Every productivity app works great for four days. Then you have a brutal Tuesday, miss a week, and come back to 38 overdue tasks.
So you close the tab and never open it again. Restart is built for the day you come back. Pick up to three things a day. Miss even one day, and you land on a calm Recovery page that asks for just one thing.
Don't take our word for it — try it right here:
Tap one to check it off — or skip ahead and see what happens when you vanish.
↑ No red exclamation marks. No “streak reset to 0” banner.
The real problem with habit trackers
Most apps only know two states: perfect streak or total failure. Here's how Restart counts a real month.
October, one real month
You pick up to three things each morning. Some days you finish all three, some days just one. Any day you check off at least one thing counts.
11 days in. Feels easy right now…
How it works
If your system takes 20 minutes to organize,
you're procrastinating.
Not twelve. Not a backlog of “Q4 someday” projects. Three slots: one thing you've been avoiding, two smaller ones. When all three are checked, the screen tells you to close your laptop.
Miss one day or two months — nothing piles up. You land on Recovery, bring back the one thing that still matters, and let the rest go. Too big? Shrink it to a first step. Finish it, and the other two slots open again.
There's no streak to break. Your month shows the days you showed up — and every time you came back after a gap counts as a comeback, not a failure.
Why other apps make you quit
If you have ADHD — or a job full of Slack pings — your focus isn't flat across 365 days. Some weeks you ship everything. Some Wednesdays one email takes four hours.
Most productivity apps treat a missed day as a moral failure, then hand you admin cleanup at the exact moment you have the least energy for it.
The 10-day graveyard cycle:
Download new app on Sunday → color-code 9 folders → crush it Mon–Wed → bad Thursday → 34 overdue items on Monday → delete app.
Trap 01 · The overdue wall
Recurring habits keep multiplying while you're gone. Before you can plan today, you have to reschedule 40 old checkboxes — and even a “reschedule all” button just moves the pile to tomorrow. Restart never turns missed days into a debt pile.
Trap 02 · The streak guillotine
Streaks work until the first time they snap. Then your brain says “this month is ruined” and quits. Restart counts the days you showed up — miss 3 and it reads 20 days, not 0.
Trap 03 · Setup procrastination
Building a complex workspace feels like progress. Three days later, maintaining it is a second job. Restart has no sub-tasks, no priority flags, no boards to maintain.
Simple pricing · No annual lock-in
No annual plan to regret. Try it free for 7 days. A card is needed to start; cancel before day 7 and you won't be charged.
Works in any browser, desktop or phone. 7 days free.
Short FAQ
Wondering if this is just another app you'll abandon next Thursday? Read these.
Because the hardest part of coming back is starting. One small win counts the day — and if even that feels big, shrink it to a first step. Once it's checked, the other two slots open, if you want them.
Dump them in the Holding Tray so you don't forget them. It stays hidden while you work on today's list. Nothing in it has a due date, and nothing ever turns red. You pull from it only when you pick your day.
A day where nothing got checked off. The next time you open Restart, it's a one-thing day — whether you were gone one day or thirty.
No — on purpose. Once work tickets flow in automatically, your list becomes another noisy inbox you avoid. Typing three things by hand takes 20 seconds and makes you decide what counts today.
Leave last month's backlog behind