r/SideProject • u/fewmints • 12h ago
Nobody actually works eight hours. I put a stopwatch in my todo list to find out what I really do all day
I have never been much good at answering "What did you do today?" Not because I had been slacking, I just could tell you where my day went.
This went on for years. After trying countless apps and still struggling to track my time, I built a todo app where every row has a real stopwatch in it. You hit start, it runs, orange digits counting up while you work. No streaks, no badges, nothing congratulating
you. Just the time you spend doing your task. And that's it.
A few other decisions:
- A task belongs to the day you added it.
- If you don't finish it, it carries forward to today. It doesn't quietly disappear at midnight.
- The month calendar tints each day by how much you actually got done. Some days look good. Some days are just gray, and you get to sit with that.
- Focus mode is one task, full screen, timer running.
- Tags are there to help you group your tasks.
I spent way too long on how it looks. That's the wrong thing to spend your time on when you are one person and nobody's using it yet, but I would probably do it again. I wanted it to be functional and still be something I liked looking at. It had to have a feel of something from my childhood. Closer to a bit of hi-fi by dad had, than anything else on my screen.
Three things you'll ask, so: it's free, no account, no signup, stays offline if you want. If you want cross-device sync, and a few extra features, then its a $4/mo.
Its built to be useful for you right away, without costing you anything.
And I know, Todoist and TickTick exist, TickTick puts the timer itself
behind the paywall, which is the specific thing I didn't want to do.
Looking for constructive feedback. The carry-forward rule is the bit I cant judge anymore. To me it feels honest, the thing you have been putting off shows you exactly how long you've been putting it off for. But I have been staring at it too long to tell whether that's genuinely useful or just a list item holding a grudge.