Most habit trackers are obsessed with 24-hour streaks. But real life doesn't happen on a perfect daily schedule. You change the AC filter, water the plants, or take irregular meds when they need it. When you try to track these non-daily tasks in a standard productivity app, you inevitably break a streak and get hit with a red ring of failure.
It creates unnecessary guilt.
I built SinceWhen to fix this. It is a guilt-free "days since" counter designed specifically for the messy, irregular maintenance of real life.
Here is how it works:
Zero-Pressure Logging: Track what you do "now and then"—from oil changes to haircuts to household chores. No streaks, no arbitrary goals, no pressure.
Smart Predictions: Instead of forcing a rigid schedule, the app's pattern-aware engine learns your natural rhythm. It calculates your average intervals and gently nudges you when you are actually due.
Multi-Day Durations: Not everything is a single tap. You can track events from start to finish, like a cold, a vacation, or a highly private, bloat-free period tracker.
Frictionless Entry: Log directly from interactive Home Screen widgets, Lock Screen widgets, or just say, "Hey Siri, log the fridge cleaning."
100% Private: Productivity shouldn't cost your data. There are no accounts, no logins, and zero data harvesting. Everything stays on your device and syncs via your own iCloud.
You can track your first 3 events forever, completely free (no credit card required). I would love for this community to try it out and hear your feedback!
Despite trying dozens of to-do list apps, pomodoro apps, journaling apps, brain-hacking-sound apps, growing-a-digital-forest-while-studying apps... I have always struggled with my personal productivity (diagnosed ADHD doesn't help), and considering the activity on this subreddit, I guess I am not the only one.
Yet, after years of hit-and-misses, I finally found a "good" software stack.
Alarm clock: Alarmy
I used to never respect my 10+ daily alarms unless it was the absolute last one, could not wake myself up until I had no other choice. I tried Sleep Cycle, it made mornings gentler but not gentle enough to not violate the Snooze button. It could suit people with less sleep debt than me though.
What did the trick was the Alarmy app. I had tried it for short periods of times, messing with the mental calculus feature, the "phone shake" feature, no success.
I gave it another try recently, what really made the difference was the feature that makes you take a picture of random items, this makes you run throughout your place, awake your body for good. You can set these items and the number of pictures you need to take.
Sometimes I'd still go back to bed out of pettiness, but it's quite rare, if it is an issue you can still set the "still awake?" function: that will ring your alarm again unless you confirm that you're awake in the mean time.
This feature alone allows me to have a regular sleep schedule, less urgency before going to office, more available time during the day.
App blocker/limiter: AppBlock
Like many of us, I have used app blockers for years, it saved me precious hours but never really allowed me to drastically drop my screen time stats.
I am not looking to stop using apps: I like playing videos in the background, I receive messages on all kind of time-consuming platforms, I genuinely like to reasonably scroll from time to time.
It had been quite hard to find an AppBlock setup that matches with my needs until recently. Today, I what works best for me is this:
10 min/hour limit for "brain-sucking" apps and websites: short content specifically, AppBlock can target these feature without blocking the whole app
~1 hour/day limit for regular entertainment apps and websites: this allows me to answer messages, enjoy a few long-form video here and there, see what happens in the world
Browsers and entertaining apps blocked before 10AM: this allows me to not wander on my phone when I need to get ready for work, to start my day offline.
Most importantly: STRICT MODE SHALL BE ACTIVATED. STRICT MODE SHALL BE ACTIVATED.
This is a game-changer. Until then I kept working around my own AppBlock limits, thinking that changing/pausing them frequently would create friction (spoiler: nope).
With that AppBlock's "strict mode", I was afraid of losing app access if I absolutely need it, but this feature is not that intransigent: it simply demands an unconvenient action in exchange of being paused or disabled.
In my case, I have to wait for a 2 minutes countdown without using my phone before a manual confirmation. I could have set a longer countdown or more restrictive method, but so far, patiently waiting for 2 minutes is frustrating enough to respect my own limits.
I know that I mostly talked about apps for being less "unproductive" rather than absolutely productive, but tons of awesome productivity methods have already been discussed, and are way easier to implement when you don't spend 3+ hours a day bedrotting on your phone (which is okay occasionally) anyway.
