Fokus

The plan was never the hard part.

Saturday at 09:00 was. Fokus is a planner that checks — it reads your calendar for evidence a plan is real, and it puts that plan in front of you at the moment you're about to lose the morning.

Not shipped yet · iPhone · nothing leaves your device

You deleted Saturday's plan on Friday night.
Klettersteig with Tom, 09:00.
Put it back?
Put it back
15 minutes

Why every planner has failed you

They take your word for it.

You can tell a to-do app anything. Tick the box, move the card, set the reminder — it believes you, every time, which is exactly why you stopped believing it back. An app that can be satisfied by typing is an app you will eventually type at.

And the thing you're being asked to do — remember, at the right moment, without prompting — is the specific thing that isn't working. Being told to try harder at it is not a plan.

Fokus asks for evidence, not agreement.

What it actually does

It writes the plan into your real calendar, then goes and checks it's still there.

Three taps, one real event

What, when, where. Fokus writes an actual calendar entry — not a row in its own database. You never "record a plan in Fokus."

It reads the evidence back

A plan is verified when proof of it exists outside the app. That means it can tell the difference between what you meant to do and what you set up.

It speaks only when it can prove it

No guessing, no nagging on a timer. If the app hasn't checked recently it says so instead of inventing something.

The idea the whole thing rests on

Every detail you settle now is a decision you don't have to make on Saturday.

“Something with Tom” hands you three decisions at 09:00 on a Saturday — which is precisely when they're least available. Step through it and watch what each rung takes off your plate.

Saturday
WhatSomething with Tom
Whennot decided
Wherenot decided
Whonobody told
Counts as unplanned. A note to yourself is not a commitment, and Fokus will keep saying so.

The top rung is the only one you can't climb on your own — which is exactly why it's worth the most. Solo plans are still real plans, though: a Saturday morning alone with a book clears the bar at Placed.

The other half of the problem

At 09:00 on Saturday, it gets out of your way — and gets in the way of everything else.

Blocking apps on a schedule is a solved problem, and several apps already do it well. None of them know whether you have anything better to do at 11am on a Tuesday, so they block on a clock and you turn them off.

Fokus blocks during the thing you chose. You set aside Saturday morning for the Klettersteig; Saturday morning, the scroll isn't available. Not as a punishment and not as a reward you earned — the time is simply spoken for, the way it would be if you were already there.

Maps still works. So does Messages, and the phone. Somebody halfway up a mountain needs those.

This is the Klettersteig.
You chose it on Tuesday,
and Tom said yes.
Not today
I'm going

Note which button is which. The way out is the big one, and it doesn't argue with you.

Commitments, in the other direction

What it will never do.

These aren't features that didn't make the cut. They're the ones deliberately left on the floor, and the reasons are worth reading before you trust anything with this much of your week.

Never check where you were
Verifying attendance would need your location, and no app should hold that to make a point. Fokus's claim is that you planned it — never that you did it.
Never keep score
No streaks, no points, no completion percentage, no chart of the weeks you missed. Nothing here is designed to be broken.
Never get sharper with you
Ask for more time and it gives you the same fifteen minutes, in the same words, the tenth time as the second. It states what's true and offers the smallest next step. It doesn't editorialise.
Never punish a reschedule
Moving Saturday to Sunday is coping, not failing. The app can tell the difference between a plan you moved and a plan you dropped, and only one of those is worth mentioning.
Never report on you
Today there is no account, no server and no sync — your calendar is read on your phone and stays there. And whatever else changes: never a record of where you were or what you opened, to anyone.
Never be hard to put down
Quiet hours, and a pause that costs nothing, isn't counted, and never gets mentioned afterwards. A tool you can't set down isn't a tool.

Where this actually is

Designed, not built.

Every screen here is drawn and specified, and none of it is written yet. Two technical unknowns still have to be resolved before the first line of product code, and one of them can quietly break the whole premise.

The other open question is whether the words are right — which is the sort of thing that can't be settled by building it. If you plan things and then don't start them, and you're willing to read eight screens and say which one would make you delete the app, that's the most useful thing anyone could do for it right now.

Stage paper design Platform iPhone, iOS 17+ Price undecided Data collected none