Why it works
Most productivity apps are built to make you feel the gap.
For a brain already running a commentary on its own shortfalls, that is the reason the app gets deleted in week three.
Evidence
The decisions have reasons you can check.
128
Studies in the Deci, Koestner and Ryan meta-analysis, where the most damaging arrangement measured is a ranked reward that leaves most people with less than the maximum, which is what a leaderboard is.Deci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999
516
Participants in a leaderboard study where the bottom quartile gained and the top quartile dropped; being shown your position is what does the damage.Hydari et al., Management Science, 2023
9,064
App reviews read across 50 competing apps before the design work started, and the complaints repeat, most of them about shame.Read August 2026
Points are close to neutral. Position is what does the damage.
Rejection sensitivity
What the evidence ruled out.
- Show you the list of what you missed. Progress only accumulates.
- Hold a broken streak over you, or take back something you earned.
- Rank you against the people you live with. The data has no field for it.
- Tell you to be proud, or that you have earned a rest.
- Narrate a failure to act, however many times a reminder returns.
- Use an exclamation point. Not once, anywhere.
Before you ask
Reasonable questions.
What it costs, what happens to your data, whether it works if you live alone, and whether there is an Android version, are all answered here.
Worth a week of your attention.
If it makes you feel worse, delete it; that is the bar.