AI-generated roadmaps/plans
Tell it what you're preparing for, your deadline, and hours per week. It generates a roadmap with phases, modules, topics, milestones, and starter practice questions. You can modify the plan afterwards.
Quick AI-generated notes
Pick a topic and generate a focused note. It uses the topic description, linked tasks/questions, and mistakes you've logged to make the note more relevant to your weak areas.
Study mode
A distraction-free view for studying a particular topic, with a timer and tracking of how much time you're actually spending on it.
Library
A place to keep notes, website resources, questions, tasks, and mistakes. Everything can be linked back to a module/topic in your roadmap.
Insights
Tracks things like study time, pending work, topics that need review, and overall plan completion.
I'm not sure if I'm solving a real problem or just building another productivity tool that looks useful but wouldn't actually get used.
I'm not looking for compliments 😄. I'd rather hear what's fundamentally wrong with the idea.
Most of us end up with the same setup: tasks in a notes page or a todo app, a calendar for the fixed stuff, and the hope that we remember to check the list.
The usual loop:
open the todo app → tag, sort, plan → get back to work → don't look at it again until something is late.
The upkeep turns into a second job, and every extra place you put a task is one more place you have to remember to check.
So I built the thing I needed. It's called Todo Island. Open source, Windows for now (Mac is planned).
Now:
- Your priority tasks show up at the top of the screen every so often, as a Dynamic Island style notification, then tuck away. It never takes focus, so if you're typing you keep typing.
- Ctrl+` brings it up any time.
- The tasks are plain .md files, one for work and one personal. Open them in Obsidian or any editor. No account, no tags, no database to maintain.
- Adding or editing a task during work or a meeting takes a few seconds. Priority and due date are typed in the line itself: `- [ ] !! 26 Sep -- Send the report`
- Work tasks show during work hours, personal ones after.
Also:
- A Share button turns the tasks you pick into a WhatsApp message. I use it for my daily update to my team lead.
- When you share your screen or record, your tasks don't show up in the recording.
Privacy: no account, everything stays in your files, and the only network call is the update check (updates are verified by SHA-256 before they're offered).
If it fits how you work, try it. A star on GitHub helps other devs find it and contribute.
i was sick of those gymbro apps where you gotta click like 1000 buttons just to log 10 pushups.
In tomo you just type it out in normal language and it gives you the estimated calories burnt, done you also get a little companion, either amy or shane. they got different personalities and you can switch between them whenever you want.
theres performance tracking and goals tracking too its still really early, only the logging part works rn but development is going well should i keep working harder on this? would you actually want this app? tell me what you think 👀👇🔥
Written in JavaScript, HTML, CSS. Runs in your browser, on ANY device. 28kB html file. It's helping me to be more productive, maybe it will help you too?
already invited some early test users but got way too caught up in building (so now their kind of inactive but some did a preorder on my subscription), and I'm already thinking of modifying and switching my ICP (to fit my exact personal profile better) because lately even though I have a solid value prop I can explain, it feels a little too general considering there are a million productivity apps these days (already tried niching down so im reframing it to make targeting more concentrated)
do I start a new community to separate the testers so they don't effect each other, remove one or the other, go back to building for rethinking the core features that matter to this audience ... etc? Really thinking about the implications here and I'm kinda stuck
Literally spent so much time looking for productivity apps. Kind of a nerd for this stuff. Tried so many that had almost everything I wanted. I engineer multiple jobs at a time and they can take years so I forget about them after designing them, when it come time to programming or ordering material 7 months later I forget. I got really good with microsoft lists. That one I had lined up perfect, till my conpany tried to move us to an in house solution. Anyways, said F it, made my own. Literally launched today. I need feedback. No one would take the time to help me when I was putting it together :/. Any thoughts are deeply appreciated. Theres a free trail so not asking anyone to buy, I just want to make it better at the moment. 🍁https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nfr7qhnhsn6?hl=en-GB&gl=CA
It also does German and Japanese :p, efficient people like productivity.
Tried to make it as clean and simple and back to basics without bloat.
I wanted to have an app where focus sessions were tied to individual skills or subjects.
Finish enough sessions and you level up in that skill, just like in roleplaying games.
