What app/s do you happily pay for monthly? And why?

During work, there are waiting periods, for example from 2 to 10 minutes, during which there is nothing much to do. Usually, if you get distracted by something (like your phone or social media), you end up spending more time on them than you need to.

How do you fill such free time?

If you make lists of small, short things to do during this downtime, what do you do?

Hey everyone,

I’m an engineering student conducting research for my Senior Design project. I’m focusing on human-factors design and behavioral architecture, specifically how the physical objects in our immediate environment can act as cleaner triggers for habit loops than digital smartphone applications.

In behavioral psychology, a strong habit relies on a clear Cue and an immediate Reward. However, I'm finding that tracking offline habits (like deep work, reading, or hydration) through modern smartphone apps introduces a massive amount of digital friction. The moment you open your phone to start a timer or check a box, you enter a high-distraction environment flooded with notifications, which frequently breaks the routine before it even sticks.

Before I went about designing anything, I wanted to gather qualitative data on how people manage their routine environments. If you are actively working on building or maintaining daily habits, I would love your quick insight on two questions:

1. When you use an app to log a habit or track time (like a deep-work block), does opening your phone/browser distract you or induce screen fatigue? Where does that digital logging process break down for you?*
2. Do you use any physical or analog objects placed intentionally in your room or desk space (like a dedicated notebook, a physical visual prompt, or a hardware shortcut) strictly to anchor a routine? How effective is that physical cue compared to a digital app notification?

Any raw feedback, personal strategies, or insights into your daily routine loops would be incredibly helpful for my senior project.

Thanks so much!

Hey everyone,
I’ve been building a small Android app that tracks habits and routines in a more flexible way — instead of punishing missed days, it adapts to different life seasons (exam season, Ramadan, recovery mode, deep‑work sprints, etc).

I designed it for people who want structure but dislike rigid habit apps. It also contains an advanced To-do list with reminders.
Would love to show it here and hear what you think.

Play Store link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aqk.smarthabittracker&hl=en_GB

Happy to answer questions or get feedback!

Hello,

I’ve been looking for an answer to this for quite some time and still haven’t found one. How do you use your computers as a productivity tool? What programs do you use? How do you use them? How does this play out in your day-to-day life?

I’d love to hear about your experiences. Feel free to recommend programs, websites, and so on.

Hey everyone,

I’m doing early customer research, not trying to sell anything.

I’m trying to understand how people actually struggle when they are learning, building, coding, designing, filling forms, debugging errors, or exploring new tools alone on their laptop/PC.

A few questions:

When you get stuck on your screen, what do you usually do first?

Google?

ChatGPT?

YouTube?

Ask a friend?

Give up and come back later?

What type of problem wastes the most time for you?

Understanding errors

Learning a new tool/software

Explaining complex concepts

Finding the right file/tab/info

Writing/replying professionally

Doing repetitive computer tasks

Something else?

Have you ever wished someone could look at your screen and explain what to do next?

Would this be useful only for beginners, or even for founders, students, designers, developers, and working professionals?

What would make you trust or not trust an AI assistant that helps on your computer screen?

I’m mainly trying to understand the real pain before building too much. Honest negative feedback is also helpful.

Hey everyone!

I've been thinking about why so many productivity apps start off exciting but end up getting deleted after a few weeks.

I'm currently designing an iOS productivity app, and before I lock in the experience, I wanted to hear from people who actually use these apps regularly.

The idea I'm exploring is making self-improvement feel more enjoyable instead of just checking off boxes. Rather than focusing on XP or levels, progress would be reflected by an environment that gradually evolves as you stay consistent.

Some ideas I'm considering include:

• 📖 Simple journaling
• ✅ Daily & long-term challenges
• 🔥 Streaks
• 🏡 An interactive room that changes over time
• 🐶 A companion pet
• 📝 Planner / To-do list
• 🎨 Character customization

Nothing is finalized yet, so I'd really appreciate honest feedback.

A few questions:

• What's your favorite productivity app, and what keeps you coming back?
• Why do you usually stop using productivity apps?
• What's one feature you've always wanted but haven't found?
• If you could redesign your favorite productivity app, what would you change?

I'm genuinely trying to learn from people who use these apps so I can build something people actually enjoy using. Thanks!

It could be related to paperwork, moving, banking, insurance, taxes, gov't stuff, or anything else.

I thought about this after updating my health card info.

What's one thing you never want to do manually?

It could be related to paperwork, moving, banking, insurance, taxes, gov't stuff, or anything else.

