ClearTime
Sea trialA visual timer for ADHD and time blindness: a disc of color shrinks as time passes, so you can see where you stand.
The problem
With time blindness, the minutes don’t register until they’re gone. A clock only helps if you remember to check it and stop to read the number.
ClearTime is for people with ADHD, neurodivergence or time blindness, and anyone who does better seeing time than reading it.
What we’re trying
One round dial. A disc of color shrinks as time passes, so you can see where you stand at a glance. The time left is worked out from the end time, so it stays right even when your device sleeps. At zero there’s a sound, a notification and an empty face. Nothing flashes.
It’s built natively for Mac, iPhone and iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV. On the Mac the timer floats over every window. On iPhone it’s a widget, a Live Activity and the Dynamic Island. No account needed.
The public beta is open on TestFlight. Next comes the App Store.
What we’ve learned
Fewer technologies won. On day one we dropped a plan to cover five platforms with one cross-platform stack and went native Swift, Apple only.
Free CI minutes go fast. 56 runs in about a day used most of GitHub’s free 2,000 minutes, so the checks moved to a Mac mini.
A contrast check caught the pointer disappearing on the pink theme. Now a paused timer shows a pause symbol and the word “Paused”, not just a dimmer dial.
The first landing page was 80% there but cookie cutter, so we rebuilt it around a working timer.
From the log
Stage changes, launches and the things that broke. We write it all down.
Read the whole logClearTime Plus takes shape
Routines, History and custom colors are in, and a new build went to public beta review.
ClearTime meets its Sidekicks
The first Sidekick characters arrive, and the iPad gets layouts of its own.
ClearTime opens a public beta
TestFlight approved on every platform, and cleartimeapp.com went live with a working timer on the page.
ClearTime goes native
Day one: Mac, iPhone, Watch and TV apps built in Swift and uploaded to TestFlight in one evening.
Where it’s headed
- Napkin
Sketch it
An idea on paper, a problem worth chasing. Nothing built yet.
- Workbench
Build it
The crew is building. Not public yet, but the log is.
- Sea trial
Test it for real
Real people are using it. Expect rough edges, and tell us about them.
We’re here - Set sail
Ship it
It graduates into an Awesome Cause product, with support behind it.
- Scuttled
Or stop it
Any stage can end here, on purpose. The log says what we learned.