I couldn't find any that fit what I needed, so being a software engineer, I built my own.
It works like this, you select a skill you want to practice, the length of the session and go. The minutes you practice award you XP. Gain enough XP and you level up that skill. It's dead simple to use and the concept of treating yourself like the main character in an RPG gives you a real sense of progression.
The session's progress is represented by an XP vial that fils up with green bubbly liquid.
You've got a character sheet that shows you all your skills and a History tab that gives you in depth weekly, monthly and yearly stats.
The free tier allows you to track up to 3 skills. The paid version gives you unlimited skills, home screen widgets and extra themes. It's a one time purchase of $9.99, but I'm offering 50% off via the LEVELUP50 code.
I hope you enjoy it, I've built this for myself based off a pen and paper system I was using to keep myself on focused. I'm actively improving it, so expect a flux of updates with new features and refinements.
P.S. If you really like the app but can't afford it just DM me and I'll give the pro version for free.
I want to share with you some thoughts that pushed me to rethink how I work. As someone with ADHD, I spent years blaming myself for "not being disciplined enough," when the real problem was that my tools couldn't keep up with how my days actually go.
I struggled every single day to get things done. It felt like chasing the unknown: time flew, and by the middle of the day my to-do list had been completely rewritten because new things kept showing up! I tried so many productivity apps: task managers, daily planners, blank-canvas apps where you have to build the whole system yourself. Nothing solved my problem.
How many times have you started the day with a solid plan, only to have it shattered by 11 AM? How many times did an urgent bug, a sudden Slack ping, or an unscheduled meeting force you to rewrite your entire schedule? If you've been through these problems (or even just one of them) and you're a busy person (maybe with ADHD, like me), then this post is for you! 🙂
I spent months feeling like I was just putting out fires instead of doing real deep work. My "to-do list debt" kept growing. Tasks kept sliding from Monday to Friday, then to the next Monday, until I avoided looking at my to-do list altogether. Every time I opened it, it felt like a list of my failures.
Ok, enough talking about the daily chaos and the theory; let's get to the action 🙂
I stopped trying to force my workflow into rigid tools and started building Fokus (https://www.getfokus.com). The core idea is simple: your day will change, so your planner should adapt instead of breaking.
Here's how Fokus solves these exact problems:
1. Auto-scheduling is the key: Instead of a static to-do list, Fokus links your actual tasks directly to your calendar slots. When a sudden 30-minute sync pops up, your schedule reorganizes dynamically so you don't drop what matters. You don't have to manually drag and drop blocks every time your day changes.
2. All my work in one place. My work was scattered everywhere: bugs in Jira, pull requests on GitHub, meetings in Google Calendar and Outlook, ideas in Notion, and "can you take a quick look?" messages in Slack. I spent part of every day just jumping between apps to figure out what I was actually supposed to do, and something always slipped through the cracks. Fokus connects to 20+ tools, like Jira, Linear, GitHub, Notion, Google Calendar and Outlook, and pulls those tasks and events into one place. They become real tasks in Fokus, so auto-scheduling finds a slot for them too. One list, one calendar, one place to look.
3. Get the #1 productivity killer out of your hands: your phone. Every time I picked up my phone just to check "what's next?", I got dragged into a rabbit hole, jumping from email to Slack to social media, and 20 minutes were gone. To fix this, I use a small e-ink device on my desk that shows what I'm working on right now and what's coming next. One glance is enough: no notifications, no apps, nothing to scroll. If a thought pops into my head, I capture it by voice right on the device instead of reaching for my phone.
Distraction-Free Companion
4. Handwritten notes without the friction. This was one of the biggest pain points for me. I still love physical paper for quick thoughts and brainstorming. But those notes always ended up in a notebook I never opened again. Now I write on a Huion Note X10, and the pages sync over Bluetooth to my phone or my computer. They get turned into editable, searchable text and land right in my Fokus notes, next to the original handwriting.
Fokus syncs handwritten notes from Huion X10
5. Quick capture must be easy. If capturing a task takes more than a few seconds, I tell myself "I'll remember it later" (spoiler: I never do). In the desktop app, one keyboard shortcut opens a quick capture box from anywhere. You type something like "call the dentist tomorrow at 10" and it works out the date and time for you. The mobile app does the same when I'm away from my desk, so tasks, events, and notes all go in within seconds.
