StayFocus
Anti-Procrastination Focus Sessions for Builders
Hey IH
This is my first post here.
I'm a developer. I've been building software for over 10 years. I know how to plan projects, break things down, write clean todo lists... and for years I still kept having the same problem: starting.
Knowing what to do was never the issue. The problem was staring at a perfectly organized list and still not being able to force myself to sit down and work on the first item.
I tried almost every productivity app. Notion, Todoist, fancy planners, all of them. They're great at helping you plan. Almost none of them help with the actual hard part, the moment you have to stop thinking and just start doing the work.
So I built StayFocus.
It's not another list app. It's built around short, honest focus sessions. You start a session, you work, you stop, and it tracks that. No pretending you were productive just because you wrote a nice list. Just real focused time, session by session.
Along the way I added:
Streaks, so you can see your consistency (or the lack of it)
A brain dump / inbox for capturing random thoughts without breaking focus
Tiny experiments (small time-boxed commitments instead of vague goals)
Reflections, so sessions aren't just numbers
A live world map of people currently in focus sessions (sounds weird, but it's oddly motivating)
Some numbers from my own usage right now: 51 sessions, about 57 hours of focused time, and I'm on a small streak I'm trying not to break today. I'm literally my own first user, which has been the best and most brutal way to find what actually needed fixing.
It's live at stayfocus.now. I built and deployed the whole thing myself (Laravel + Vue, on my own server, real-time features and all). It's still evolving. I'm polishing the copy, improving the experience, and slowly getting more serious about marketing it (this post included).
If you've ever been the person who knows exactly what to do and still can't start, that's who I built this for. Because that person was me.
Would love any feedback, questions, or honest thoughts.
1 Comment
The distinction between knowing what to do and actually starting is clear. Building around focused sessions rather than another planning system gives StayFocus a more specific problem to own.