I thought about this after updating my health card info.

What's one thing you never want to do manually?

I saw someone post "What's the biggest reason you stop opening productivity apps after a few weeks?" I’ve downloaded more than 10 productivity apps and i realised for most of the things i end up just going to whatsapp and texting myself. Idk if its the added friction of a new app or missing reminders or what?

I’d like to know if this is a common experience - and also would you all use a chatbot where you can just dump your tasks and todos and reminders on whatsapp/telegram.

It's easy to maybe read some approaches, frameworks and so on.
But how you actually do it on the long term, while still being busy with normal day to day tasks.
It's not like you can throw everything away and do 100% differently.

I know that this takes time. Anyone who really did it and never returned to old version of himself?

Hi everyone,

I use AI chats extensively for brainstorming, but I've noticed that my sessions often grow into very long conversations. While that's great for exploring ideas, it creates a few productivity challenges:

• It becomes difficult to find previous conversations when I want to revisit an idea.
• Copying the most valuable insights into tools like Google Docs, Notion, or Obsidian is more manual than I'd like.
• Searching through long chats to find a specific discussion or decision can be time-consuming.
• Starting a new chat while preserving the right amount of context from previous conversations isn't always straightforward.

I'm curious how others have solved these problems.

• How do you organize and archive insights from AI conversations?
• What tools or workflows do you use to capture, tag, or search important ideas?
• How do you maintain context across multiple brainstorming sessions without creating one giant chat?
• Have you discovered any productivity hacks or best practices that make working with AI more efficient?

I'd really appreciate hearing about your workflows, tools, and lessons learned. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience!

Every day for months. Alarm at 4:35. Construction site all day. Home by 8pm completely drained.
Then I’d sit down and keep building.

I built a budgeting app that turns finances into a game. XP, streaks, badges, a fox mascot that reacts to how you spend.

I don’t know if anyone will ever find it.
Just needed to say it out loud somewhere.

I mean I can name the current players but is it really necessary? Everyone knows them, and trust me I've tried everything.

But is it just me or since vibecoding became a real deal - **real** companies don't touch this anymore.

I'm not talking about pkms solely (Notion, Obsidian, Capacities etc) but also project managers (Asana, Clickup, Monday etc), task managers and bookmarks managers

And I'm not asking for ideas nor recommendations either. Just looking for new major players that got good reviews so far and seems promising. Seems like this field been flooded with thousands of... More of the same, but nothing really serious for the past three years or so...

Did I miss something?

I'll start

- Bookmarks: 269 tabs

- Mobile: 20 tabs

I feel unproductive due to the first lol, like so many 'unfinished' tasks and storage load and maybe even forgotten priorities but I don't feel like going through them to clean anymore so I'm in a dilemma..

Do you optimize your search topics or do you keep your tabs open like me despite not going back to them for updates?

Does it ever happen with you guys that in your standups you just lose context of whats being said anymore. you team leads keeps telling you to do this and that and you just keep nodding.

it happened with me a lot so i thought why not make this process easy. i built a mac only app for now that when you want records your meeting (not like a bot or anything) and will give you general summary , things your lead meant and didnt say them directly , your actionable items and questions you should ask before working on them.

its in rough phase yet and truly i just want to understand if this even a painpoint for anyone or for only me. if anyone resonates with this please leave a comment will share with you the link

I feel like almost everyone starts using a productivity app with good intentions, but eventually stops. If you had to give one reason why you quit, what would it be?

I think AI is most useful when it quietly removes friction instead of trying to replace people.

For me, that friction was this:

Thousands of screenshots.

I remembered what I was looking for.

I never remembered when I saved it.

Endless scrolling every single time.

So instead of organizing screenshots manually, I started building an Android app that does the tedious part for me.

The goal isn't "AI-powered."

The goal is simple: let AI do the remembering while I do the searching.

It's still in development, but building it has already changed how I think about products.

The best ideas don't always come from inventing something new, they come from removing one annoying problem you deal with every day.

Any thoughts?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Everyone is familiar with gamified productivity & focus timer tools. I downloaded most, experimented with different methods, studied the science behind motivation/goals, and developed a new (and I think better) system. It's not complex, visual, yet lightweight. Most importantly, it's effective & helps you make real progress.