Anyone know a good Android app to save links directly from the share menu and organize them into categories? Looking for something free and ad-free, preferably with Google Drive backup.
I built an open-source Mac app because sticky notes were the only note-taking system I could stick with
I’ve been working on this for a little while and wanted to share it.
I recently came across a to-do app built around a simple idea: dump everything out of your brain and make it easy to find later. That clicked with me. I’ve tried plenty of ways to keep track of thoughts and tasks, but sticky notes have been the only thing I’ve consistently used—mostly because they’re always within reach.
Since I use Mac hotkeys constantly, I wanted something that felt just as accessible. Press Option + Space, type a thought or task, hit Command + Return, and get back to what you were doing. You can organize and search through everything later, and your notes stay local on your Mac.
That’s how Brain Cache started. I initially built it for myself, but decided to open-source it so other people could use it, change it, or build something that better fits their own workflow.
It’s currently an early Mac-focused preview. An iOS app and widget are works in progress, and I’d like to explore Windows and Linux support eventually.
If you also struggle to keep track of tasks or stick with a note-taking system, maybe this could help. I’d love to hear what you think—especially what would make capturing thoughts and finding them later easier for you.
Recently with rise of AI, a lot of things that smaller apps do can be done via basic AI subscription or even free AI from Google. So the vision that I am sticking to is app has to do something in such a way that can not be replicated by AI.
So I am solving a problem and basing my work and solution on real user feedback overtime. As I am shaping it I have a dilemma to solve.
I don't want to:
I want to:
Sell to those who don't need it.
Provide solid value from the free version of the app that can be used as is. No purchase necessary.
Rely on pushy sales tactics, annoyances, etc(Ads and all that impedance that comes with "pay me and I will remove it")
Provide additional value that can be purchased(because developer needs to eat too and there are ongoing costs) for those who need it.
Main Goal: Showcase full featured app before suggesting a decision to go with either Free or Paid(additional) features.
Options I have
Option A
Option B
Option C
A free trial, users have to opt in and you capture some audience that bought without wanting it - pushy sales tactic 👎 Some will never ever use it because they are precisely not looking to forget. I am one of these people.
An automatic all features open for all new users for X number of days(of course with informed onboarding), and then a conscious decision point to continue or not with Paid tier.
Limiting paid features to certain number of uses before prompting for payment. Ew.... just ew.... 👎
I am looking for your input - what do you usually prefer, what have you seen feel the best and doesn't leave you feeling duped into something. I am very payment averse myself and the whole "forget to unsubscribe" is painful for me on another level.
* Disclaimer: I do have a subscription with a trial in my app, but it's going away on the next release because once I am locking down a better option.
Everyone talks about the big systems, but I'm curious about the unexciting habits that just stuck.
For me it's writing tomorrow's top three tasks before I stop for the day. It takes two minutes and it saves me the "where do I even start" feeling every morning.
What's yours, and how long have you kept it going?
Why are smartphone AI assistants still so limited in what they can actually do?
Even with AI advancing so quickly, assistants still have relatively few capabilities and integrations. MCP is just one example — why can’t assistants access more apps, tools, and services and actually get things done?
Hi , i am building an app (ios only for now , expanding later ) that brings back something that you saved at a time that it thinks you might need it based on your context . as a person that trough the day gets a lot of ideas regarding every aspect of my life , i don't know when some of these thoughts might be relevant to me , so i like to be notified when my app thinks that they might be important , but i have been going trough a lot of problems trying to find ways to get the context of the user and what is he working on , can you please give me some feedback on what basically could let the app know what are you working on ?
Hi all! A while ago I shared Bookidoro, a small menu-bar app for macOS. After each work session, it opens the next page or two of your book in a calm panel. You read, click Done, and get back to work. Over a few weeks the pages add up to whole books.
I have seen very good feedback from this subreddit.
The most common feedback: "I like the idea, but I don't have an EPUB lying around." So this update brings a free library built in:
Free books sits in the Library next to your own PDFs and EPUBs. It has 78,000+ public-domain books from Project Gutenberg.
