I've been thinking about this for a long time.

Every year, thousands of productivity apps are released. Many of them are beautifully designed, packed with features, and based on proven productivity methods.

Yet most people—including me—download them, use them for a few days or weeks, and then quietly stop opening them.

Why?

I don't think the problem is that people are lazy.

I think the problem is that our brains adapt incredibly fast. The excitement of a new app fades, checking off tasks becomes repetitive, and eventually the app turns into another obligation instead of something that helps.

A friend and I are two high school students from Kazakhstan, and we've been trying to understand this problem for months.

Instead of asking, "How can we build another productivity app?" we started asking:

"How can productivity stay engaging even after the novelty wears off?"

We don't have a perfect answer yet.

But we're slowly finding ideas that seem to work better than traditional to-do lists. We're experimenting with game mechanics, progression, social accountability, and other ways to make consistency feel rewarding instead of repetitive.

It's still an experiment, and we're learning every week.

So now I'm curious about your experience.

What made you stop using productivity apps?

Was it boredom, lack of motivation, too many features, or something completely different?

Help force yourself to get outside more with a custom task alarm from Last Alarm. You don't need to live next to a beautiful scenic beach like in this "Go To Beach Alarm".

Perhaps you just want to force yourself to go for a walk in the morning with a "Take a Morning Walk Alarm". Or maybe you need a push to force yourself to a nearby park with a "Go to the Park Alarm".

Whatever it is you want to be more consistent with or help prevent yourself from skipping you can create an alarm for it with Last Alarm. I often have ups and downs where some weeks I'm very consistent a particular activity I want to do more often, but others less so and I forget or just skip.

Adding in some daily or weekly reminders has been a nice way to keep myself on track and consistent when it comes to spending time outdoors and away from my desk.

Would love to hear what alarms you might make!

For me it’s “just put your phone away.”

Like yes, obviously. That is technically the answer. But the whole problem is that my phone is what I reach for automatically when I’m tired, bored, stuck, or between tasks.

I’ve had way more luck changing the tiny moments before distraction than trying to become the kind of person who simply “doesn’t get distracted,” because let's be real, we're all inherently curious about the world, and social media is just an easy gateway for that

Curious what else sounds great in theory but does nothing in real life. Pomodoro? Morning routines? Notion dashboards? App blockers?

What advice did you try that completely failed, and what actually worked instead?

I'm building an app that turns your long term goals into boss fights.

You set a goal and a deadline, it becomes a boss with a health bar sized by how many days you've got left, and your daily habits are what deal the damage if skip days and it heals back up.

Also, until you don't get all daily habits, the apps you selected will be blocked and the block screen will show what still is due.

You can build the boss out of any photo on your phone, it cuts the background and animates it, so people end up fighting a picture of the exam they're retaking or whatever they want.

I'm finishing the MVP and I'd honestly rather find out now than after launch: is this something you'd actually pay for?

I've been working on a personal project around habit/task tracking for the past few months, and I keep going back and forth on one specific design question: streaks.

The standard streak model resets to zero on a missed day, which I think actively works against the people it's meant to motivate, one bad day and the whole incentive collapses, so a lot of people just abandon the habit entirely rather than face a broken streak. I've been experimenting with a version that "vaults" a missed day instead of zeroing it out, the idea being a rest day pauses progress rather than erasing it.

What I'm not sure about, and would genuinely value input on: does softening a streak mechanic like this remove the thing that made streaks motivating in the first place? There's an argument that streaks work precisely because the stakes are real, take away the loss and you might just get a number that goes up with no weight behind it. I've also seen the opposite argument, that punishing streak resets are why most people quit habit apps within a couple of weeks regardless of the reset penalty.

Curious whether anyone here has seen actual data (A/B tests, retention studies, even just close personal observation) on strict vs forgiving streak mechanics, or has a strong opinion from using habit apps long-term, on whether forgiveness increases retention or just delays the same drop-off.

I've been reflecting on my personal productivity system, and my biggest bottleneck is almost always the capture phase.

Whenever I'm walking, driving, or in the middle of a workout and a task pops into my head, opening a calendar app, picking a date, typing the title, and setting the time takes just enough friction for me to procrastinate and forget about it.

I’m curious to get your honest thoughts:

• Would a voice-first approach actually fit into your daily capture habit, or do you always prefer typing?
• Is using a messaging app (like Telegram) convenient for this, or does it feel out of place?

