I got tired of Productivity Apps, so I started building AETHR
Been quietly building something called AETHR for the past few months.
At first it was called VisionSync. The idea was simple: why does managing your life still feel so fragmented even with 100s of productivity and AI tools out there.
Every app solves one thing. Notes here. Tasks there. Goals somewhere else. AI chats in another tab.
I got tired of switching between everything so I started building my own system around this idea of “syncing” thinking, planning and execution together.
Now its turning into AETHR.
Still early. Still messy. Some days im designing flows, some days fixing UI bugs at 3am even tho im technically more founder than developer 😭 but honestly building the product yourself changes how you think.
Main goal is simple:
make an AI-powered life operating system that actually feels human and connected instead of another productivity dashboard.
Would love to share the journey here while building it.
The failure mode I see with all-in-one productivity tools is hiding the next action under more context. If AETHR keeps the dashboard honest, I would make every quadrant answer one question: what needs attention now, who or what is waiting, and what changes if I do nothing today. That gives the AI something operational to reason over instead of becoming another chat panel.
Yeah exactly, I think a lot of products accidentally become “systems to maintain” instead of tools that reduce friction
The more I build AETHR, the more I’m realizing simplicity is less about having fewer features and more about reducing the amount of decisions/input the user has to constantly make.
Still figuring it out honestly, but I’m trying to design around behavior and mental load first instead of just stacking functionality.
That is a useful way to frame it. Reducing decisions is probably the real product surface here.
I would watch for moments where the user has to re-explain context, choose between similar next steps, or maintain a structure just to keep the tool useful.
Those are usually the spots where simplicity breaks.
Yeah, I think that’s exactly where a lot of systems quietly become exhausting
The moment users have to constantly re-organize, re-explain, or maintain context manually, the tool starts creating cognitive load instead of reducing it.
That’s honestly one of the biggest things I’m trying to watch for while building AETHR right now.
That is the right thing to watch. I would treat "does the user have to re-organize or re-explain this?" as a product smell during testing. If AETHR can carry context forward without making people babysit the system, that is a real difference.
"Spot on. Treating 'manual maintenance' as a product smell is a great heuristic.
If AETHR can successfully act as the 'memory layer' that carries context across sessions without the user having to re-summarize, it shifts the value proposition from data entry to decision support. Are you thinking of having the AI proactively synthesize those next steps based on the context it's holding, or are you keeping it more reactive to avoid the AI feeling like it's 'nagging' the user?"
I feel the same about that. There are so many apps out there and I tried to use a lot of them, but nothing really fits. Some apps do this, some do that, but nothing does all I need it to. What is different in your app?
Honestly I think the main difference is that I’m not trying to build “more productivity features.”
The thing I keep struggling with personally is losing context between thinking, planning, and execution. Most tools handle one part well, but the thread connecting everything disappears.
So AETHR is basically my attempt at making things feel more connected and less fragmented instead of constantly switching between disconnected systems 😭
Still very early, but would genuinely love your thoughts if you try it since you’ve clearly experienced the same frustration.
I totally relate to that. For me, it feels like I make a solid plan upfront, but then I get lost in the process and never follow through. That’s actually why I started building my own setup inside Taskade to bridge that gap.
I’d love to check out your approach and maybe learn from it! If you’re open to it, I’d really appreciate your feedback on my project as well, since we’re clearly tackling the same problem.
That drop-off between making the plan and actually executing it is exactly where things usually fall apart! Building a custom setup in Taskade makes a lot of sense since it gives you the flexibility to mold it to your actual workflow.
I would absolutely love to swap feedback. It’s always incredibly helpful to get insights from a fellow builder who genuinely understands the problem space.
Where is the best place to connect? Drop a link to your project, and I’ll share the link to AETHR so we can take a look at how we're both tackling this!
AETHR Link: https://getaethr.vercel.app/
Totally relate to this — building in public changes everything.
The messy days are where the real learning happens. Following your journey
I used to think founders mostly figured things out before launching, but building in public made me realize most people are learning while stumbling through the messy middle in real time.
