurate and customizable—and what’s your philosophy when a site is “context-dependent” (e.g., YouTube for learning vs procrastination)?
love the idea. Is it only tracking my computer, or my phone as well? Would love to add the data to my Whoop & Apple Health stats too
The gamification with the growing sheep is genius — way more motivating than a boring time chart. "Anti-brainrot extension" made me laugh. Sometimes you need a little guilt from a virtual sheep to close that 47th tab.
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Tim, also a fellow maker behind Shepherd! 🐑
Shepherd is such an easy extension to just keep in the background as I go about my working day. I'll admit, when I first started using it, I was a little humbled by how often I got sidetracked. But once I could actually see my habits laid out, I started making real changes. Now there's nothing more satisfying than ending the day with a fully-grown, pristine sheep! 💪
My favorite part whenever I check in has to be the daily sheep fact. It's just a nice touch that adds a bit of personality to the experience. Didn't know I needed those in my life, but here we are. 😂
I'll be around for a bit to answer any questions. Would love for you all to try out Shepherd!
Hi everyone, I’m Varun, also on the Composite team that built Shepherd!
We originally built this for ourselves. Once we started using it internally and seeing what it surfaced, it was obvious other people might want the same visibility.
The core idea is simple. No setup, no configuration, no productivity theater. Install it and it passively shows you where your time actually goes.
Also, designing the sheep states was unexpectedly fun. Watching them change based on your behavior makes the feedback loop feel a lot more real.
Would love for you to try it and tell us what you think.
Hi everyone! I'm Charlie, also one of the makers behind Shepherd 👋
Since we had so much fun building and using this tool internally, we thought that some of you may love it as well!
Designing the different sheep stages was one of the most fun parts of the build, watching them evolve from cute lambs to full grown sheep. Would love for you all to give it a try and let us know what you think!
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Yang, one of the makers behind Shepherd 👋
I'm also Co-Founder of Composite (composite.com), and Shepherd came from wanting to understand where my time was actually going in the browser, instead of just feeling guilty about procrastinating.
Why we built this
I used to end every week with the same uneasy feeling: I was busy, but what did I actually do? My days are long as a founder, and I couldn't tell you where any of my time went. I tried pomodoro timers, but they couldn't account for longer work sessions. And manual time tracking felt like another exhausting errand to remember.
My problem wasn't discipline, it was the lack of visibility and granular insights into how I was actually spending my time online.
So I built Shepherd! The name (and the sheep) are a little homage to where I'm from. I grew up in New Zealand, a 10-minute drive from sheep farms, so it felt right to bring a bit of home into the product 🇳🇿
I got our team at Composite hooked on it, then my friends from Stanford started using it too. Turns out everyone had the same blind spot.
What makes Shepherd different
Shepherd quietly runs in the background and tracks how you spend your day in Chrome. No manual input, no start/stop buttons, no friction, super lightweight, and completely passive.
🐑 Simple layout – Your browsing is categorized as productive or distracting in real time. One panel shows you exactly where your day is going, right now.
🐑 Live tracking – We visualize when you're typically distracted throughout the day, and give you a weekly health score. You can stop bad trends before they snowball, or double down on what's working.
🐑 Grow your sheep – This is the fun part! Every day, you get a new sheep that grows based on how you spend your time. Stay focused in long sessions and your pasture flourishes, and your sheep grows up healthy and strong. Get distracted too much and your sheep might get a little dirty. Or sick. It's weirdly motivating to keep a virtual sheep healthy.
Who it's for
Busy professionals, founders, students, really anyone who wants to understand their habits without adding another chore to their day.
I've been using it daily while building Composite and it's genuinely changed how I structure my work. My team has started getting competitive about their sheep, which was not the intended outcome but I'm not complaining 😄
Shepherd’s completely free and takes less than 30 seconds to set up. It's a lightweight Chrome extension, with no accounts or onboarding flows to sit through. I'd love your feedback! Check it out at shepherdtime.com 🐑
What's your biggest struggle with staying focused during the day? Would love to hear from you in the comments!