Minus 5 vs OffShelf

Minus 5 is a daily to-do list with one rule: five things. That's it. Every other task app gives you infinite room, and infinite room is how you end up with a 40-item list you're too tired to look at. Minus 5 gives you five slots. Most to-do lists count up forever. This one counts down to zero. If you open your task manager, feel your stomach drop, and close it again — this is built for you. — THE RING — One neon progress ring is the entire interface. The big number in the middle is what's LEFT, not what you've done. When it hits zero: "you've earned the day." Close the app. Go outside. — FIVE SLOTS, ON PURPOSE — The cap isn't a limitation, it's the product. Five is roughly what a person actually finishes in a day. Everything beyond five is a wish list pretending to be a plan. — STREAKS THAT DON'T PUNISH YOU — Finish at least one thing a day and your streak grows. Miss a day and a Streak Freeze covers you automatically — you earn one every 10 days and can bank two. No shattered-streak animation, no guilt trip, nothing to buy back. A day off isn't a character flaw, it's a Tuesday. An optional evening nudge (off by default, at a time you pick) tells you what's still open before midnight. — AGE BADGES — Anything you don't finish carries into tomorrow with a small 1d / 4d / 2w tag, warming from grey to red the longer it sits. A nudge, not a punishment — delete what's not going to happen. You'll feel better. — LEVELS — Consistency unlocks capacity. Start at 5 slots. Clear your whole list seven days in a row and the next level opens: 7 slots at Level 2, 11 at Level 3, and up. The app rewards follow-through, not list-making. — RECURRING THINGS — Daily, weekly, monthly, or custom-day things that appear on schedule, with reminders that say exactly what — no generic "tackle your things." Stretch every morning. Pay rent on the 1st. Gym Mon/Wed/Fri. — PROGRESS — A 30-day curve, your weekly rhythm, and a consistency grid where each square is one week of the year. Best streak, active days, and how many days you cleared all five. Honest numbers, no dashboards. — RANKINGS (optional) — See how your streak stands against everyone else's, worldwide and in your own country. Free, and off until you switch it on. You get a made-up name like "Bright Otter" plus a few digits of your own — no real names, no accounts, no email. — WIDGETS & LOCK SCREEN — Home Screen (small and medium), and all three Lock Screen styles — circular, rectangular, and inline. Your ring, glanceable, without opening anything. — SIRI & SHORTCUTS — "Hey Siri, add a thing to Minus 5." Works from the Lock Screen, AirPods, CarPlay, anywhere Siri lives. — APPLE WATCH — A real Watch app and complication. Check things off from your wrist. — EXPORT — Copy your list as Markdown, share it, or send things straight to Things 3 or Reminders. Your data is portable. — CALENDAR MIRROR (optional) — Pull today's events in as read-only one-liners ("Meeting · 6–8pm"). They don't count toward your five and don't carry over — just context. — iCLOUD SYNC — Your things sync privately across your devices through your own iCloud account. No accounts, no tracking, no telemetry, no analytics. The only thing that ever leaves your iCloud is a streak number — and only if you turn on Rankings. — THEME & ACCESSIBILITY — Light, Dark, or System. Nine neon accent colors with automatic contrast. Text size override (Default / Large / Larger / Huge). Full VoiceOver support. — MINUS 5 PRO — The five things stay free, forever. Pro is a one-time unlock — bought once, not rented — adding progress stats and streak history, the Apple Watch app and complication, the calendar mirror, unlimited recurring templates, and custom reminder times. Widgets, Siri, export, Rankings and iCloud sync stay free for everyone. No ads. No subscription. No analytics. No tags. No projects. Just five things.

The focus timer that keeps the receipts. Most study timers forget you the moment the session ends. but OffShelf files every finished session against a topic, so your hours, streaks and progress stack up into a record you can actually look at. Pick a topic. Press start. That is the whole ritual. — A POMODORO TIMER THAT DOES NOT LOSE TIME — The timer runs on wall-clock time, so backgrounding the app, locking your phone or taking a call cannot pause it or inflate it. It stays live on your Lock Screen, in a Live Activity, and on your Home Screen widget. Close OffShelf completely and it is still counting. Choose your own rhythm — classic 25/5, long deep work blocks, or no structure at all — and pick a timer style you actually want to look at. — YOUR SHELF, YOUR SUBJECTS — Every subject, skill or project lives as a topic on your shelf. Turn on exactly the panes you want for each one: a focus timer, a task list, notes, or a quiet notes-only topic. Swipe between them mid-session without breaking focus. Give a topic a target and a deadline and it becomes a goal you are measurably closing in on. — PROGRESS YOU CAN SEE — This is the part other focus apps skip. OffShelf turns finished sessions into: • Hours logged per topic, and levels that climb as they add up • A daily study streak, with a weekly Streak Freeze so one bad day does not erase a month • An activity heatmap and a daily study chart • Milestones and achievements as you cross them • Coins and Focus XP for time studied and work finished • A leaderboard ranked on real activity — PLAN THE WEEK, NOT JUST THE HOUR — Set recurring schedule blocks for the subjects you keep meaning to get to, and today-only focus goals for the ones you cannot put off. When you genuinely do not know where to start, OffShelf picks a topic for you, based on what you have been neglecting and how close you are to levelling up. No guessing, no blank page. — STUDY WITH A FRIEND — Pair with a study buddy and see when they are actually studying, what they have finished today, and what is still on their plan. Send a nudge when they go quiet. Start a live co-study session and share a clock. Accountability without either of you having to perform. — BEAT PROCRASTINATION BY MAKING IT VISIBLE — Self discipline is easier when the evidence is on your side. Streaks give you something to protect, levels give you something to climb, and the heatmap makes a skipped week impossible to argue with. — WORKS WHEN YOUR SIGNAL DOES NOT — OffShelf starts fast and works offline. A weak connection never stands between you and a focus session. OFFSHELF PREMIUM • Distraction tracking — see what actually pulls you away • Planning and focus insights • Two streak rest days every week • More custom timer styles • The Royal Magic mascot collection • An ad-free app Your topics, sessions, notes and schedules stay private to your account. Notification controls, account reset and full account deletion are in Settings. Start your next session in two taps. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://brjoub.com/offshelf-privacy