Focus4Life vs AppendX

Focus4Life turns scattered days into focused ones. A Pomodoro timer, a real task planner and a distraction blocker in one calm app — no ads, no account, and it works completely offline. WHY IT'S QUIET Focus4Life doesn't run on anxiety. No punishing streaks, no guilt, no noise. Its timings and limits come from published research and from the original authors of each technique, and the research-backed settings carry an (i) with the source behind them. FOUR RHYTHMS, EACH WITH A REASON • Classic — 25 / 5 / 15, Cirillo's original technique • Deep Work — 50 / 10 / 30, after Cal Newport's "Deep Work" • Sprint — 15 / 3 / 10, a low-resistance way into a hard task • Ultradian — 90 / 20, the Basic Rest-Activity Cycle (Kleitman; Lavie) • A live countdown on your Lock Screen — and in the Dynamic Island on iPhones that have one — drawn by iOS itself, so it costs almost no battery • A gentle heads-up when a task runs past the limits research links to fatigue FOCUS LOCK — IT ACTUALLY STOPS YOU • Block distracting apps — and websites in Safari — during a session using Apple Screen Time: a real, system-enforced shield, fully opt-in, and only while a focus phase is running • Choose gentle friction or a firm block, per session or for good • Flip your phone face-down to drop straight into focus, and get a nudge if you pick it up too soon • Never during a break. Never while you're paused. Never without a permission you granted yourself A REAL TASK PLANNER, NOT A CHECKLIST • Priorities, due dates and repeats — daily, weekdays, weekly or monthly, ending never, on a date, or after a set number of times • Estimate a task and the app works out how many pomodoros it needs • Today, Week and Month views; on iPad, Week and Month list your actual tasks under each day • Notes on any task • Nothing reschedules itself behind your back. Overdue work is a count and a button, never a scolding PROJECTS WITH SOMETHING TO FILL Group tasks into colour-coded projects, each with an optional note on when and where you'll do the work — an “implementation intention”, shown to make follow-through markedly more likely (Gollwitzer, 1999). Give a project a goal image, estimate its tasks, and the image uncovers itself as you focus your way through the estimate. A GARDEN THAT REMEMBERS Every finished session uncovers part of a hidden picture, and longer sessions uncover more. A quiet record of effort — not a leaderboard, and not a plant that dies if you take a day off. Missing a day never takes anything away. HONEST STATS Minutes focused, sessions completed, tasks done, and your longest single session — for today and the last 7 days. Pro adds 30-day and all-time history, plus a breakdown of which apps interrupted you. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • Works fully offline — no account, no sign-up, nothing in the cloud • Your data stays on your device • No ads. Not now, not ever. ONE APP, EVERY SCREEN iPhone, iPad and Mac, each running the same app with the same calm. Every device keeps its own data on itself — there is no cloud and nothing to sign in to. FOCUS4LIFE PRO Free covers the whole core loop: unlimited sessions, all four research presets, the entire task planner with repeats and notes, two projects, the Garden, and flip-to-focus. Pro is a one-time purchase — not a subscription — and unlocks unlimited projects, the full focus blocker, 30-day and all-time stats, custom timer durations, and your own photos in the Garden. It comes with a 7-day trial that asks for no payment card and simply ends. We'd love your feedback — reach us anytime at phan.business.nl@gmail.com.

You find a link worth saving. You read a quote worth keeping. You discover a band worth remembering. By the time you switch apps, find the right file, and paste it in — you've lost your train of thought. AppendX gives you two ways to get it down. Share from any app on your iPhone, or open AppendX and capture a thought that isn't on screen anywhere. Either way it lands in exactly the right markdown file, formatted exactly how you want it. SMART TARGETS Set up your destinations once — a file for books, one for links, one for ideas. Each with its own emoji, format, and file. AppendX reads your files' headings to name targets automatically, and suggests icons as you type. LISTS, BLOCKS, OR YOUR OWN FORMAT Capture as a clean list item that adapts to whatever you share, a block that keeps every piece of data, or build a custom template with tokens. A live preview shows exactly what will land in your file — before you commit. PASTE AS MARKDOWN Copy a paragraph from the web and paste it into AppendX. Bold stays bold. Links stay links. iOS hands most apps plain text and drops the formatting — AppendX reads the clipboard's HTML instead, so what you copied is what you keep. TYPE, TALK, OR PASTE Capture mode opens straight to a text field. Type it, dictate it with the keyboard's microphone, or paste formatted text from anywhere. SMART CAPTURE Different apps share data differently — AppendX sorts it out. Clean URLs with tracking junk stripped. Real titles instead of bare hostnames. Selected text recovered even when apps bury it in odd places. What you meant to save is what gets saved. NEVER LOSE DATA Every capture is queued locally before it's written. If iCloud hiccups, your capture waits safely and syncs when your files are reachable. A full history shows everything you've captured and its status. WORKS WITH YOUR SETUP Any app that stores markdown files: Obsidian, iA Writer, 1Writer, or a plain folder. iCloud Drive or on-device storage. No account, no analytics, no server — your notes never leave your control. Free, with an optional tip jar if it earns a place in your routine.