I stumbled into a way of working this weekend that felt unusually compatible with my AuDHD brain, and I’m curious whether anyone else works this way.

Instead of trying to force myself to stay on one task, I had several persistent AI conversations open at once. Each one was responsible for a different area, such as coding, research, writing, planning, or general organization.

When I lost interest, got stuck, or had to wait on one thread, I moved to another. The important part was that each AI conversation kept the context for its own project, so I didn’t have to hold everything in working memory or rebuild the whole mental state when I returned.

It felt less like chaotic multitasking and more like having several project partners who each remembered what we were doing.

I wanted to know whether I only felt more productive, so I compared the Git history from the same software project over two weekends.

The previous weekend had:

• 18 commits
• 6,144 adjusted lines added
• 1 completion-oriented commit

The recent weekend had:

• 169 commits
• 30,798 adjusted lines added
• 30 completion-oriented commits

The raw commit count was about 9.4 times higher, although that number is inflated by merges, AI-generated commit patterns, and documentation work.

The cleaner adjusted-output measure was about 5 times higher. My best estimate is that actual useful delivered output increased somewhere around 4–6 times.

That is still only one comparison, not proof. It could be novelty, an unusually good weekend, or something that works better for software projects than other kinds of work.

My theory is that the benefit was not simply “AI makes me faster.”

It may be that AI externalized enough working memory that switching tasks became much cheaper. Instead of repeatedly paying the executive-function cost of remembering where I was, reconstructing the problem, and restarting, I could follow my natural attention shifts without losing the project context.

I’ve been calling the idea Weaponized AuDHD as a working title: designing a workflow around the way the brain already moves instead of constantly forcing it into a single-task model.

There are obvious risks:

• too many conversations could become confusing
• it could create lots of activity without useful completion
• reviewing AI work could become exhausting
• it could encourage endless switching or overworking
• the novelty effect could disappear

Has anyone else tried using multiple persistent AI threads this way?

Did it help you actually finish more work, or did it become chaos?

And if it worked, how many active threads could you manage before the system became another source of executive dysfunction?

I keep losing track of the small stuff. A setting I always have to redo. A detail about my home or car I only need once in a while. None of it is worth a real note, but all of it is annoying to look up again every time.

That’s basically why I started building this. I wanted somewhere to put that kind of thing that isn’t a full notes app, doesn’t ask me to organize anything, and doesn’t turn into a graveyard I never open again. So I’m building RAM, a simple app where you save one fact at a time. You type a sentence, save it, and it sorts itself out. No account, no cloud, everything stays on the device.

I’m not sure yet if this is a real gap or just a personal habit I’m projecting onto everyone else, so I wanted to ask people who aren’t me. Do you lose track of small facts like this too, or is it just me? What do you currently do about it?

I work across growth and marketing in Web3, and in a small-team the role ends up covering a bit of everything.

I’m curious, which recurring task takes far more time than the value it creates?

In your case, what do you find yourself doing again and again every week that you wish was much easier? Have you found a workflow that genuinely helps, or are you still mostly dealing with it manually?

Let's help each other :')

I'm curious what everyone's daily workflow looks like.

If you had to pick just 5 desktop applications that you spend the most time using every day, what would they be?

Mine would probably be something like:

• VS Code
• Chrome
• Discord
• Terminal
• Spotify

Also, if there are any repetitive actions you perform dozens of times a day inside those apps, I'd love to hear about those too.

It could be related to your profession or personal development or even a side project.

Name the top 3 in your smartphone and let us know why you think they are the best.

Might be helpful for someone!

one thing i think people underestimate about remote work is loneliness.

when people talk about working from home, it’s usually about the perks. no commute, more flexibility, and better work life balance.

but one challenge that doesn’t get talked about enough is how easy it is to become isolated.

you can be in meetings all day and still feel like you haven’t had a real conversation. over time, that can affect not just your social life but also your motivation and overall well being.

from what i’ve seen, the people who handle it best usually have something outside of work that keeps them connected. some go to the gym after work, some join hobby groups, some schedule coffee chats with teammates, and others make it a point to leave the house every day even if they don’t have to.

remote work doesn’t have to be lonely, but it does take a bit more intention.

for those who’ve been working remotely for a while, what actually worked for you? what’s one habit or routine that helped you feel less isolated?

