Is it just me or is every app update lately promising to “reimagine my workflow” with a new generative assistant? My toaster probably has a chatbot now.
We’ve reached a point where software is trying so hard to think for us that it’s actually making it harder to just do the work. In other words, when everything is “smart,” everything is noisy.
If you’re feeling the same AI fatigue while trying to manage a career, a household, and a few side projects, here are three pure-utility apps that are actually free and refreshingly, wonderfully dumb.
Joplin
If you’ve been in the tech world for a while, you remember when Evernote was the king of the mountain, before it became a bloated, expensive quagmire.
Joplin is the correction to that trajectory. It’s an open-source note-taking app that doesn’t care about “AI-powered insights.”
It uses Markdown, which means your notes are clean and portable.
It offers end-to-end encryption. In an era where every major tech company wants to scrape your notes to train their next model, Joplin is a digital bunker.
And it’s completely free. You can sync it using your own Dropbox or OneDrive, keeping you in control of your data.
Microsoft To Do
If you’ve tried every complex project management tool on the market, from Notion to Monday, you’ll agree they can be a bit of overkill when it comes to the day-to-day chaos of remembering to bring the right gear to baseball practice or keeping a running list of home-office upgrades.
For that, there’s Microsoft To Do.
When Microsoft bought Wunderlist years ago, it eventually managed to port over the best part: the simplicity.
It’s a list. That’s it. No “intelligent sorting” that hides your most important tasks based on an algorithm. And no Copilot integration… yet?
Microsoft To Do is also one of the easiest ways to manage shared lists with a spouse or a team. Whether it’s a grocery run or a quick checklist for a Fast Company draft, it just syncs and pings.
Goodtime
If you’re tired of focus apps that feel more like mobile games—complete with ads, subscriptions, and persistent notifications—you need to switch to Goodtime.
It’s an open-source, minimalist productivity timer that takes the “dumb” philosophy to its logical conclusion with a pure Pomodoro-style timer that’s completely ad-free and tracking-free.
There are no accounts to create, no cloud syncs to manage, and no “intelligent” suggestions to ignore.
Speaking of ignoring stuff: when you start your timer, the app can automatically trigger Do Not Disturb to create a barrier between you and your notifications.
While other apps try to keep you engaged with the screen through gamification, Goodtime encourages you to start the clock, put your phone down, and forget it exists until the work is done.