Appreciate you following along 🙏
I think a lot of people hit this point — tools end up adding more complexity instead of solving the core problem
I’ve been working on something small recently and noticed the same thing: the real problem is usually behavior, not lack of tools
Curious how you're approaching keeping it simple this time
Yeah exactly, I think behavior and mental friction are way more important than feature count at this point.
Right now I’m trying to keep AETHR focused around one idea:
helping people regain clarity without making them maintain another complicated system
So I’ve been cutting a lot of things that feel impressive technically but add more cognitive overhead than actual usefulness.
Ironically the productivity space is so crowded that simplicity itself becomes the differentiator. What’s the core philosophy behind AETHR?
The core philosophy is probably:
Software should reduce mental friction, not become another thing you have to manage 😭
I think a lot of productivity tools accidentally turn organization into a full-time job. I’m trying to build something that preserves context and helps people move forward without constantly rebuilding their system every day.
This resonates so much. I went through the same cycle of trying every new productivity app and always finding something missing. Building something yourself forces you to really understand what you actually need versus what these apps tell you that you need. The hardest part for me was resisting the urge to add every feature under the sun once I started. How are you deciding what stays in and what gets cut?
This is way too relatable 😭
I think once you start building your own system, you suddenly realize how easy it is to confuse “interesting features” with actual usefulness.
Right now I’m trying to ask myself a pretty simple question before adding anything:
does this reduce mental load or just create another thing the user has to maintain?
Because I’ve noticed a lot of productivity tools slowly become productivity theater. Tons of features, but more cognitive overhead instead of clarity.
Still figuring it out honestly, but I’m becoming way more willing to cut things if they don’t help the user move forward faster or preserve context naturally.
The fragmentation insight is the right root cause. Every tool solves the artifact (the note, the task, the goal) but ignores the thing that connects them: the thread of reasoning that made you create any of it. You end up with a system of containers and no map of how they got filled.
Curious what "syncing thinking, planning and execution" looks like at the moment a plan breaks — when you discover the assumption the whole task list was built on was wrong. That's the hard case. Does AETHR have a way to surface when downstream tasks no longer make sense given what you now know?
(I'm launching something in this adjacent space on May 28 — I'll be lurking on this thread to learn before then.)
The moment a core assumption changes is usually where most systems quietly fall apart. The tasks still exist, the notes still exist, but the reasoning behind them is outdated and nothing in the system really notices.
What I’m experimenting with right now is less “AI auto-manages your life” and more:
The system maintaining awareness of relationships between decisions, priorities, goals, and execution over time.
So ideally if a project direction changes, the system can start surfacing:
“These tasks were connected to an assumption that may no longer be true.”
Definitely nowhere near fully solved yet, but I think that “reasoning continuity” layer is probably more important than the individual productivity features themselves.
Also good luck with your launch on May 28 👀 feels like a lot of people are converging on adjacent problems right now.
The fragmentation problem is definitely real.
Feels like a lot of tools optimize individual workflows, but very few make everything feel connected in a natural way.
Also relatable on the “founder fixing UI bugs at 3am” part 😄 Curious how you’re thinking about balancing simplicity vs feature overload with something this ambitious.
That’s probably the hardest balance in the product right now 😭
I’m trying to avoid the “everything app” trap where the system becomes more work than the actual work itself.
Right now I’m leaning toward making the experience more context-driven instead of feature-driven, showing less, but making it feel more relevant depending on what the user is focused on.
That actually sounds like a much smarter direction than trying to pack every possible feature into one system.
I think a lot of productivity tools become overwhelming because users end up managing the tool itself instead of their actual work/life.
The “context-driven” approach feels more human, especially if the interface can adapt without constantly demanding attention from the user.
Yeah exactly, that’s the trap I’m trying really hard to avoid.
A lot of systems start with the goal of helping people feel clearer, but eventually the user spends more time organizing the tool than actually moving forward 😭
I think if AETHR works long term, it’ll probably be because it quietly supports the user in the background instead of constantly asking for more input and attention.
