Life Dashboard v1.0.0 is out today. It's a free Windows desktop app that puts 16 of the small productivity tools you'd otherwise have scattered across phone apps, browser tabs and SaaS subscriptions into one window. Habits, tasks, finance, weather, sleep, calendar, Pomodoro, notes — all in one place, all stored locally on your PC, no account needed.
I'm Rai, the developer. I'm a solo dev based in Singapore, and Life Dashboard started as a thing I built for myself after counting that I had eleven separate productivity apps doing roughly the same job badly. Sometime in 2025 I decided to just build the one tool that did all of them, and ship it for free so other people could stop juggling apps too.
The 16 widgets
Each widget is a small focused tool. You turn on the ones you want, hide the ones you don't, drag them around to build the layout that works for you.
- Tasks — to-do list with priorities and categories. No cloud. No "upgrade for unlimited tasks" prompt.
- Habits — daily habit tracker with streak counters. Add as many habits as you want.
- Finance — income and expense tracker with visual charts. Categorise transactions, see where the money goes.
- Weather — live weather with 3-day forecast for any city. One of two widgets that uses internet.
- Calendar — monthly view with event management. Today's date highlighted.
- Sleep — log sleep quality (1–5) and duration; see 7-day history.
- Diet Plan — meal planner with country-based templates (Indian, Mediterranean, Japanese, American, Korean, Mexican, Global).
- Water — daily water intake tracker. Tap to add a glass; resets at midnight.
- Goals — long-term goal tracker with progress bars and deadlines.
- Pomodoro — focus timer with the standard 25/5/15 minute cycles. Sound notification at the end of each session.
- Notes — markdown editor with live preview. Each note is a separate file in the data folder.
- News — RSS feed reader. Defaults are BBC, Hacker News, NYT; add any feed URL you want.
- Clock — world clocks for NYC, London, Tokyo, Sydney. Configurable.
- Quick Links — bookmark launcher. The links you actually open every day, in one panel.
- Countdown — year/month/week/day progress bars plus custom event countdowns ("trip in 47 days").
- Quotes — daily motivational quote. Disable if you find motivational quotes annoying — most people do.
Why one app instead of many
Phone apps have two problems. First, your phone isn't where you do your work — your desktop is. Second, every "free" productivity app eventually nags you to upgrade or starts caching your data in someone else's cloud. Phone apps are designed to be sticky in ways that are not always in your interest.
A desktop dashboard sitting in the corner of a second monitor solves both. You see it, you check things off, you move on. There's nothing to log into. Nothing to upgrade. Nothing being analysed for ad targeting.
How people are actually using it
From the early users:
- Remote workers with a second monitor — Pomodoro + Tasks + Habits in one corner, the actual work in the main screen.
- Personal finance enthusiasts who don't want their bank linked to a SaaS budget app — Finance widget for tracking, manual entry, no Plaid.
- Habit-builders who'd been juggling phone habit apps with subscription paywalls for the streak counter.
- Writers and indie devs using Notes, Pomodoro, and the Quotes widget (one person told me they use the Quotes widget specifically because it's stupid, which makes them smile, which gets them writing).
- Students using Calendar, Tasks, Pomodoro, and Goals to track exam prep.
Layout — drag, resize, hide
Drag widgets by their header to rearrange them. Resize by grabbing the bottom-right corner. Show or hide any widget from the Widgets menu in the top bar. Layout state is saved automatically — close the app, open it again, everything is where you left it.
Dark mode is the default. Light mode toggle is in Settings.
Where your data lives
All data is stored locally in %APPDATA%\Life Dashboard\ as plain JSON files. You can open them in Notepad if you're curious. You can back them up by copying the folder. You can sync between two PCs by putting the folder inside Dropbox, OneDrive or Syncthing — that's not a built-in feature, but it works because the storage is just files.
Two widgets need internet — Weather (city forecast lookup) and News (fetching RSS feeds). Both can be disabled if you want zero outbound network traffic. Everything else works fully offline.
No telemetry. No analytics SDK. No crash reporter calling home. The app doesn't know who you are because it never asked.
System requirements
- Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit). Earlier versions of Windows are not supported.
- 100 MB free disk space.
- 4 GB RAM minimum.
- No administrator rights required.
- Internet for Weather + News widgets only (optional — can be disabled).
Common questions I keep getting
Can I sync between two PCs? Not as a built-in feature — there's no cloud account by design. But the data folder is plain JSON, so put %APPDATA%\Life Dashboard\ in Dropbox/OneDrive/Syncthing and it'll sync.
Is the source code open? Not currently, but the data files are plain JSON — you own everything you put in.
What's the catch / business model? No catch. Life Dashboard is free, forever. If you find it useful you can donate; that's the only way money changes hands.
How do I verify the download is safe? The download page shows a SHA-256 hash and a VirusTotal scan link. After downloading, run Get-FileHash <path> -Algorithm SHA256 in PowerShell and compare.
What if the Weather widget shows wrong forecasts? Make sure the city is set correctly in widget Settings. The data source is open weather APIs — accuracy depends on your location and the API.
Download Life Dashboard — Free
Windows 10/11 · ~104 MB · 16 widgets · Fully offline · No account.
⬇ Download Free