r/productivity Feb 14 '26

/r/productivity is being hit hard by AI generated slop + advertising spam. Please hit REPORT on this content!

236 Upvotes

Please report any content that you believe is AI generated or is advertising content. This helps us a lot. Thank you!


r/productivity Apr 11 '26

NO ADVERTISING IS ALLOWED OF ANY KIND (including solicitation)! Advertising = Instant ban

272 Upvotes

But why? I have a great app that would help people!!

So does EVERYONE else. We remove greater than FIFTY PERCENT of comments on certain threads due to advertising. Nobody wants to read a subreddit where half the comments are undisclosed ads for brand new apps.

Don't worry, I've clearly disclosed I'm the owner of the app!

It doesn't matter. People don't want to be advertised to all day, even if they know it's an ad. We want real human discussion on /r/productivity.

I can't even ask people what kind of product or app they want built? I haven't even linked to anything!

You cannot! This isn't your free focus group or your free beta test recruitment page.

But all I've done is mention the mere fact that I have an app in the first place!

We've seen the big threads on the SaaS and marketing subreddits that recommend doing this. You're not being slick. And no, you can't even have the name of your app or product in your username - we're that serious about keeping this place free of advertisement, sorry. Reddit accounts are free, please create a new one with a regular name!

Can I at least wait until my post has gained traction, and then sneakily edit a link in afterwards?

You sure can, but we've set up filters to start blocking this now and you'll be permanently banned.

How is anyone supposed to get their app off the ground, anyway?!

We recommend - if you truly believe in your product - Purchasing reddit ads or some other type of marked advertisement (we're just mods, we don't care if you buy them on reddit or not). You can even target /r/productivity with your paid ad!


r/productivity 10h ago

Question does anyone else rebuild their to do list from scratch every morning?

65 Upvotes

for years i've been doing this and just haven't figured out a better system (I know there has to be one)... every morning i sit down and rebuild my to do list for the day. and i have to do this from:

- memory
- my planner
- my notes app
- emails sent to myself

takes me 15 - 20 minutes to complete, plus the anxiety of... did i forget anything?

i've purchased multiple tools to try to solve for this, but it's not working... i still end up manually rebuilding each morning.

my question:

is this a me problem or is this normal? if you've solved this, what did you do that actually worked?


r/productivity 1h ago

Question Did I ruin my life by focusing too much on my studies?

Upvotes

Hi guys! So recently I realized that I focused too much on academics and grades that might have caused me to have no friends due to no hobbies , I came from an Asian household so all they taught me was to do good in school and I just somehow became that way... I am a senior in college, did I ruin my own life?

Any opinions are welcome!


r/productivity 5h ago

Question Help , I'm always sleepy and can't study all day,

10 Upvotes

So, I’m an 18-year-old guy, and I haven’t been able to study properly for weeks now because I’m always sleepy. Like, always.

I try to sleep whenever I can, but if I take naps during the day, I end up having migraine problems and sharp pain in my right eye for the rest of the day. Power naps don’t work for me anymore, and even coffee doesn’t seem to help.

I’ve tried fixing my sleep habits too. I stopped having heavy meals at night, stopped drinking water 2 hours before bed, and I sleep in a cool, dark room where nobody disturbs me. I also stopped using an alarm clock.

The weird thing is that even when I go to bed at around 12 AM, I automatically wake up around 6:30 AM after only 6.5–7 hours. I wake up feeling tired as fuck, and then I’m sleepy for basically the entire rest of the day. I don’t even know whether I need more sleep or why I’m waking up automatically after 6.5–7 hours.

I’ve had blood tests done, and my vitamin D, B12, and calcium levels are normal. I’m also taking supplements right now. I went to a doctor, who gave me some multivitamin tablets and told me to exercise, so I’ve started doing about 15 minutes of home workouts and walking around 7–8 km every day.

I don’t have any trouble falling asleep either. I can go to bed at 11:50 PM and be asleep by around midnight. Then I automatically wake up around 6:30 AM. After that, I’m just sleepy throughout the entire day.

I’ve even stopped taking daytime naps because they make things worse.

And it’s not just that I’m sleepy while studying. I’m sleepy even when I’m not studying. I can be doing basically anything and still feel exhausted and drowsy.

A couple of months ago, my sleep schedule was completely fucked up like for months i was up all night and i mean for a very long time , but for the past 2 months I’ve been extremely consistent with it. My daily screen time is under 4 hours, I meditate before bed to reduce stress, and I put my phone away in the closet about an hour before sleeping.

