Orakemu.com

A life gamification app to help you live more intentionally and happily
Less stress, more doing of what matters

Psychological mechanisms🤝Productivity tools

[Orakemu.com @orakemu]

Some screenshots of the current version of the app :)

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

Reached another milestone: 1300+ users 🎉 (1440, since i recorded this video)

Video update about my progress building @orakemu !

https://t.co/vbYYCHtiPz

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

A bit more than a year ago, I finished my PhD in psychology. During my PhD I struggled with the usual: procrastination, rabbit holes, impostor syndrome, working too much some days and not enough on others.

I cycled through Notion, Obsidian, Todoist, TickTick, Habitica, Toggl... never found one that actually fit how my brain works. They all gave me data without meaning. I had to make them useful.

So I built my own app.

The app is called https://t.co/DnFNhgdNLE (from Māori: "ora" = life, "kemu" = game). It's a slightly gamified life tracker and daily planner, but the core idea is different from most productivity apps:

Instead of organizing by projects, you organize by Life Roles.

Think of it like an RPG for your actual life. You're not just a "worker" — you're a Parent, a Creator, a Friend, a Career Warrior, someone trying to Be a Functional Adult. Each role can have its own tasks, habits, and time tracked. You finally see your whole life in one place and can make conscious choices about where to invest your energy.

What's in the app now:

- Life Roles with XP progression and stats over time
- Drag-and-drop daily timeline
- Time-blocking and time-tracking everything (with notes, so it doubles as a journal)
- Flexible habits, routines, and saved checklists
- Tasks and basic projects

Coming soon: Notifications, calendar sync, and a "Orakemu Wrapped" at the end of the year. And much more to come :)

The crazy part for me is that I got users from all over the world: Japan, India, Canada, Australia, Europe, etc.

And even though reaching 1200 users organically isn't a groundbreaking achievement, I think it's a great start.

1,200 people who want to be more intentional with their time!

Still a long way to go, but I'm proud of what the app is becoming.

Happy to answer questions about the solo dev journey or the app itself!

[Orakemu.com @orakemu]

365 days hehe :)

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

365 days - one year! - of using my daily planner/life management app every single day 🥳

April 2024: I successfully defended my PhD thesis in psychology.
May-Oct 2024: I took some time off then started working on my app.
Oct 2024: I started using it every day as it improved.

In the last year, I used Orakemu to help me focus on work, but also to balance work with personal life, to ensure I make time for what matters to me: friends, family, music, sport, etc.

I journaled, tracked my time, planned my days, checked off tasks, and looked back on my accomplishments.
It got me through an intense summer of posting a video a day for 100 days.

And now with the upcoming releases of (time) tracking routines/habits and calendar integration, it's closer to becoming the dream app I've always wanted.

On to the next year!

PS: https://t.co/te8Y8f9mJi is an all-in-one slightly gamified life management app that makes you see your life as a role playing game. It helps you be more intentional by 1) clarifying your duties and desires by defining your life roles, 2) Help you plan your days and track how you spend your time, 3) gain both structure and a sense of progress through the features of the app. It combines time tracking, journaling, routines/habits, time-blocking... all in one unique app. Try it out for yourself!

And at least you know that the founder is using it daily and is very eager to improve it out of his desire to make the app more useful to him and all its users!

It replaced for me
- a habit tracker (e.g. toggl )
- a task manager (e.g., todoist, habitica, lamalife, structured app )
- a journaling app

And soon it will seamlessly integrate google calendar and apple calendar as well as open formats such as caldav.

#dailyplanner #productivityapp #gamifyyourlife #productivity #adhdapp

[Orakemu.com @orakemu]

« A soft space for my ADHD brain to work in » never thought I’d read this

Extra motivation to keep on improving orakemu !

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

saw this review today 🥹

seriously, it made my day to think my app could be such a game changer for someone

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

It's usually best to avoid comparing yourself to others. However, when you have a business, when you make an app and try to make a living from it, comparison is a must. You need to offer something different, better, or unique to stand out from the crowd of existing apps.

So sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work left. In those moments, I just remind myself to "do my best", be patient, stay persistent, and all will go well.

This was day 94 of posting every single day for 100 days. Only 6 days to go!

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

The new OpenAI Codex coding model is impressive 🤯 !

I tried it out with a full feature PRD.

It coded for 1 hour straight and then it simply... worked.

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

Did I cook ?! 🔥

New UI for adding items in my daily planner.

Honestly this UI gives me so much joy. The buttons have beautiful micro interactions that took me SO much time but are worth it.

[Orakemu.com @orakemu]

Seeking feedback on this UI ⚠️ 🙏

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

I don't want/don't have the time to learn Figma to create designs.

But making them directly in flutter (for my app) takes too much time.

So instead, I just use AI and what I already know: HTML/CSS/JS

It let's me iterate much faster! Here's an example.
The first two screenshots are the new variants. The third screenshot is the current UI in the dev version of the app.

I'm working on my gamified daily planner "orakemu" as a solo dev and there's a lot of complex features to implement. I don't have time to make everything look beautiful right now. So this is the compromise I found works well for me. I then just asks AI to convert the HTML/CSS/JS to dart.

These cards specifically are for "recurring items". They can have various variants:
- basic (done/not done) vs progressive (e.g. read 40 pages)
- precise (i.e., every monday and friday) vs. flexible (e.g. at least 3 times a week) vs. on-demand (saved routines/habits/standards of procedure that you can schedule whenever you want)
- optionally, they can have steps/subtasks

What are your thoughts on the new design? (vs the old?)

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

Day 74 of building a gamified daily planner in public

📈 879 registered users
💰 110$ MRR (got two new yearly subscription and one new weekly subscription in the last week 🥳)

I woke up early and made some good progress. I'm also showing what my next priorities are.

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

An app that makes you see your life as a role playing game AND that has all the traditional productivity tools you need?

Yes, it's possible, and that's what I am making with Orakemu :)

And so many more features are planned.

- Customized avatars
- Multiplayer/coop features
- etc.

I promise it will become the app you did not know could exist and did not know you needed.

It will be like finding the perfect game and spending hours on it, leveling up your characters. But instead of this being just a game, it will be your life. You'll reap the benefits of your efforts.

I'm inspiring myself from the best apps out there like Ticktick and Todoist, but making everything interconnected.

And compared to Notion or Obsidian (which should just be note taking apps), instead of having to create a whole game system from scratch, taking you weeks of work, you could just install orakemu and starts creating your characters and playing the game of your life, with every tool you need at your disposal.

(day 64 of building Orakemu in public every day)

#adhd #gamification #gamifyyourlife #adhdapp #dailyplanner #notion #obsidian #todoist #habitica

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

Building in public requires consistent effort for sometimes little results.

One principle that has helped me not give up:

"Have high hopes but keep your expectations low".

That's how I was able to record/edit/post 63 days in a row and am aiming for 100 days

#BuildInPublic

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

day 55/100 of making a video every single day

i tried out a new format
what do you think?

this is how i once pitched my app

does it resonate?

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

Sometimes writing is how you do the thinking. You cannot expect to have everything thought out and then start writing. Instead, I learned that you need to start writing to clarify your thinking

And then you just iterate over and over again until you’re happy

And this applies to other things in life

You need to do the thing to learn about it

You might try to make the perfect recipe on paper, but you will never know whether it’s good until you try it out

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

5 productivity books that are worth your time :)

I read a ton of producitivty books over the years. I always felt like I did not have enough time to do everything I wanted. And so I wanted help to make the most of it.

Nowadays it's easy to binge watch a ton of productivity videos on youtube but often they are just a waste of time. Books pack much more information, and are often more organized.

