knoself vs Know & Act

Where did your time go? knoself captures it as it happens: tap to start, add a line when you stop, and every stretch of real effort becomes a card you can look back on. It is not another to-do list. knoself records time you already spent — and what you were thinking, feeling, and taking away. A week later, that reads far clearer than "I remember being busy." Start in three steps 1. Tap: start a timer from the Action Button, a widget, the Lock Screen, Apple Watch, or inside the app 2. Add a line: note your thoughts, mood, and context while it runs or after, with # tags and photos 3. Look back: see your rhythm in the journal timeline, 24-hour chart, and tag stats What makes knoself different 【Start Anywhere】No need to open the app first. Begin from the Action Button, Home Screen widgets, Lock Screen, Apple Watch, the Today Reminders widget, a task, or a calendar event. On Mac, press ⌘T. 【Time Cards】Every finished timer is saved as a card. Along with the duration, it keeps your notes, ideas, mood, context, and takeaways. Bring up photos and videos from that period to revisit the moment. 【Journal Timeline】The home timeline groups entries by day with date dividers, so timers and journals read as one day. An all-day journal entry captures the day without counting as focused time. 【Daily Rhythm Heatmap】A compact 6×4 heatmap sits before each date: darker cells mean more logged, split into night, morning, afternoon, and evening — the day's rhythm at a glance. 【Daily Highlights】Each day, knoself picks a few cards from your past and walks you through them. Add a fresh line as you go, or exclude tags you would rather not revisit. 【Let AI Review It With You】Share time cards with an AI and analyze them with Three Things, KPT, or 4P. On Mac, a local MCP service lets your AI assistant query records or start and stop timers after you confirm — no account, nothing uploaded. 【Tags and Statistics】Mark projects, contexts, state, energy, and mood with # tags. Time composition, a 24-hour chart, a year heat map, and tag statistics show what consumed your time and when focus comes easiest. Mindfulness, sleep, and workouts from Apple Health sit alongside your own records. 【Tasks and Calendar】Create tasks with dates, times, repeats, alerts, photos, and tags, and lay out the week as an agenda or a board. Share an image, text, or link and let on-device recognition fill in the details before you save. With Calendar access, view events, start timing from one, and write finished records back when you choose. 【Multi-device, Local First】Works on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Records stay on your device by default, iCloud sync is optional, and you start every share and export yourself. Who uses knoself - Freelancers and consultants: capture time scattered across clients and projects, so month-end is not guesswork - Students: see the hours actually spent at the desk, not the feeling of all-day study - Creators and researchers: log when ideas and flow tend to arrive, and find your own high-focus window - Anyone slowing down: revisit a past day with Daily Highlights and leave yourself one new line What it does not do knoself is built for personal records — no team timesheet approval, no client billing or invoicing, no full calendar and meeting management, and no monitoring of the apps or websites you use in the background. Privacy and data - Records stay on your device by default - Text recognition happens on device - iCloud sync is optional; no account needed to start - Sharing and export only happen when you start them What you get is not a string of minutes. It is real evidence about your attention, mood, habits, and the rhythm of your days. The first minute you record today is the one you can revisit next week. Agreements Auto-renewable subscription terms: https://knoself.com/en/iap_policy/ Privacy policy: https://knoself.com/en/privacy/ Terms of use: https://knoself.com/en/terms/

Know & Act is a minimalist self-reflection and action journal built on the philosophy of mind (心学) of Wang Yangming. Five hundred years ago, in exile at Longchang, Wang Yangming reached his awakening and taught the unity of knowing and acting (知行合一): knowing is the beginning of action, and action is the completion of knowing. To know and yet not act is not yet truly to know. This app skips the platitudes and the dense classical quotes. It helps you do one thing — turn the conscience already in your heart into one real step you take today. Three lines a day: your daily practice · Today's insight — What do I know I should do today? · Today's action — What one step did I actually take today? · Today's reflection — What held me back from acting today? Defeat the thief within Wang Yangming said, "Defeating the bandits in the mountains is easy; defeating the thief within the heart is hard." Procrastination, fear, pride, anxiety, impatience, avoidance, self-deception — name the biggest inner thief of your day, and the app offers a small practice to match it. Seeing it clearly is the first step toward realizing your innate conscience (致良知). Polish yourself in action (事上磨练) This wisdom lives not in books but in what you do. Streak days and monthly completions, a check-in calendar that reveals the arc of your persistence, and a map of your most common inner thieves help you meet your true self in the ordinary affairs of everyday life. Quiet, restrained, spacious A warm rice-paper background, ink-dark type, a few clean Eastern lines. Like a journal of the mind that belongs to you alone. Fully local, privacy first Every entry is stored only on your device — never uploaded, never connected, never collecting any personal information. Export to JSON anytime, or clear everything with a single tap. One minute a day. Train your mind in action. Know and act as one.