I’m Building 1MB Apps to Reduce “Mental Open Loops” (v1.3 Update)

For the last few months I’ve been building a small set of ultralight iOS apps (each ~1–1.3MB).

This started personally. I got laid off and wanted to keep my mental state steady. I watched some “stay positive” videos on YouTube, and one suggestion stuck: carry a notebook and rewrite negative thoughts into positive ones whenever they appear.

So I did. I filled a notebook in a month. Then I got tired of carrying it around and built an app instead. That became MindFlipOut — a place to catch a looping thought and give it a response.

Later, I wanted reminders of those rewritten thoughts, so I built MindShoutOut. Then a friend and I joked about getting people off their phones by showing them a blank screen — that became MindZoneOut.

Originally, all of this was framed around “positive thinking.” But over time I realized the real issue wasn’t negativity. It was unfinished mental processes.

Unsent replies. Half-made decisions. Things I’m afraid to forget. Conversations I replay for no reason. Random comments from strangers that linger longer than they should.

Modern software multiplies these. Notifications, feeds, reminders, partial attention — everything stays slightly active.

Most productivity or wellness tools try to optimize behavior. I wanted to reduce cognitive load instead.

In v1.3, the apps have converged around a single idea: reduce cognitive residue.
• MindFlipOut — Catch a looping thought and give it a response so it stops reloading.
• MindShoutOut — Externalize a heavy thought and let it return later instead of carrying it.
• MindZoneOut — A blank, intentional stillness screen where thoughts can settle.
• MindEaseOut (integrated) — A time-based release layer for thoughts that belong to the past or future, not now.

Design constraints:
• ~1MB each
• Local-first (no accounts, no cloud)
• No streaks, tracking, or gamification
• Meant to be opened briefly and closed

The hardest part hasn’t been building features — it’s been stopping. Every instinct says to add onboarding, explanations, AI, psychology framing. But the entire premise is subtraction.

So far: a small number of downloads across several countries (US, Canada, France, Brazil, Korea, Nigeria). Product Hunt was mostly quiet.

I’m not trying to build a wellness empire. I’m trying to see whether “cognitive residue reduction” is a category of its own.

Curious how others here on Indie Hackers think about mental open loops in modern software. Are we building tools that reduce friction — or tools that create new maintenance overhead?

Website: https://www.mindbebop.com/