The shift from dev to product designer is wild. Completely resonate with those 3 AM UI design rabbit holes—actually building the front-end yourself changes everything about how you think through user flows.
Your point about tool fragmentation is so true. Switching between completely separate workspaces kills cognitive focus. I’m wrestling with a similar layout problem right now on an EdTech tool I'm building called HushClass. We're trying to deliver deep classroom insights to teachers without making the dashboard feel like a sterile data matrix.
Consolidating notes, tasks, and chat into one clean ecosystem for AETHR is a heavy design challenge. How are you approaching the layout hierarchy so it doesn't overwhelm the main dashboard? Good luck with the build
This is way too relatable 😭
Building the frontend yourself really changes how you think about product decisions. You stop thinking in abstract feature ideas and start realizing every extra element adds actual mental weight to the experience.
And yeah, the “sterile dashboard” problem is exactly what I’m trying to avoid too. A lot of productivity tools technically do a lot, but emotionally they feel exhausting to open.
Right now my biggest focus is trying to reduce the feeling of “multiple systems crammed together.” Instead of showing everything equally, I’m experimenting with making the dashboard feel more context-driven and layered — so the most relevant things surface naturally depending on what the user is focused on, instead of screaming for attention all at once.
Definitely still figuring it out though. Feels like one of those problems that sounds simple until you actually start designing it.
HushClass sounds really interesting too by the way. Especially the challenge of turning complex classroom insights into something teachers can absorb quickly without cognitive overload. Can i get a link for it want to use it. Looking forward to contribution for HushClass.
The “emotionally exhausting to open” point really stuck with me too because that’s exactly the feeling we’re trying to avoid with HushClass.
A lot of classroom tools surface everything equally, but in reality teachers already operate under constant cognitive load. We’ve been thinking a lot about how to make insights feel calm, contextual, and actionable instead of just adding more dashboards.
Really liked your layered/context-driven approach as well — feels way more human than the typical “show all metrics at once” design philosophy.
And absolutely — the site is:
hushclass (dot) com
Still early, but would genuinely love your thoughts once you check it out, especially from a UX/product systems perspective.
You can also reach out directly at:
manish [at] hushclass (dot) com
Really appreciate this and honestly the “teachers already operate under constant cognitive load” point is such an important design insight.
A lot of software treats more information as automatically better, when in reality the emotional experience of using the product matters just as much as the functionality.
I’m definitely going to check HushClass out properly. The “calm + contextual” direction feels very aligned with a lot of what I’ve been thinking about while building AETHR too.
Would genuinely love your thoughts on AETHR as well once you get a chance to try it especially from a UX/system design perspective since it feels like we’re both thinking deeply about cognitive load and human-centered workflows.
Appreciate that, and completely agree.
I think a lot of products accidentally optimize for information density when the real challenge is helping people make better decisions with less mental effort.
That's one of the reasons I've become a bit obsessed with cognitive load lately, especially after speaking with teachers and seeing how much information they're expected to process throughout the day.
And absolutely — I'll check AETHR out properly and share some thoughts. From what you've described so far, it sounds like we're approaching different problems but asking some very similar design questions underneath.
Looking forward to digging into it.
That really is the core of it, optimizing for clarity over density.
I think the biggest trap we face is that 'feature completeness' is easy to measure, but 'cognitive ease' is invisible until you actually see a user struggle with a flow. I'm definitely going to dive into HushClass with that lens in mind, especially looking at how you handle that transition from raw data to actionable insight.
I’ll make sure to get some time with AETHR as well. I'm looking forward to seeing how you've balanced that 'layered' architecture in practice. Let’s keep swapping notes as we hit these UI walls; having a sounding board for those design decisions is a massive advantage.
Strong founder energy, but the wedge feedback in this thread is the most valuable thing you have. From an operator angle: when you have engaged testers like the ones replying here, the highest leverage move is to lock the product for two weeks and only optimize for day-2 retention with five real users. The wedge usually reveals itself when you watch them open the app on day 2 and see which quadrant they actually go to first. Most life-OS products eventually find that one quadrant does 80 percent of the heavy lifting, and that quadrant becomes the real product. Keep shipping.