But there are a lot of bad productivity books out there so if you want to skip the bad books, definitely focus on those I recommend in this video.

#productivity #books #adhd #productivitytips

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

View your life as a game.

Go on quests.

Create your tribe.

Make sure to prepare for rainy days.

Know you will face monsters.

Know you might get side tracked.

That's okay.

But you can't do everything at once.

Even in a game.

So choose wisely how and what you will "level up".

--

Day 48. Still going.
Working on a big update that's taking all my brain cells captive.

#adhdapp #gamification #lifegamification #productivity #gamifyyourlife

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

📆 47 days posting daily videos → 📈 156% subscriber growth

No viral hits. No shortcuts. Just showed up every single day.

Turns out the boring advice is right - consistency is key

Still nowhere near @YoniSmolyar's early days (rip 🥲), but following the @marclou @jackfriks playbook: consistency > virality

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

For those that are curious about the background story of the idea of my app (a "productivity" app with a more psychological approach), I actually wrote this.

It's a bit long but it gives the full context!

One year ago I finished my PhD in psychology (on repetitive negative thoughts/rumination and executive control). During my PhD I always struggled with procrastination, becoming too scattered, getting into too many rabbit holes, feeling like an impostor at times... sometimes working too much and sometimes not working enough.

I had tried Notion and built a system. Then I switched to Obsidian. Then I had hybrid systems with turn by turn todoist, ticktick, habitica, and other task managers... I also found out that tracking my time was super helpful so I used rescuetime, then toggl, and then used Timeular for a while.

I never found the one perfect app though (at the end of this post I also give my golden tips that helped me, regardless of the app). I was frustrated by existing productivity tools which gave you a lot of data without meaning. YOU as the user had to make them meaningful and analyze them. So I wanted to make a "productivity" app with a more psychological approach. In psychotherapy, you often start by clarifying *why* you come to therapy, why you are doing what you do. So I thought "wouldn't it be cool if an app did the same?". Then the productivity tools are just there to help you do more of what matters to you.

My dream was to have within one app: journaling, todos, time-tracking, a planner/calendar, etc. So that I could 1) look back and appreciate my progress, 2) focus in the present, 3) plan and prioritize the future. I'm not done yet, but I'm making progress on this.

Of course I really wanted to finish my PhD so I did (+ academia doesn't pay well and you need to fight for funds), but then I started working on my app as soon as I finished!

The app is called "Orakemu" from two maori words, ora and kemu, meaning "life" and "game". The goal for me is that orakemu will become the only all-in-one gamified life management app that organizes your entire life through the roles you play. I sacrifice simplicity and minimalism to instead embrace the complexity of real life. This enables me to create a rich system and framework where tasks, time-tracking, habits, and projects are all interconnect through your Life Roles. The goal is to finally see and balance all aspects of our life in one place, helping us making conscious choices about where to invest our time and energy across our roles as Parent, Career Warrior, Creative Spirit, Being a Functional Adult, a Loving Partner, a Self-Care Sage and more.

It's already helping me stay on track, not lose track of time, and "just do" things by pressing play on tasks. I'm on a 288+ days streak of using my own app

Stay tuned for more 💪

Currently I'm releasing v0.4.5 with
- life roles
- weekly XP/time stats
- a drag and drop timeline
- tasks
- flexible time-tracking
- dark mode

up next:
- recurring tasks/routines/habits
- calendar integrations
- notes
- multiple timers at the same time
- free (limited) version

#dailyplanner #planner #dailyplanner #productivity #productivityapp #adhd

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

My first Japanese customer 🥳

If you see this, thank you!!

[Orakemu.com @orakemu]

👀

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

day 283 of making a productivity app

day 42 (the meaning of the universe) of making daily videos about it

on the road to 10.000 users

[Yorgo Hoebeke @yorgohoebeke]

Sharing a sneak peak of how I code from my mobile phone 👀

Day 35/100 of sharing my progress on Orakemu every single day