Show HN: OwnTime – a chess clock for your day's priorities
A developer has launched 'OwnTime,' a productivity app designed to manage daily priorities using a chess-clock-style interface. The app is a local-first, privacy-focused tool that allows users to allocate time budgets to different roles without cloud syncing or subscriptions.
Why it matters
The app reflects a growing trend in the indie developer community toward simple, privacy-respecting, and non-subscription-based utility software.
I made OwnTime to balance between competing priorities in my life. The idea is based on two main influences: the concept of "roles" from "The 5 Choices" (2015), and my repeated failure to effectively implement time blocking due to the necessary flexibility in my role. The app allows you to define time budgets, which are not much more than a few mutually exclusive countdown timers. The UX is essentially that of a chess clock for an arbitrary number of players with configurable time. The whole point of the app is to kick you out of the running role/priority when its time is up. One feature that was essential for me was AlarmKit alarms, which only became possible last year (>= iOS 26.1).
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