This is honestly one of the most valuable comments I’ve gotten on this so far.
The “watch what they open on day 2” point really clicked for me because I can already feel myself thinking too broadly sometimes instead of paying attention to actual repeated behavior.
I think you’re right that the wedge probably won’t reveal itself through positioning alone, it’ll reveal itself through what people naturally return to when the novelty wears off.
And the idea that one quadrant eventually ends up carrying most of the product weight makes a lot of sense too. I’ve been starting to suspect that myself while watching early usage patterns.
Really appreciate this perspective. Definitely pushing me to think more in terms of retention behavior instead of feature completeness.
I'm also making an app, and I have a real question. I've used a lot of productivity tracking apps, and more often than not, I just give up on them and stop tracking. How are you going to solve this problem?
Honestly I think this is probably the hardest problem in the entire space.
I’ve abandoned a lot of productivity systems myself, which is honestly one of the reasons I started building this in the first place 😭
A lot of tools slowly turn into “maintenance systems” where you spend more energy updating the app than actually living or working. Eventually the friction builds up and you stop opening it.
So one thing I’m trying to think carefully about with AETHR is:
how do you reduce the amount of manual rebuilding the user has to do every day?
I don’t think people want to constantly organize their life into perfect folders and trackers. I think they want software that adapts to messy real behavior instead of punishing it.
Still figuring this out honestly, but I’m leaning more toward context + assistance rather than hardcore tracking/streak culture. If the system can naturally understand what matters without demanding constant input, I think retention becomes way more human.
Curious how you’re thinking about this in your own app too because I feel like this is one of the biggest unsolved UX problems right now.
genuinely curious what 'feels human and connected' means in practice when you're building it. that's the kind of phrase that makes total sense in your head and becomes really hard to make concrete in a UI. like what's a specific moment in the app where a user would think 'this feels different from other productivity tools.' do you have one of those yet
This is honestly the question I’m trying hardest to make concrete right now.
For me, “human and connected” means the system doesn’t treat every action like an isolated input.
A simple example:
Most productivity tools make you manually reconnect everything yourself. You write a goal in one place, tasks somewhere else, journal thoughts separately, and AI chats forget context the moment you switch topics.
What I’m trying to build is a system where those things naturally inform each other.
So maybe you journal that you’re feeling burned out, your priorities have shifted, and a project has been slipping for a week. Instead of acting like a blank dashboard, the system understands that context and adjusts how it helps you plan, prioritize, or reflect going forward.
The “this feels different” moment I’m chasing is:
feeling understood without constantly having to re-explain yourself to the software.
Still early, but that’s probably the clearest way I can describe the direction right now.
what you're describing is basically ambient context versus active input. most tools only respond to what you explicitly tell them. you're trying to build something that reads between the lines. that's a much harder UX problem than it sounds because users also need to trust that the system isn't overreading things or making connections that feel invasive rather than helpful
Yeah, this is exactly the tension I keep thinking about.
I don’t want the system to feel passive and dumb, but I also don’t want it acting like it psychoanalyzed the user from 3 notes and a missed task 😭
I think the trust boundary is probably one of the hardest parts of building something like this. The goal for me isn’t “AI knows everything about you.” It’s more that the system can gently preserve continuity without forcing the user to constantly rebuild context from scratch.
So ideally the experience feels more like:
“this tool remembers what matters to me”
rather than
“this tool is trying to interpret my personality.”
Still figuring out where that line is honestly. I feel like the product either becomes genuinely helpful or accidentally overwhelming depending on how carefully that balance is handled.
the fact that you're sitting with that tension rather than just defaulting to 'more context is always better' is probably what separates this from the other all-in-one productivity tools that feel overwhelming by week two
I really appreciate you saying that. "Overwhelming by week two" is exactly the graveyard of most productivity tools, and it's the main trap we're trying to avoid.
It’s forcing us to be incredibly disciplined with the UI/UX, making sure the interface stays clean and only surfaces context when it’s genuinely helpful, rather than just because the AI can.