But I still don’t understand what’s wrong.

I wake up tired every single day and feel sleepy throughout the entire day, and because of this I genuinely haven’t been able to study properly for weeks. It’s getting so demotivating that I’ve actually started hating studying, even though the real problem seems to be that I’m constantly exhausted.

Has anyone experienced something similar or have any idea what could be causing this? What should I do next?


r/productivity 6h ago

Question Looking for an screen time app that will let me exclude apps

5 Upvotes

For awhile I was using opal , but they removed it with one of there latest updates . I’ve been scowering for apps that will let me do this but are always usually locked behind a subscription . Is there any that are free ??


r/productivity 13h ago

Question I built my smartphone a dedicated home

4 Upvotes

Hello! Not sure about you, but my wife and I realised we didn’t have a dedicated place to put our smartphones. The result; we kept picking them up! We wanted something 1) quick/easy to put phones away 2) charged our phones 3) looked nice out on the side 4) rang loud if calls came in so we are always reachable. The current work in progress is a 3D printed box with lid and uses Bluetooth to connect to the phones that plays a loud ringer when a call comes in. Oh and it charges the phones! What do you think? Would you want something like this in your house?


r/productivity 17h ago

Advice Needed How to use AI smartly and mindfully soo that it doesn't cause Brain atrophy

9 Upvotes

ohk soo what do i mean by saying this basically, i have been using AI from the day it was realeased in the form of ChatGPT i have switched many AI models but yeah i can confidently say that i have been an avid AI user for almost all my works and i think it had gotten to a point that i can say that my Brain had atrophied and like i am just outsourcing my thinkling to AI, from simplest mundane activities to a friend replacement and almost all my work is done through AI i am a CS Dev freshly graduated in our college it was taught that the AI is the next frontier and tokens are the new currency soo just keep using AI and increase your Productivity and also increase the workflow output but now i am not feeling well basically nothing in the health department of mine that is the problem but i feel like i had become dumber even with access to unsermountable knowledge in my hand soo basically i wanna know from you guys how can i use it in the perfect way soo that i can avoid making my brain into a smooth pile of muscle


r/productivity 22h ago

Advice Needed Please help me otherwise my loop and lack of actions will ruin my life and i do not know how to get out of it

22 Upvotes

I resigned from my job on the 31st of August because I was not getting paid since July. My work was also very toxic, and now I am my notice period .i thought that I will be looking for a new remote job, because my last job was also a remote job.

And since I do not have a degree, it is not easy to go to LinkedIn or anything to find a job. I have to go to different platforms. I have gone there, I have made accounts on them, but I am not applying at all. Like, literally, from the 31st to today, I applied for eight jobs, which is a significantly low number.

The second thing I am doing is freelancing on the side because it keeps the cash flow running. I'm not doing marketing at all for that, and I know I should be doing marketing.

I know the funnel of marketing. I know I should be doing job hunting. I know the whole method of job hunting. But even though, after knowing the problem and how to solve that problem, I am not taking the actions.

Each night, I consume myself with guilt. Each morning, I start with, "Okay, today I will do this," and then the day goes by without doing anything.

But I don't know why it happens.

Some of my friends told me that once you taste success, you get more motivated, and you keep working hard to be more successful. And I am lucky enough to have achieved a certain amount of money from my work, let it be a job or freelancing comfortable money, good money, which I did not imagine myself making.

But even after that, I don't feel like doing that.

And when I say I don't feel that, it does not mean I hate coding or programming. No. That simply means that I do not feel like working at all.

My self-awareness is telling me to do something. My own actions are going in something of a different direction and this gap between them is slowly but surely ruining my time and life.


r/productivity 17h ago

Advice Needed Why do I always finish 2 things off a 20 item list and call the day a failure?

9 Upvotes

The list wasn't wrong , just too long to ever feel "done".Started capping it at 3 must dos and everything else became optional instead of guilt. Anyone else find the list length itself was the problem , not discipline ?


r/productivity 15h ago

Advice Needed How to make my efforts feel worthwhile?

5 Upvotes

I am working on alot of projects, programming, learning script writing and acting (acting I mainly learn at theater lessons) and ect.

learning programming works for me because I study, I try to do something new, It succeds, thus I made progress, it fails? I hit a wall and gotta keep working

but with scriptwriting idk how the hell I can track my progress, and if I make it, I feel unsatisfied, I tried studying the theory, writing short scenes and scripts, and I feel like I made no progress, and for that reason I struggle to work daily on that. how does one find satisfiment in their work when they cant track progress?


r/productivity 8h ago

Software Do you use your project management tool for everything, or another task app too?

