I had 212 ideas and had finished none of them

I kept a note called ideas.md. Two hundred and twelve lines at last count. Learn to make croissants. App for plant watering. Write the essay about my grandfather. The note was three years old and I had finished, by my own audit, none of them.

Here is the thing nobody says about idea lists: they only grow. Adding to the list feels like progress, so you add. Reading the list feels like being billed, so you stop reading. By month four every ideas note is a graveyard with a search bar.

Idea is the first thing that actually changed this for me, and it changed it with one rude rule: you can hoard all you want, but only one idea gets to be alive.

The reservoir and the hand

You still write everything down — there's a quick inbox, a widget, the usual. All of it goes into what the app calls the reservoir, sorted into whatever chips you like: projects, experiments, learning.

But the reservoir is storage, not a to-do list. When nothing is live, the app deals you a hand of five — and it deliberately includes something old and something you've already passed over. You pull exactly one. That idea goes live, at the top of the screen, with a day counter on it.

And here's the lock: you cannot pull another idea until you end the live one. Finish it, set it down, or let it go. Ten seconds of undo, then it's decided.

The first time this bit me, the live idea was the croissants. Day six, no croissants. I wanted to pull down something shinier, and the app just... didn't have a button for that. So I stood in my kitchen on a Sunday and laminated dough for three hours, because an app on my phone had, politely, called my bluff. They were mediocre croissants. It was a great weekend.

Letting go counts

The other release valve matters just as much: let it go is a real ending, not a failure state. The plant-watering app idea had been dealt to me three times and I'd passed every time. Eventually the app's yearly reflection — it calls it the Read — will name that pattern to your face: this idea keeps being offered and you keep not choosing it. That's not an idea. That's a weight. I let it go and felt roughly 40 grams lighter.

The Read is my favourite part, mostly for what it refuses to do. It only says things it has evidence for — how many ideas you pulled down, how long you actually carry things before finishing or releasing them. When it doesn't have enough history, it says so:

The Read waits for a little more history. It will never fill the quiet with guesses.

An app that would rather say "not enough history" than flatter me is an app I trust with three years of half-thoughts.

The small print, cheerfully

Everything lives on your phone and your iCloud — no account, no server of anyone's. Markdown export is free, because your ideas are yours. App lock if your reservoir is nobody's business.

Idea is in App Review as I post this, so it should be days away. It'll be $4.99 once, or $9.99 for the bundle that covers every HourLife mini app, now and later. No subscription. My ideas.md is down to being a museum, which is all it ever deserved to be.

Make room for better ideas.