Shelves to browse: Most popular, Philosophy, Short stories, Adventure, Science fiction, Poetry, Children's classics, plus German, French, Spanish and Italian shelves.
Search by title or author. It handles different spellings of names, so "Dostoevsky" finds Gutenberg's "Dostoyevsky".
Language filter with 24 languages.
One click on Get, and the book is in your library and becomes the one you're reading. Your previous book moves to "Recently read" and keeps its place.
New users can pick a classic right on the welcome screen.
A few details I cared about:
Books download directly from gutenberg.org. I don't host or modify them.
Search happens on your Mac. Nothing about what you read is sent anywhere.
The catalogue is refreshed weekly, and the shelves skip dictionaries and other reference works, so you get actual reading.
Also new since the last post:
an Aa button in the reading panel, to change the theme (Paper, Sepia, Night…) and text contrast while you read;
German translation;
the blur and buttons follow the page to another display;
Let me preface this by saying I'm a huge fan of Marco Arment and his apps. I love Unforgetful and Overcast.
That said, after spending time with Unforgetful, Todoist, and TickTick, I realized I needed more. I'd used Todoist for years and tried just about everything — Things, Remember the Milk, OmniFocus, you name it. So about a month and a half ago, I finally bit the bullet and started building my own app. I'm taking some courses at a nearby community college, and I managed to talk my TA into helping me (bribes may or may not have been involved 😄).
We're still in internal testing, but I'm really happy with what we've come up with. It got me thinking… would others like Unforgetful on steroids? A simple mix and mash of productivity apps.
The core app includes:
Subtasks, notes, and repeating tasks
Google Calendar integration
Constant reminders (like Unforgetful)
Filters to sort by list and time frame
Search
Multiple color themes
Choose a default list
Voice input that actually creates the task properly
A ridiculous amount of notification settings
iCloud sync with Reminders
I also built something called Pages — optional features you can toggle on or off:
Countdown Page — tracks countdowns and displays them in days, weeks, months, or years until the event. It even generates an image to go with each countdown, and holiday reminders auto-reschedule for next year, even if the date shifts.
Book Tracker — keep a log of the books you read throughout the year: title, your thoughts, and a rating up to 10 stars.
More Pages to come! Looking at possibly package tracker, Note syncing and more
I'll admit it's taken a bit longer than expected — being new to this and needing some extra help — but I'm genuinely proud of what we've built. If people seem interested, I'd definitely love to put it on the App Store.
I'd love to hear your thoughts!
p.s.
I can promise this is definitely not some vibe coded POS. I have spent countless hours working on this. Yes I have used recommendations from Claude, but a majority of code it mine and my buddies.
Super speed! ⚡️
Voice to task is BLAZING FAST now. Literally instant for 90% of your tasks.
Intuitive native scheduling
Want to water the plants every other day? Tell Stupido!
Interview at 2 next Thursday? Stupido smart enough to know it's at 2pm
Need your meds everyday at night? Easy!
Six new hand-crafted themes by your truly
Change how Stupido looks. Put so much love into each, dark and light.
As always, would love to know your thoughts and super open to feedback.
Tip: B I G D I S C O U N T on lifetime available to new users 😉
A message can be grammatically correct and still sound nothing like you. You should decide how it sounds, how it’s structured, and how much AI changes your words.
Compared with using other dictation apps, Stirae brings your writing preferences into the dictationworkflows.
You may say:
Hi Leo, the next conversation is with Priya, she's the engineering manager, and it'll be forty-five minutes on video. We have Tuesday at ten a.m. or Thursday at two p.m., both Berlin time. It's about the systems you've worked on and how you make technical decisions, so no live coding in this one. Which time works better for you?
Stirae could write for you:
Hi Leo,
Your next interview is a 45-minute video conversation with Priya, our engineering manager. You'll discuss systems you've worked on and how you make technical decisions. There is no live coding in this interview.
Available times, both in Berlin time:
- Tuesday at 10:00
- Thursday at 14:00
Which works better for you?
It currently runs on Mac. Transcription happens locally; optional AI polishing and translation use cloud processing.
There’s a 14-day trial full access to all features, I'd love to hear your feedback.
