One: Carry What Matters

You do not have one life. You have a job, a body, people, and a couple of things you are trying to make. One holds up to five areas of your life, and each area holds exactly one thing — one line, in your own words, the thing you are actually carrying there. THE AREAS Seven are offered: People, Work, Body, Ideas, Read, Place, Question. Five is the most One holds. It is not a default you can raise, because a sixth area is how this would quietly turn into a list of everything. THE TRADE An area holds one thing. To place something new, the thing already there has to leave, and you choose how it leaves: done, set down, or let go. You make that choice while looking at what you wrote and how long you have carried it. That choice is the whole app. THE RECORD Every one you have placed, every exit, and what displaced what, in order, for as long as you keep the app. Months later it is the most honest account you have of where your attention actually went, area by area, against what you said mattered. Free to read and free to export, because you wrote it. THE LETTER Once a week One writes to you about what actually moved in your own areas — what was placed, what left and how, what has stood where it stood — and closes on one question you can answer in a single line. Your reply is kept beside it, and the next letter remembers what you said. Past letters are an archive you read, not a log that piles up. DAYS, AND NOTHING ELSE The only number anywhere is days: days carried, days open. Something you have held for eleven days is telling you something, either that it matters or that it is too big to be one thing. One shows the length and stays out of the argument. An area standing open is a legitimate state, described in the same voice as a full one. KEPT BESIDE IT What an area holds is still one line. Everything else sits beside that line and never on it: notes written while you are carrying it, a picture, a scanned page, a PDF. They belong to the thing you are carrying, so when it leaves they go into the record with it. An area can also keep up to five next lines — no dates, no done state, no way past the exits. WHAT IT DOES NOT DO No backlog, no someday shelf, no parked items. If there is somewhere to put the thing you set down, nothing is ever actually set down. No streaks, no scores, no percentages, no overdue red. Nothing here counts you or grades you. NOTHING IS TRAPPED Every page that holds your words has a way out, and none of it is behind the purchase. The letter, Patterns, the record, one note: copy it as text, save it to your photos as a picture, or write it out as a PDF. No account, no server, and it works on a plane. YOUR WORDS STAY YOURS Everything is stored on your iPhone. There is no account, no sign-up, and no email address to hand over. No advertising, no tracking, no analytics. Optional iCloud sync is off by default and uses your own private iCloud account. FREE, AND WHAT THE UNLOCK ADDS Five areas with the whole mechanism: placing, the exits, the trade, the ages, the entire record, every way out of it, and the letter One writes you every week. Free for as long as you keep the app. Reading what you wrote is never for sale, and neither is what One writes back. One optional purchase, paid once for $4.99, no subscription, adds: • Areas of your own: the five named in your own words, any icon, any colour • One on your Home Screen: the front as a widget, all five on the Lock Screen, without opening the app • Patterns, which is what your record shows across months: which area churns, what you carry longest, the year as one picture • Private iCloud sync, so your areas and your record are on your other devices If you use more than one HourLife mini app, the $9.99 suite purchase unlocks them all at once, including mini apps added later. It is an alternative to the app-only purchase, not an extra. Terms of Use: https://www.hourlife.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://www.hourlife.com/privacy