# Five: The Five-Minute Rule — For task paralysis and ADHD

> For task paralysis and ADHD (iPhone/iPad app by Iikka Salmi.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/five-the-five-minute-rule/id6805581176 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Iikka Salmi](https://appshunter.io/developer/6799133176)
- Category: Health & Fitness, Productivity
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 18.0 · 1 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-08-31
- Data updated: 2026-09-14
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/five-the-five-minute-rule/id6805581176/reviews.md

## What is Five?

Some days the task is not hard. Starting it is.

    Five is built on one rule: you only have to begin, and only for five minutes.
    Five minutes is small enough to say yes to on a day when nothing else is.

    Name the smallest first move. Press start. That is it.

    WHAT HAPPENS AFTER FIVE MINUTES

    Nothing, unless you want it to. The timer ends and you are free to stop. Most of
    the time you will keep going, because starting was the hard part and it is now
    behind you. But stopping at five minutes is not quitting, and Five never treats it
    as though it were.

    IT COUNTS STARTS, NOT FINISHES

    The moment the timer begins, the start is recorded. Stop after forty seconds and it
    still counts, because it was still a start. There are no streaks to break, no
    missed days marked in red, and no notification asking where you have been. Come
    back after three months and your record is exactly as you left it.

    THE GAP BETWEEN DREAD AND REALITY

    You can rate how bad a task feels before you start and how bad it actually was
    afterwards. Over time the difference between those two numbers becomes visible, and
    for most people it points the same direction: things are usually less bad than they
    look from the outside. That is not encouragement. It is your own record.

    A PLANT THAT ONLY GROWS

    A leaf unfurls for every completed five minutes. It never wilts, never shrinks, and
    never reacts to time away. It is a record of what you did, not a pet that suffers
    when you are busy.

    PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION

    There is no account and no sign-in. Nothing is uploaded, because there is no server
    to upload it to. Your record lives on your phone, and Settings can export all of it
    to a file at any time. What you type as your first move is shown back to you once
    and never parsed, categorised, or counted.

    WRITTEN INTENTIONS

    You can write a plan in your own words, at your own time: "When it's 9:00 on
    Tuesdays, I start five minutes on the report." It offers, it does not nag.

    WHAT FIVE IS NOT

    Not a productivity system. Not a habit tracker with a score. Not therapy, and not a
    substitute for it. It does one small thing, which is to make starting easier by
    making it smaller.

    SUBSCRIPTION

    Five is free for one week, everything included. After that it is EUR 2.99 a month
    or EUR 24.99 a year. Your record stays on your phone whether you subscribe or not,
    and can be exported at any time.

    Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. The
    subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before
    the end of the current period. Manage or cancel it in Settings, under your Apple
    Account, then Subscriptions.

    Terms of Use (EULA):
    https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

    Privacy Policy:
    https://sinky79.github.io/five-legal/privacy.html

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**Subscriptions**

| Subscription | Price | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Five Monthly | $2.99 | per month |
| Five Annual | $24.99 | per year |



## Version history (last 2 releases)

### 1.1 — 2026-09-08

Five now asks how you are doing — once, after your first completed five minutes, and never again for the same version.

Every screen respects your text size. If you use larger text, Five now grows with it instead of ignoring it.

### 1.0 — 2026-08-31

No release notes.

## More apps by Iikka Salmi

- [Math Star: K-pop Times Tables](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/math-star-k-pop-times-tables/id6799133174)

All apps by Iikka Salmi: https://appshunter.io/developer/6799133176

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-14.*