Thanks for pushing me on that original question! Conversations like this are exactly what helps solidify the actual product vision.
that discipline is the whole product honestly. most tools fail not because they can't learn enough but because they show everything they've learned. looking forward to seeing how it comes out
The 3 AM UI-bug struggles are too real! As a fellow founder who often jumps between the big vision and the messy code, I completely respect what you're doing here.
You’ve hit the nail on the head regarding the 'fragmented' app fatigue. The market is flooded with tools that solve just 10% of the problem, forcing us to constantly context-switch. Building a unified 'life operating system' that actually feels human, rather than just another sterile dashboard with an AI wrapper, is a massive challenge but a highly needed one.
The shift from VisionSync to AETHR sounds like you're heading in a great direction. Looking forward to following your build journey here. Keep pushing through the messy early days!
Really appreciate this.
I think the hardest part so far has been realizing the problem isn’t lack of tools anymore, it’s the constant mental resetting between them.
Most systems help you store information, but very few help preserve context across thinking, planning, and execution in a way that actually feels natural.
And yeah 😭 the founder/developer split is very real. One minute I’m thinking about long-term product direction, the next I’m debugging spacing issues for two hours.
Still early, but comments like this genuinely help keep me motivated to keep pushing through the messy phase.
The 30+ minutes a day lost to context switching is a really specific pain point — much more useful as a founding story than "I wanted to build a productivity tool." What jumps out most in your description is that Sync has context across all four quadrants simultaneously. Most AI assistants suffer from total amnesia the moment you switch tasks; if Sync genuinely knows that your goal in "Why" connects to the task in "Do" and the metric in "Now," that cross-context awareness is potentially what makes it a different category rather than just a prettier dashboard. That's the specific thing worth stress-testing early. Happy to try it with exactly that lens if you're still looking for testers.
I have posted the link in my most recent post. Please check it out and you will find it out what i am building.
That’s exactly the thing I’m trying to validate early.
Most tools treat tasks, notes, goals, and reflection as separate tabs. The whole idea behind AETHR is that Sync should understand how they connect together instead of resetting context every time you switch modes.
Would genuinely love your feedback from that lens because that’s the core bet here.
IH isn’t letting me post links yet or DM as im new, but if you’re open to trying an early version, I can give you my discord. Let me knowwwww. So excitedd for an early user for my project.
Happy to try it! I don't have Discord though — is there another way to get access? Also, I'm building a similar app in the productivity space called LifePilot. Would you be open to trying it and exchanging feedback after a week? Could be useful for both of us.
I have posted the link in my most recent post. Please check it out and you will find it out what i am building.
And yes please tell me about LifePilot, name sounds interesting. Will happy to use it and exchange feedback.
Great! LifePilot is an AI goal planner for iOS — you type a goal and it breaks it down into daily tasks automatically. Here's the App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/it/app/lifepilot-ai-planner/id6760910669. Looking forward to trying AETHR too, checking your post now.
Cant find the link :(
Can you paste the link again. Really want to try it out. Thanks.
https://apps.apple.com/it/app/lifepilot-ai-planner/id6760910669
LifePilot - AI Planner
Alrightyy. Let me tryy itt. Sounds fun. Did u try mine?
Replying here because IH limits nesting depth — Exactly — the bet is that most people don't want to build a system, they just want to know what to do today. Would love to hear what you think after trying it. When you're ready to share feedback, there's a feedback hub in the profile section of the app — makes it easy to send thoughts directly. And yeah, there's probably room for both approaches — different layers of the same problem.
Yeah, I think that insight is really important.
A lot of productivity systems accidentally turn the “system” itself into the work. Most people don’t actually want a complex framework, they just want clarity on what matters right now and enough structure to keep moving.
That’s actually one thing I already appreciate about the direction you’re taking with LifePilot. The simplicity lowers the mental resistance a lot.
I’m definitely going to spend a bit more time with it properly before giving feedback, but I’ll check out the feedback hub once I’ve used it enough to have meaningful thoughts instead of surface-level impressions 😄
And agreed, feels less like direct competition and more like different philosophies on solving the same underlying problem.