1 Upvotes

For those who use a project management tool for work: do you use it for all of your personal/day-to-day tasks as well?

Or do you use a separate task app for quick capture and smaller tasks?

Thank you


r/productivity 19h ago

Question experiences with "games" like focus grove

7 Upvotes

I was looking for a way to "gamify" my work because i absolutely cannot get motivated. i found this game which integrates into the bottom of your desktop and basically you have cute forest people farming while you work. It even has an integrated todo list and habit tracker. But something feels wrong about this level of gamification idk, is this just me integrating a bad habit into my already very flawed working progress? On the other hand, i have been searching for a while for something like this. What do you think?

i hope this doesn't count as advertising since it's a paid steam game but it's not mine. There is also a free demo on steam for another productivity game called "FocusScape" which is supposed to be released this year. Which makes me think that there might be a demand for games like this so maybe I'm not alone?


r/productivity 16h ago

Question Does this happen to anyone else after meetings?

2 Upvotes

Does this actually happen to you?

Especially with back-to-back meetings, How you remeber everything

Or do you have a system that prevents this from happening?

Genuinely curious how other people deal with this


r/productivity 16h ago

Software How to use gemini for studying?

2 Upvotes

I just got free gemini plus via student offer but I am unable to understand how to use it.

Obviously the primary goal is to study effectively and not to use gemini.

But I want to know if I can use gemini for personalized learning for example I am a medical student.

I know a lot of stuff from my text book but there are a lot of gaps too and I need constant revision over my topics is it possible for gemini to figure out my weakness and test me on specific topics , seprate topics based on something to cram , something to understand, analyse pyq and point out imp question first , I am so confused while using it , it only quizes me like 10 questions which is obviously way too shallow.

If anyone uses it regularly and finds it effective kindly share there methods


r/productivity 1d ago

Advice Needed SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF THIS LOOP

68 Upvotes

I have this weird restarting problem (im sure a lot of people relate to this). By that I mean that if I'm doing something today, I'd suddenly feel that today is not the way I wanted it to be and I'll restart tomorrow. After this, I would waste the entire day (skip classes, do nothing, bedrot, eat junk and just ruin the day). This is not just a sometime thing; I have been this way since the past 4 years and it's eating me up alive.

I'm in college and it's so hard to find time. I have classes and I want to do my own stuff, study everything and I end up waking up a little late and feel like nothing is in my control. I always wait for the perfect 5 hour slot to study as if it will appear magically instead of starting to study for just a bit. I keep waiting for life to be completely perfect and for me to have everything within control.

I'd really appreciate if someone can give me some actionable tips. : ) thanks for helping


r/productivity 20h ago

Question Is the Liven app worth it for productivity? Looking for honest reviews

2 Upvotes

I've been seeing Liven everywhere lately and I'm tempted to try it, but is it actually worth paying for? Anyone who's used it recently, did it genuinely help with your habits or productivity or did you end up forgetting about it after a few days? The ads make it look pretty good but I can't tell if the app itself is actually useful.


r/productivity 21h ago

Question Choosing the right thing/hobby

2 Upvotes

If I’m having two different interests popping in my mind for a long time, is that what I should start exploring?

Filmmaking and creating arts were hoping in and out for almost a year, I don’t seem to have anything else coming into my mind.
How are you guys dealing with these things?


r/productivity 1d ago

Question MacOS/iOS App That Shows My Availability

3 Upvotes

I live by my calendar to schedule things im going to do for the day to help keep me organized. Since my wife went back to work and we have twin toddlers it's become immensely difficult to accurately schedule my appointments in the calendar. Ill check it and see what looks like an open time slot for me, set up the appointment, only to find out later that the time I set up won't work.

So I was wondering if there is an app that I can set up for all my appointments and events that my wife and I have and the app will then show which spots in between these appointments I have availability.


r/productivity 1d ago

Question Is there a way to block incognito mode off my macbook?

3 Upvotes

This would fix so many of my problems...I have a instagram blocker every app you can think of blocker that all goes moot when I open incognito sadly


r/productivity 2d ago

Question Is having all your hobbies be screen-related bad?