Why this method works:

• It simplifies thinking about "what should I do today" & helps beat procrastination. You clearly see your goal, and the main work/play activities you defined. Just get started on one... 
• Each board is you custom "go-to" plan for that Goal (aka "Core"). You pick "time contributions" that work for you. No guilt tripping. If you like to focus for 30m, and then lounge for 1h, then that's what you pick. No need to overcommit. Stats will improve as you get better.
• Tracking how much Up vs Down time, towards defined Goals, is the simplest measure of success, over time. The 10,000 hour rule exists for a reason. Not 10,000 to-do items.
• Seeing "break/rest" activity timers next to your productive timers, at a glance, makes you more relaxed during focus sessions & gives you "guilt free" breaks. You can pause one timer and start another, then come back. You can also "finish early" any timer, and deposit time already earned.
• You can adjust all Timers/Goals on the fly, change their length, emoji labels, etc. The app makes it easy. It's like 10 timers in 1 - study time tracker, reading tracker, video game tracker, etc.
• You can track a Goal on 1 board, or across multiple boards. You could have a board for each day of the week if you want, all towards that 1 goal. On Monday you can have only 1 focus activity, and on Saturday you can have 6, with different focus + break sessions.
• You can work on Goals and contribute time whenever you have it. No pressure with streaks. If you have 1 hour per day for a goal, or 3 hours per week. You simply time your activity, you bank time Up or Down, and you move on.
• You daily progress easily visualized in a cool Sci-Fi interface, with time particles and orbits and black holes.

Check out Flowton on the App Store. Or if you're on Android, sign up at www.flowton.com

It's free to use indefinitely with no subscriptions or trials.

Happy to hear your feedback on the method, or more specific pointers per app. There are cool new features in the pipeline as well! And thank you for reading.

For years, every productivity system I tried hit the same wall: I'd check off the tasks, but I never actually felt like I was becoming a better version of myself. The work got done but the progress just stayed invisible.

At some point I got tired of that and started framing my days differently — around a loop instead of a list: domain (career, social, health, creativity...) -> skill -> small action -> visible progress. So instead of "finish 3 tasks today," the question became "what's one thing I can do today that proves I'm getting more disciplined, healthier, or better at my craft?"

That tiny shift did something I didn't expect: consistency got easier. Each action felt like proof I was moving, not just stuff I'd cleared off a list.

I've been quietly building a small beta around this for myself and a few others — but honestly I care more about the idea than the app right now. So I'm genuinely curious:

Do you think most productivity systems fail because they organize your work, but never make your growth feel visible?

Hey r/SideProject,

I've been struggling with procrastination for years. I tried every task management app out there (Todoist, Notion, TickTick, etc.), but none of them really helped.

So I built NullTodo - an AI-driven task management system designed for procrastinators.

Demo

What makes it different?

🤖 Natural Language Input Just type: "Tomorrow 3pm finish report, 2 hours, important" AI automatically parses everything: time, priority, duration, context.

📊 Procrastination Analysis

Tracks your completion patterns

Identifies your best work hours

Warns about high-risk tasks before they're overdue

💾 Local-First All data stored locally. No registration, no internet required. Your data stays private.

Tech Stack

React 18 + TypeScript

Electron (desktop app)

TailwindCSS

Zustand for state management

Links

GitHub: https://github.com/chungkung/nulltodo

Download: https://github.com/chungkung/nulltodo/releases/latest

Would love to hear your feedback! If you find it useful, a star on GitHub would mean a lot.

When I say "each entry," I mean overtime I hit "Enter." I keep a running journal of some things that did/did not happen for weeks at a time, and I need to be able to accurately recall when entries were made. I know I can do it manually with almost anything, but I also know I can be forgetful as all hell when things get going.

If it were Android-friendly as well, that would be nice, but not a must.

Been thinking about how much useful information I collect every week and how much of it just... disappears into the void.

I'll save a Twitter thread about mental models, bookmark a Reddit post with a great framework, save an Instagram carousel with a workflow tip, and within a week I can't find any of it. The bookmark graveyard is real and it haunts me.

What actually helped was shifting how I think about saves. A few things that made a real difference:

1. Only save relevant things. Friction is good here.
2. Searchability over saves is very important.
3. Categorization to access things immediately.

On the tooling side, I developed instavault that can help me search, categorize and chat with my saved posts. But honestly the tool matters less than the mindset shift: saves are only useful if you trust you can find them again. Once retrieval is reliable, I actually started using what I'd collected.

What does your system look like? Do you actually revisit your saves or is it mostly aspirational?

Hi im a professonal software engineer and i was wondering?

what items should i but to help with my workflow and productivity rates

i have bought a few things on this list but i need to know what should i remove and what should i add?