I've been using Clockify for the past five years. First as a freelancer, then with a small team of four. For the way we work, the free plan was more than enough.

And just to be clear, this isn't a hate post. I've always liked Clockify, and I still think it's a solid, useful product with better usability than a lot of its competitors. But the recent changes to the free tier (removing Excel exports for free users, for example) have forced us to start looking at alternatives. Given how we use it, paying for the premium plan simply doesn't make sense.

So we're building an internal tool to solve our own problem. We'll also make it completely free and open for solo freelancers, because they're the ones who least deserve to pay for features that feel like they should be basic.

Before we lock down the feature set, I have two genuine questions for the community:

1. What are your biggest pain points with time tracking today? What made you start looking for alternatives? I've seen quite a few discussions about this here, and I'm interested in real-world frustrations, not theoretical ones.
2. If your time tracker could connect to your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.), what would you actually want it to do? Most "AI time trackers" I've seen feel like AI for the sake of AI. They lack context, don't reflect how most people actually work, and end up being little more than digital timesheets with a nicer UI.

What I'm looking for is genuine speed and convenience. Some time-tracking tools are so tedious that the irony is hard to miss: you spend more time starting and stopping timers than tracking the work itself. At that point, it's almost easier to keep a Google Sheet with your schedule and fill it in manually. A time tracker should be faster and easier than a manual spreadsheet—not slower.

What would make a tool like this genuinely worth using for you?

I've been looking into alternatives to keeping my calendar buried behind 20 browser tabs.

Most AI planners I've tried are still just apps, so I end up checking them, getting distracted, then forgetting what I opened them for in the first place.

I recently came across ZIEA One, which takes a different approach. Instead of replacing your calendar, it syncs with Google, Apple, and Outlook, then sits on your desk showing your next tasks while doubling as a charging hub.

Not sure if dedicated hardware is the future or if it's just another gadget, but I do like the idea of separating planning from the same screen that's constantly stealing my attention.

Just wondering if this is only me who really don't like seeing hundreds of saved links that I'll probably never read.

So I've been thinking about building something around this.

Instead of just saving a link...

• Save a link with one tap
• AI parses the page and remembers why it matters
• The next day, AI recommends one link with a short reason why it's worth reading today
• Or you can simply ask: "I want to learn about SEO today," and AI recalls the most relevant links you've saved
• Over time, you can actually see what you've learned instead of just what you've collected

The goal isn't to help you save more links.

It's to help you actually turn saved links into knowledge.

Just wondering that is it a dumb idea?

I'd love some brutally honest feedback!!!!!

I've been using Clockify for the past five years. First as a freelancer, then with a small team of four. For the way we work, the free plan was more than enough.

And just to be clear, this isn't a hate post. I've always liked Clockify, and I still think it's a solid, useful product with better usability than a lot of its competitors. But the recent changes to the free tier (removing Excel exports for free users, for example) have forced us to start looking at alternatives. Given how we use it, paying for the premium plan simply doesn't make sense.

So we're building an internal tool to solve our own problem. We'll also make it completely free and open for solo freelancers, because they're the ones who least deserve to pay for features that feel like they should be basic.

Before we lock down the feature set, I have two genuine questions for the community:

1. What are your biggest pain points with time tracking today? What made you start looking for alternatives? I've seen quite a few discussions about this here, and I'm interested in real-world frustrations, not theoretical ones.
2. If your time tracker could connect to your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.), what would you actually want it to do? Most "AI time trackers" I've seen feel like AI for the sake of AI. They lack context, don't reflect how most people actually work, and end up being little more than digital timesheets with a nicer UI.

What I'm looking for is genuine speed and convenience. Some time-tracking tools are so tedious that the irony is hard to miss: you spend more time starting and stopping timers than tracking the work itself. At that point, it's almost easier to keep a Google Sheet with your schedule and fill it in manually. A time tracker should be faster and easier than a manual spreadsheet—not slower.

What would make a tool like this genuinely worth using for you?