Just checked out AETHR — really interesting concept, the idea of connecting goals, execution and performance in one panel makes sense. The "Sync" layer that understands context across modes is the interesting bet. Curious to see how onboarding works for new users who don't have existing workflows yet.
Here's LifePilot again if the link didn't work: https://apps.apple.com/it/app/lifepilot-ai-planner/id6760910669 — it's much simpler, just type a goal and get 4 daily tasks. Would love your honest feedback after trying it for a day or two.
Really appreciate you checking it out.
And yeah, the onboarding point is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I think one danger with systems like AETHR is assuming users already have structured workflows when most people actually don’t. A big part of the challenge is making it feel useful before the system has enough context to become “smart.”
That’s honestly one thing I find interesting about what you’re doing with LifePilot too. The simplicity is probably a huge advantage. “Type a goal → get actionable daily tasks” is immediately understandable without needing users to build an entire operating system around themselves first.
I’m definitely going to spend some time with it properly and I’d genuinely be happy to share feedback after using it for a bit. I think there’s actually a really interesting balance between simplicity and depth in this whole space, and different products might solve different layers of the same problem.
Building from your own frustration is a real starting point. One thing worth thinking through before going deeper though.
"Life OS / unify everything" has been attempted a lot — Notion, Mem, Reflect, Tana, Roam all started from the same insight you have. The ones that broke through didn't win by being more unified. They won by nailing one specific job first (Notion = collaborative docs, Roam = networked notes, Tana = power users with structure).
The question worth answering before more building: when someone wakes up frustrated, what specific thing do they open AETHR to do first? "Unify thinking, planning, execution" is how you describe it to yourself. The user opens an app for one job at a time. If you can name that first job clearly, the OS becomes easier to build around it.
The vision is fine — the wedge into it is the hard part.
This is honestly one of the biggest things I’ve been thinking about lately.
I agree that “Life OS” is too broad as a starting point, and the products that broke through usually earned the right to expand after owning one clear behavior first.
The frustration I keep coming back to personally is context fragmentation — switching between planning, capturing thoughts, tracking goals, and execution while losing the thread between them every time.
So the wedge I’m currently testing is less “all-in-one productivity” and more:
Helping people regain context when moving between thinking and doing.
Still figuring out what the sharpest first use case inside that is, but your point is exactly the tension I’m trying to solve right now.
The reframe is sharper than "Life OS" but still abstract. "Regain context" is founder mental model, not buyer language. Users don't wake up thinking "I lost context." They wake up thinking "where did I put that thought from yesterday's call."
The wedge has to be the specific moment, not the abstract problem. Not "regain context" — "the 9am Monday moment when you can't remember what you decided Friday." Specific moment unlocks specific solution.
Notion's first job was "shared docs that don't break." Roam's was "see how my notes connect." None of them named the abstract problem they actually solve.
Diagnostic: what's the specific moment in your own day where AETHR saves the most pain? Name it precisely = wedge. Describe abstractly = haven't found it yet.
HiveMind is built for this kind of work — HivemindIH123 at myosin.xyz/hivemind
This is genuinely really good feedback.
I think you’re right that I’m still sometimes describing the philosophy instead of the actual user moment. The “where did I put that thought from yesterday’s call” example honestly explains the problem better than a lot of the wording I’ve been using 😭
And the more I think about it, the more I realize the painful moments for me are usually transition moments. Like reopening work after context breaks and feeling like my brain has 20 unfinished tabs open.
One very specific moment I keep running into personally is:
I’ll capture an idea or decision somewhere during the day, but when I come back later, the surrounding context is gone, why it mattered, what it connected to, what action came from it, whether it was still relevant.
That’s probably closer to the real pain than saying “context fragmentation.”
Really appreciate you pushing on specificity here because I think that’s the part that forces the product to become clearer too.
And I’ll definitely check out HiveMind as well sounds very aligned with the kind of thinking/problem space I’m interested in.
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