Need honest Simple Life app review from real users?

Apps
1

I’ve been thinking about downloading the Simple Life app to help declutter my daily routine, manage habits, and cut down on distractions, but I’m unsure if it’s actually useful long term. Can anyone share an honest Simple Life app review, including what you like, what’s annoying, and whether it’s worth paying for premium features?

2

Using Simple Life for about 4 months on Android. Here is the short honest version.

What I use it for

  1. Habit tracking
  2. Daily routines
  3. Distraction control / focus sessions

What works well

  1. Habit tracking
  • Simple interface.
  • You see streaks and totals.
  • Color coding helps you see what you missed.
  • I stick to 5–7 habits max. Any more and it gets noisy.
  1. Routines
  • Morning and night routines are easy to set.
  • You can reorder steps and set rough times.
  • I use it for “wake, stretch, journal, plan day” type stuff.
  • Checking items off feels good, so you tend to finish more.
  1. Focus / distraction
  • App lock or focus timer helps you stay off social apps.
  • You pick which apps to block and for how long.
  • I use 25 or 50 minute sessions when working.
  • After 2 weeks I saw around 30 to 40 percent less screen time, at least according to my phone stats.

What does not work great

  • If you do not open it every day, you forget it exists.
  • Notifications get annoying if you turn on too many.
  • Some screens feel a bit slow on older phones.
  • If you want deep analytics, it feels light. Basic charts only.

Long term usefulness

  • First 2 weeks felt strong, then it leveled off.
  • It helped mostly because I picked fewer habits and linked them to fixed times.
    Example:
    • After breakfast, 1 page of journaling.
    • After lunch, 10 minutes walk.
    • Before bed, 5 minutes planning tomorrow.
  • When I tied it to existing things I do, I kept using it. When I tried 15 habits, I dropped half of them in 10 days.

What I suggest you do

  1. Start with 3 habits max.
  2. Turn off most notifications. Keep 2 or 3 key ones.
  3. Set one morning and one evening routine.
  4. Use focus mode only during work or study, not all day.
  5. Review stats once a week on Sunday, not every hour.

Who it suits

  • You, if you want simple habit tracking plus low friction focus features.
  • Not great if you want deep productivity systems like full project planning or GTD.

Bottom line from my use

  • It helped me cut about 45 minutes of random scrolling per day.
  • I kept 4 core habits for 60 plus days.
  • I drop it when I overconfigure it or treat it like a full planner.

If you expect one app to “fix” your routine, it will feel meh.
If you treat it like a small tool for a few habits and focus blocks, it works fine.

3

Using it on iOS for ~6 months, on and off. I’ll just add to what @boswandelaar said from a slightly different angle.

What it’s actually good at long term

  • For me it works best as a behavior nudge, not a full “life system.”
  • The focus / app blocking is the one feature that stuck. I set recurring focus blocks tied to my calendar (work blocks, reading block at night). That part is surprisingly reliable and not too clunky.
  • The “simple” vibe is real. No huge setup, no crazy tagging. If you hate overcomplicated productivity apps, you’ll probably like that.

Where I disagree a bit

  • I actually use more than 7 habits. I run about 10, but I group them in 2–3 “clusters” in my head: health, work, personal. As long as you don’t care about perfect streaks, it doesn’t feel noisy to me. The trick is not obsessing when a few go red.
  • I do like having more notifications than they do, but I converted most of them to “silent” (no sound, just banner). That keeps the app in my face without feeling naggy.

Weak points that annoyed me

  • No real “big picture” planning. You can’t map out a month in any smart way, it’s very day-to-day. If you’re hoping to run projects or goals in any sophisticated sense, you’ll outgrow it.
  • Sync between my phone and tablet was a bit flaky a couple of times. Nothing catastrophic, but a couple of streaks reset and that killed my motivation for those habits.
  • The UI feels almost too minimal sometimes. A bit more context or explanations for features would help. I had to poke around to find some things.

How it actually changed my behavior

  • Cut doomscrolling by ~30% based on my iOS screen time. Not as dramatic as @boswandelaar, but enough that I noticed.
  • The evening routine checklist helped me sleep earlier for a while, until I got lazy and stopped checking it. When I reenabled a strict focus block after 10 pm, it started working again.
  • After 3 months I realized the key was automation: recurring focus blocks + a few pinned habits in the morning and night. When I relied on pure willpower to open the app, I stopped using it.

Who should probably skip it

  • If you want heavy goal tracking, task hierarchies, subtasks, tags and reports, this will feel like a toy. You’re better off with something like a dedicated task manager plus a separate focus app.
  • If you hate tinkering with settings at all, the focus features might frustrate you. You do need 15–20 minutes up front to dial in which apps to block and when.

Quick answer to “is it useful long term?”

Yes, if you:

  • accept it as a light-weight habit + focus tool, not a full planner
  • set a few recurring focus blocks so it runs in the background
  • don’t obsess over perfect stats and streaks

If you expect it to magically declutter your entire life, you’ll uninstall it in a week and blame the app instead of your habits.

4

Using Simple Life on Android for ~3 months here, mostly as a “lite layer” on top of my existing system (calendar + plain notes). I’ll add a slightly different angle than @viajantedoceu and @boswandelaar without rehashing their good points.

How I actually use Simple Life day to day

  • I disabled almost all habit streak visuals after week 2. Watching streaks break was demotivating. What helped more was treating it like a checklist that resets, not a scoreboard.
  • I lean on routines mainly as guard rails around transitions:
    • after work
    • before sleep
    • Sunday reset
      Those transition moments are where I’d usually drift into random browsing. Simple Life acting as a “what should I do next?” list was the real value.
  • Focus blocking is nice, but I disagree slightly with both of them: I found shorter, very frequent blocks (10–15 minutes) more realistic than 25–50 minute pomodoros. Especially if you are easily discouraged, a finished 10-minute block beats quitting in the middle of 50.

Pros of Simple Life

  • Very low friction: you can set up a basic system in under 15 minutes.
  • Visual noise is low. If you are overwhelmed by feature-heavy productivity apps, this one feels calmer.
  • Habit + routine + distraction control in one place. You avoid juggling three separate apps.
  • Good for people who want structure but hate “productivity nerd” complexity.

Cons of Simple Life

  • No real link between habits, routines, and bigger goals. You have to keep the “why” in your head or elsewhere.
  • Limited customization of data. If you like slicing stats (weekly views by category, exports, etc.), it feels shallow.
  • Motivation drop is real once the novelty fades. The app does not have many built-in mechanisms to re-engage you beyond notifications.
  • If you are on multiple devices, occasional sync weirdness can undermine the whole streak concept.

Long-term usefulness in my experience

Worth it if you:

  • Already know roughly what habits you want, and just need a gentle scaffold.
  • Are willing to accept “good enough” tracking instead of obsessively accurate stats.
  • Pair it with something else that holds your long-term goals, like a notes app or calendar.

Not great if you:

  • Want one tool to handle tasks, projects, goals, and deep analytics.
  • Need strong gamification or social accountability to stay engaged.

Compared to what @boswandelaar shared, I would say Simple Life shines more as a context helper than a raw habit tracker. Compared to @viajantedoceu, I’m less sold on relying heavily on notifications; I found better results by making it part of morning and evening reviews rather than getting pinged all day.

If you go in expecting Simple Life to be a minimal, almost “invisible” helper rather than a complete life organizer, it can be surprisingly solid over the long term.