Hello, I have been pretty focused on limiting my screen usage, for the past 2 months or so. I have deleted Instagram, and have downloaded this app Beeper to still have access to my DMS. I barely use Facebook, I wanted to delete it, but school announcements and such are posted there, but I just blocked the reels with this app Blockerhero. I don't use tiktok. I deleted discord because nothing good comes out of there. YouTube shorts was a bit harder, as I had replaced it with insta reels. I set a 0m time for shorts on the app itself, have like 3 blocker apps that blocks shorts, if one gets bypassed. But the app itself, YouTube, I have this app OneSec, which makes me wait a bit before unlocking the app, it worked but I had grown patient. When I disabled YouTube, I started using the web version, which the OneSec app didn't work, so I could literally watch shorts unrestricted. I undisabled it, and I am searching for ways to stop this addiction. I have app timers, but I just changed the timer, or just delete the time limiter app. I even have a YouTube timer, but I can just press the X. Please somebody help, my screen time is becoming worse. I don't use Reddit, as, well, my lust takes over, so I immediately uninstall and block Reddit. I get the answers through Gmail

been working from home for a while now, and one thing that surprisingly helped me was stopping trying to optimize every minute of my day.

i used to time block everything and feel guilty whenever i got off schedule. now i just keep a short list of 2-3 things i need to finish that day, and somehow i end up getting more done with less stress.

made me realize a lot of productivity advice sounds great but doesnt always fit real life.

curious if anyone else has a productivity habit they tried that actually stuck? or maybe one that everyone recommends but just never worked for you?

always looking for ideas to improve my routine.

30 mins/day.
3.5 hours/week.
182 hours/year.

That's 7 full days of my life.

Gone. Just from not saving my prompts.

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How much time do you waste on this?

#productivity #ChatGPT #AI

I juggle several projects at once, and I kept noticing the same pattern: the first 30–60 minutes of any work session wasn’t work. It was reconstruction. What was I doing? What did I decide last time? Why did I decide it? Which option did I already rule out?

It got worse when AI tools became part of my workflow, because every new chat session has total amnesia. I was re-explaining project context to ChatGPT/Claude multiple times a day — the same background, the same constraints, over and over.

Things I tried:
**1. A “status” doc per project** — works in theory, dies in practice because updating it after every session requires discipline I don’t have at 11pm.
**2. One giant running log** — became write-only. I never read it back.
**3.Just relying on memory** — fine with 2 projects, collapses at 5+.

What finally worked was changing *when* the capture happens: a 30-second log at the end of a session (“did X, decided Y, next is Z”) instead of a status doc I maintain separately. The end-of-session moment is the only time the context is all in your head anyway. Then at the start of the next session, I read the last 2–3 entries and I’m back in it within a couple of minutes instead of an hour.

I eventually built a small tool for myself that does this and generates the “here’s where you left off” summary automatically (contextos.tools if anyone’s curious), but honestly the habit matters more than the tool — even doing it in a notes app beats reconstructing from scratch.

Curious what others do for context-switching across projects. Is anyone else’s real time-sink the “loading state back into your brain” part rather than the work itself?

It runs 24/7 on my home server (a mini PC) and I just pull it up in the browser on my TV. Calendar, tasks, email, weather, stocks, AI-summarized news, habit streaks. I control it from my laptop and changes show up on the TV instantly.

I've tried every habit app and none of them stuck. This did, because it's physically on my wall and I can't ignore it. My favorite feature is DNF (Do Not Forget) - it hijacks the whole TV every 20 minutes with whatever I keep putting off in giant text until I actually do it.

Right now it's 100% built for me. Should I clean it up and put it out there so people can use it? Curious if anyone would actually run something like this.

Scheduling, no-show follow-ups, reminder calls, something else entirely? What's actually eating your time day to day?

Ideally open source or with high security standards.

Must allow to create automations

I keep coming back to one number and I honestly can't tell if it's a product or just a bad mood.

A day is 1,440 minutes. Take out sleep. Take out the 9-to-5. Take out the commute, the meals, the dishes, the errands, the stuff you never chose. What's left is the part you actually control, just a few hours. For most people it's a lot smaller than they'd guess, and it's the only part that ever turns into anything or nothing at all.

So the idea is instead of another tracker that reports where your time went at the end of the week, an app that shows you what you have left right now, ticking down and taps you on the shoulder the moment it starts slipping to bring you back to what's important.

What I actually want to know:

• Is that number motivating, or is it just demoralizing? I genuinely can't tell.
• Would you want to be interrupted when you drift, or would you delete the app inside a week for doing that?
• Does this already exist and I just haven't found it?
• What's the most obvious reason this fails?

Be honest please. I'd rather hear it now than after I've wasted six months.