Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I made a macOS tool to prevent me from working late hours
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…
This macOS tool helps users prevent working during late hours by setting boundaries on work time. It targets engineers and knowledge workers who struggle to disconnect from their jobs and work beyond reasonable hours.… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites. I made a macOS tool to prevent me from working late hours launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Mom Clock▲742Hi HN, I’ve tried dozens of reminder and habit apps over the years. They’re all polite. Gentle. Easy to ignore. So I built something intentionally different. Mom Clock is a reminder app that behaves more like a strict parent than a productivity coach: – no snoozing – no “later” – optional app blocking using Screen Time APIs The idea came from my own behavior: I don’t need motivation — I need enforcement. This is not for everyone. Some people hate it. Some people love it. I’m genuinely curious where HN stands on this tradeoff: comfort vs. effectiveness. Happy to answer questions about: –…
Jan 2026 · momclock.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, I am building an open source platform to make on-call better and less stressful for engineers. We are building a tool that can silence alerts and help with debugging and root cause analysis. We also want to automate tedious parts of being on-call (running runbooks manually, answering questions on Slack, dealing with Pagerduty). Here is a quick video of how it works: https://youtu.be/m_K9Dq1kZDw I hated being on-call for a couple of reasons: * Alert volume: The number of alerts kept increasing over time. It was hard to maintain existing alerts. This would lead to a lot…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Balance▲460A time tracking app with focus on work-life balance
2022 · balance.software · its alternatives →
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Look Up for Mac▲269Reduce eye strain & exhaustion with the 20-20-20 Rule
2015 · 96problems.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN! Alexis here, I’m a product manager and software developer in Berlin by way of New York. I want to show you this app I made – It’s like a "buddy" for those, like myself, who inadvertedly talk too much in meetings. The app gives me feedback and a little more in control of what I have influence over by: * Keeping track of how long I’ve been speaking * Catching myself before I talk too much * Developing a better sense of timing I truly love having conversations with people in real-life. But online meetings, especially group calls, tend to make me nervous. I can't read body language. The…
2022 · unblah.me · its alternatives →
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Kiki for Mac▲303The accountability monster that keeps you focused on a task
Jan 2026 · kiki.computer · its alternatives →
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LookAway 2▲281Hello, I'm Kushagra and I am the indie developer behind LookAway (I've posted about it earlier but it has received quite a lot of updates since the last time so I am posting it again). LookAway is a native break reminder for macOS that doesn't interrupt. I built it because I work from home and I spend a lot of time in front of my screens. It's very easy for me to get lost in the flow and I can end up sitting for hours. Due to this, I started facing issues like eye strain and back pain by the end of the day. The solution to this was simply taking enough breaks throughout the day. But…
Apr 2026 · lookaway.com · its alternatives →
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I quit my job and made an automatic time trackerfrom $39/mo▲136Hey Hacker News! This is my first post here. About 5 months ago, I left my job because I was completely burnt out. After taking some time off, I started freelancing. But I found tracking my time to be a real hassle as I kept forgetting to start or stop the timer and often had no idea what I’d worked on. So, I decided to build Taim as a side project, while also working now on some freelancing gigs. Taim is going to be automated time tracking tool for freelancers and teams. It’s designed to make tracking time effortless and accurate, so you can focus on your work and not worry about the clock.…
2024 · taimapp.io · its alternatives →
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Chunk▲282Hi HN Dudley here, tech lead on Chunk. Chunk is a macOS menu bar app for time-blocking. It opens with Cmd + / and slides down over whatever you're doing - including fullscreen apps. There's also a live countdown in the tray for the current block. Click-and-drag to create blocks, day/week views, Google/Outlook/Apple Calendar sync, Apple Reminders integration, and a Todo mode where tasks can be dragged onto the timeline. Templates and Routines let you build an ideal day once and auto-apply it on chosen weekdays. There's a local MCP server, so you can ask Claude Desktop to…
2025 · chunkapp.net · its alternatives →
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Take breaks to protect your eyes and health
2019 · adelmaer.com · its alternatives →
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Open source screen break timer for macOS
Jan 2026 · restnow.xyz · its alternatives →
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Got tired of reaching for the terminal to caffeinate my mac and tweaking system settings Now got a new friend in my menubar Enjoy!
Aug 2026 · agentsneversleep.app · its alternatives →
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- 18IS
Hey HN friends, I keep getting distracted working from home and always end up watching youtube, browsing blogs like HN or just mindlessly scrolling then I feel like crap because I didn’t do enough. I went through dozens of productivity tools but they’re quite overwhelming to use and none of them actually helped me focus. So I built http://complish.ai, a web-based sidebar that helps me focus on one task at a time. I launched it last month and have over 3,000 users now and I’ll be keeping it free. Would love for you all to try and give some feedback!
2023 · its alternatives →
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Protect your free time from over hours
2022 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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WorkingHours▲73An easy-to-learn, easy-to-use time tracking app for macOS
2020 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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Howdy, gang; After almost two weeks of sitting in Apple's approval queue, my new app Timebar is finally available. I think it has a pretty innovative UI feature, so I wanted to float it by Hacker News. It's a timer app that turns your Mac's menu bar into a sort of virtual hourglass. Your menu bar starts out tinted blue (or whatever colour you pick) and it slowly drains from right-to-left until your time is up. It works very well for situations where you want to keep track of time, but don't need to be super precise. The menu bar is easy to glance up at, and it doesn't take long to happen…
2013 · whimsicalifornia.com · its alternatives →
- 23TP
In 2019, I experienced eye soreness and back pain for a while because I was constantly working long hours in front of my 16 inch Macbook without any rest. I decided to do something to change that. I’m not a fan of Apple Watch or smartbands. So the first thing I did was looking for some reminder software to remind me to take a break in the App Store, but none of them were smart enough for my needs. I wish the software could automatically tell if I was working, rather than requiring me to manually set an alarm. At the same time, when I go to the bathroom or drink coffee, it can automatically…
2022 · its alternatives →
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my first app, a Mac menu bar utility to remind you to blink more. any feedback would be much appreciated. or make it your own and share :)
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →