Simple but Powerful: The Idea Behind Self-Manager.net (And Why I Built It)

Most task apps fall into one of two categories:

• Simple, but you outgrow them fast.
• Powerful, but they feel heavy, cluttered, and slow to use daily.

When I founded Self-Manager.net, the idea was to prove you can have both:

• Simple but powerful
• Built on strong technology (I’m a technical founder)
• So good that I’d actually want to use it myself every day

That last point mattered the most. If I didn’t love using it for my own life and work, I knew it wouldn’t last.

The project started in 2016 (and I stayed consistent)

This project started in mid-2016.

Yes, that’s a long time ago.

But what Self-Manager is today is basically what I envisioned from the beginning: a task and project manager that stays clean and straightforward, while still being capable of handling real workflows.

It wasn’t built as a quick MVP to impress people for two weeks.

It was built to become the app I’d rely on daily.

Why it’s date-based: daily planning and effortless reviews

I wanted Self-Manager to be genuinely great at daily planning, because that’s where your life actually happens: today, tomorrow, this week.

That’s why the app is date-based.

When your data is organized chronologically, a few things become easy without forcing extra structure:

• daily planning feels natural
• your work and life become a timeline
• reviewing past days/weeks/months becomes effortless
• you can actually see patterns: busy periods, slow periods, consistency, drift

In other words: it’s simple to use, but the structure underneath makes it powerful.

Images with no limits (stored in original size)

Another principle I cared about early:

Uploading images should feel unlimited and frictionless.
And the original size should be stored.

Because real life planning isn’t just checkboxes.

Sometimes you need context:

• screenshots
• receipts
• notes
• progress photos
• reference images
• anything that helps you remember what happened and why it mattered

So that became part of the core experience.

Reviewing is where progress becomes real

Planning is important, but reviewing is where you actually improve.

If you don’t review:

• you repeat the same mistakes
• you forget what worked
• you don’t notice what’s pulling you off track
• months pass and you wonder where your time went

Self-Manager was built to make reviews easy, because your data is already organized by time.

And recently, I took that idea further.

AI reviews for any week or month

A few months ago, I added AI reviews for any week or month.

The goal wasn’t to add AI “because it’s trendy”.

The goal was simple:

If the app already contains structured, chronological, rich data…
then AI can help you extract insights faster.

So instead of staring at your week and guessing what happened, you can get a smart overview that helps you:

• understand where your time went
• spot patterns
• notice what you ignored
• plan improvements for next week/month

10 AI features (because AI becomes useful when it’s grounded in real data)

AI is only valuable when it’s connected to something meaningful.

Self-Manager already has a strong base: tasks, projects, notes, comments, images, and time-based organization.

So I leaned into that and built 10 AI features that take advantage of the app’s structure and history.

Not AI as decoration.

AI as a layer that helps you review, organize, and move faster.

Launched in late 2022 — now at 5,000 registered users

The app launched in late 2022.

Right now, Self-Manager.net has around 5,000 registered users.

That’s a milestone I’m genuinely happy about—because it shows the original idea resonates:

A tool can stay clean and simple…
and still be powerful enough to handle real life.

What’s next

I’m proud of the progress so far, and I’m still building.

The goal is the same as it was in 2016:

Make Self-Manager better and better, without losing what makes it special:

• simplicity
• speed
• date-based clarity
• powerful features that don’t clutter the experience
• and a product that the founder (me) actually uses daily

If you want a task and project manager that feels lightweight—but gets deeper the more you use it—Self-Manager.net was built exactly for that.