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Comment by satvikpendem | Hacker News Reader

Lots of competitors in this space it seems. I had a similar idea, a todo list + calendar app listed below, but it's interesting to see ideas converging on the idea of timeboxing your tasks.

Ever since Cal Newport wrote Deep Work, it seems like everyone wants to get on the deep work productivity train. I wonder who will win eventually though.

- www.getartemis.app (disclosure, my app)

- www.akiflow.com

- www.oltra.io

- www.levelteams.com

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In my experience, productivity apps have more in common with lifestyle brands than, say, email. In that way, there's no winning any more than one brand can effectively own a space.

If I were CEO of one of these products, I'd quickly diversify into other areas in order to differentiate, add value to subscriptions, and better cater to a particular audience. How I'd do that would depend on the lifestyle brand I'm trying to establish. I've heard this called the law of division in marketing.[1]

1: https://ericsink.com/laws/Law_10.html

As someone in dire need of a solution like these, can you help me understand how they might fill my requirements?

1. Completely offline use 2. No separate accounts 3. Stable interface 4. Straightforward payment model

I'm really looking for a next-generation Thunderbird, not some weird ML or smart task aggregator.

Honestly, just make iLife 2.0 while your at it. Just don't hold my hardware hostage this time please.

https://agenda.com fit the bill for me. Offline use (though can only sync today through iCloud and Dropbox, I think, which sucks - but you can sync folders manually), pulls calendar from your system integration, simple payment. You can link your daily agenda items/notes to calendar invites.

Though it does not connect to email, at least today, which was OK for my use cases.

I should mention I am running Wayland, and would like to continue to do so, ideally on my phone as well one day.

Agenda is super interesting, especially their payment model.

For some reason I don't end up using it but I have paid for upgrades once or twice after realizing that, voluntarily :-)

Thanks for sharing.

I've been using Sunsama for the last few months and have really enjoyed it, I was somewhat surprised not to find it in a cmd+f on these comments.

I recently switched from Sunsama to Amazing Marvin, which is less opinionated, has more features, and is cheaper, but doesn't support teams as far as I can tell.

Looks like Level is dead fyi

https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-a...

Indeed, I included it to show that even though everyone might seem like they're clamoring for deep work products, the reality is that sometimes people just don't care enough. Level's founder Derrick Reimer had a hypothesis that people hated Slack (and particularly its interrupting notifications) that he wanted to make a product that was async. Turns out people don't actually care enough to change their entire communications workflow.

I think the bigger problem there is missing who the real customer is. Slacks pay-for features are targeted not at the users but at management, and management gets to dictate tools more often than not. Individual developers would absolutely jump on an async platform, but they're not the decision maker.

he's working on savvycal.com now - similar space.

> Lots of competitors in this space it seems

I run a problem validation platform, The problem which has the most number of solutions is 'Getting things done at individual level'[1].

Just when I think, every possible way to address this has been done there comes another with totally different approach to task management. This is very interesting as each one of them built it because they felt something was missing in their existing task manager.

As long there's a need-gap exists, there's a need for the solution.

[1] https://needgap.com/problems/30-getting-things-done-at-indiv...

Thanks for the survey of similar applications. What I want is (inspired by Deep Work) an application that allows me to do time-blocking for a given day around my typical schedule.

For example, in a given day, since I'm a student, I may have two 75-minute blocks of class and a 45 minute meeting scheduled. I want an app that encourages me to think about what I'll be doing with the rest of my time and fill in the gaps in my calendar with whatever (reading, doing assignments, note-taking, etc.). Does one of the apps you've linked to provide this?

In my opinion, why not use a calendar app for that, like Google Calendar, and fill it out each day yourself? For that usecase I don't see the value in paying for these tools.

+1 oltra - I’ve been using it recently for focus blocks and organizing my day for impact.

How would you say your product compares or differs for the average(or ideal) user?

I know the founder of Oltra, cool guy. My product is actually mobile first because I found that I liked having it on my phone when I'm out and about. It's still in the building stages though, I've been documenting it on Twitter [0] this month, trying to finish the MVP before the end of the month.

[0] https://twitter.com/satvikpendem/status/1433247453222944768

https://www.routine.co/ is another one I've seen in the space

Slight typo in the parent comment should be www.getartemis.app, an extra "w" snuck in. I have now knowledge of the product but was curious to see it.

Ironic that an extra "w" snuck into your post :) "I have now knowledge"

I wish you had written "intow your post", such a missed opportunity of recursive irony :)

Fixed thanks

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