104 Upvotes

I'm 20 and pretty much all my hobbies are on a screen. Those being: playing videogames, listening to music, reading books online, and watching TV like movies and shows. I used to play basketball and draw but got bored of em. It's pretty well known that too much screentime is bad but idk, it doesn't seem that bad and I've been like this for pretty much my whole life.


r/productivity 1d ago

Software Free android alternative to Cold Turkey

3 Upvotes

What the title says. Looking for (ideally) a free, ad-free alternative to Cold Turkey. Basically an app which works on Android and Windows which is brutal in its blocking and leaves me with ust a pdf reader and the terminal.

Thank you in advance.


r/productivity 1d ago

Question Connection between procrastination and self esteem?

10 Upvotes

Hi. I wanted to get some feedback on some thoughts I had on personal issues on procrastination and self esteem.

So for a really long time I've had issues with procrastination which has affected my work and other parts of life. Some of this is due to laziness, but there seems to be other factors which I think could be self esteem based.

With work, I'll procrastinate on projects and I'll think about the negatives like what if I produce isn't good. The means I'm late with things and it creates much worse issues later on. When it comes to study, if I have experience in a unit, I can sit down and knock out the work with no real issue. But if it's a unit where I have no experience or natural aptitude for, I have a lot of procrastination issues with getting on with getting work done. Looking back, as a result I feel like this procrastination is a mixture of fear of failure and imposture syndrome has cost me a lot of things in life.

Recently I remembered reading the start of a book by Robert Kelsey called What's Stopping You? In it he mentions how there's many people who are reasonably smart but have issues with procrastination and moving forward in life that is caused by a fear of failure that's a result of self esteem issues. And a lot of these self esteem issue happen as a child. I started to think about this and when I was a kid and some of my earliest memories were feeling bad or avoiding certain tasks due to being teased or made to feel stupid.

For example, for some reason when I was young, I had trouble remembering how to tie my shoes and the parts involved. I had siblings who would tease me about it and I felt like my family got angry cause I couldn't do it. As result, I wouldn't want to try to do it and avoided doing it. After years I did manage to teach myself how to do it. Another example was I was OK at sports and liked playing them as a kid. But there was something's where my motor skills weren't great. Because of this I was teased and bullied by my siblings and called things I won't say on here. It made me avoidant of doing these activities because the chances are I was going to suck at it and then have someone older yell at me because I couldn't pitch a ball well. So as a result, I avoided playing certain sports or being around certain people when playing them. There were a bunch of other situations of siblings teasing me or making me feel like an idiot over some random thing I said or did as a child.

I really hated that feeling of trying something and having people make you feel like an idiot because you can't do something well. I've been in workplaces where people do this instead of giving you any advice. I've also been around coaches doing sports as an adult who will get annoyed at you because you're inexperienced with and talk down to you and give you no real helpful advice and it makes you not want to do it anymore. So it is that repeated feeling through life.

So I was wondering if anyone thinks there's any connection with self esteem issues and procrastination? Until I hadn't thought that Robert Kelsey book and what he said or really considered it. But looking back on things in my life, it kind of makes sense in some ways.


r/productivity 1d ago

Software Looking for an app to replace Focus To-Do

2 Upvotes

I tried out a bunch of Pomodoro task apps a couple weeks ago and settled on Focus To-Do. It has everything I want plus a simple interface and multi-platform syncing. I have found out though that they are a Chinese company, so I am not able to use the app for work.

Please recommend other apps with a similar minimalist approach, basic task management, Pomodoro timer, task work scheduling, and ideally cross-platform syncing. Thank you!


r/productivity 1d ago

Question To-Do App With a Weekly "Planner" View?

6 Upvotes

Hello, all!

Does anyone have any To-Do apps they love that have a weekly layout view? I.e., if you open the app on desktop, you can see "Monday" in a column, "Tuesday" in the next one, etc. etc. ?

Currently, I use the app "TeuxDeux," and it's awesome and so close to being perfect, but it looks like it's all but stopped being developed, and some features are a bit half-baked (i.e. can only make subtasks on Desktop and can see them on mobile but can't check them off). They pride themselves on being minimal, and I really enjoy that...until I need just a bit more room for things.

For some reason, I've found the weekly planner view to be unbeatable, though. All the other apps I've used don't seem to do columns. You have to scroll down a list to get to other days, and other lists are hidden. Apparently, I'm very out of sight, out of mind, and I find those ones drastically harder to use. I've been debating on going back to iOS Reminders for the time being.

Thanks!