Alternatives
Products that do what I made a macOS tool to prevent me from working late hours does
Hey HN, I used to be the poster child "10x" engineer. I always went far beyond the job description, actively involving myself in everything and having no issue working late hours/weekends/vacations if necessary to achieve my goals. I did this because I love engineering and it brought me a lot of career success, but it wasn't until recently that I realized this was actively destroying my life and leading me to an early death. Putting work above my own life completely ruined my social life, and eventually made me so stressed and anxious that it became impossible for me to relax and…
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HN, we talk a lot about how Slack has ruined our productivity (eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18320968, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16301508, etc.), but nobody has taken steps to fix this. I am building Oliv to take a stand. I am a software engineer turned manager. I am guilty of enthusiastically introducing Slack in my previous organization, only to realize how it killed the pockets of focus time that my engineers need to be productive. Once you introduce Slack in an organization, all communication becomes synchronous, even if only 10% of it…
2018
- 12NA
Since I went remote(working) last year, I found it hard to track my work/focus hours. To begin with, I started with my mobile stopwatch but found it to be inefficient and distracting. I then tried some time management tools online but they were geared towards enterprises than individuals. Plus, had too many features. So, last weekend I created https://www.timemygrind.com/ - a simple focus time tracking tool that requires no login, no internet and has no ads. Once you finish your work, it shows the times in the table below. I usually pause when I take a break or go out for…
2024 · timemygrind.com
- 13IQ
Around the middle of this year I quit my decently paid, high stress SWE job so I could spend some downtime doing things that make me happy. I did some travelling, both interstate and abroad, spent time working on projects around the house, did some gardening and took up cooking as a hobby. While cooking, I found that most of the apps already out there that focused on meal planning and recipe/shopping list management didn't quite work out how I wanted them to. Some would only work on limited devices, or bombarded me with pointless social features, or they didn't allow importing external…
2023 · tastybites.app
- 14YP
Care to share a screenshot and the 'killer feature' of any of your personal, self-built productivity tools? eg. I made my own calendar and money-tracker last year - there are no other users, it makes no money, I have no plans to make it public, but it holds my life together :) http://i.imgur.com/h2keJDg.png GREAT BECAUSE... it tells me how much I'm going to get paid this month. Absolutely no ulterior motive here (ie. I'm not canvassing opinions for a productivity app startup or anything), just interested.
2013
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- 16IM
I am a non-hacker "idea guy" with zero discernible talent. Like most, the story starts with me doing things the hard way. I dreamt of a tool that would save me countless hours. Like most of my ideas, it was supposed to die in a couple of hours, but this one had some legs.... "If I needed this, surely others did too" kept looping in my head. Could I get this built? Could I build it myself? Nah...too lazy to learn how, but before I did anything, I had to promise myself one thing: No more ideas! If ideas were sit-ups, I would have a six pack instead of this tire. It was a constant mental…
2012
- 17IW
I'm an ML engineer. I know how AI works, the limitations, the hype. And I was still drowning. Couldn't stick to goals. Couldn't stay consistent. Productivity apps became digital clutter. Therapy waitlists were 3 months out. Friends were tired of my complaints. So at 2am I started building: zropi.com What shocked me was it actually worked. It felt human. Last week I mentioned a tough client call. Didn't set a reminder. Two days later it voice messaged me: "Hey, how'd that call go? You seemed stressed." When does technology ever do that? What makes it feel alive: It doesn't reply instantly.…
Jan 2026
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Long time lurker reading and learning from the community here. Inspired to act and currently working to escape from cubicle nation. Financial constraints mean I can't quit cold turkey but realized that working on the "Next Big Thing" part-time doesn't really work either. So, I'm trying to first bootstrap my way out of the day job by being less ambitious and churning out some useful apps. Released the first, Elapsed ~ 2 weeks ago. Apple featured it as a "New & Noteworthy" Productivity app. http://www.elapsedapp.com Elapsed is the ultimate timer app for multi-taskers. Multiple concurrent…
2011
- 19IB
I’ve always liked fast online tools for jotting notes or organizing thoughts — but most “productivity” sites either save data to the cloud, require sign-ups, or are full of distractions. So I built an online productivity tools website, a small collection of browser-based tools. It includes an online notepad where you can write and save notes right in your browser, a cornell notes tool available in more than 20 languages, and more coming soon like a pomodoro timer and a simple blank page for focused writing. Everything works entirely in-browser using localStorage — no accounts, no cloud sync,…
Oct 2025 · onlinenotep.ad
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Sometimes I need a bit of extra motivation to get through the work day, so made a little macOS menubar item where you put in your daily rate (you can make it whatever you want, pre/post-tax/etc.) and it then shows you how much you've earnt today so far. I got Claude Code to also try to detect when the screen is being observed—it found a private macOS framework called SkyLight that has a function, `SLSIsScreenWatcherPresent`, that returns a boolean if any other process is observing the screen. It reckons that it's the same thing that Apple uses for the purple "screen is being…
Aug 2026 · steveharrison.dev
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The url can be found in the first comment. To scratch my own itch, I created a simple tool that should be helpful to many of us who are under constant distractions. If anyone uses this and finds it effective or ineffective, please kindly share your experience. Below are some ways I think it can be put in use: 1. Before we start a work day, we can use it to clear up random thoughts and anxiousness. 2. We can use it regularly to increase our attention span. Note: This was posted several years ago. I only made very minor changes since last time. I'm reposting it and hope to see some feedback on…
2019
- 22IM
My friends and I famously kept a list of all the best engineers in the bay who are available for part time work. it got kinda popular amongst friends. They kept messaging us for engineers so we decided to make it public. all engineers are verified at the companies they work at and you can see their rates as well as how many hours/week they have available.
2024 · blendwork.com
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Hi all, Sooo ive spent years and years battling ADHD behind a desk, and still, I haven't found that 'one' tool to keep me focused. I'm pretty sure I've sampled a galaxy of productivity tools, and yet, not a single one seems to be designed for an ADHD brain like mine. Here's the loop I find myself in: 1. Realize I've done nothing at work and feel overwhelmed and stressed. 2. Hit Google: "Top ADHD productivity tools," "Best ADHD time-management…." you name it. 3. Sign up for EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. 4. Feel like I'm drowning in a sea of features, but still used it. 5. Few days later, forget the…
2023
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The Notion Planner That Changed My Life Overnight
Jul 2026 · avatarachiever.gumroad.com
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