Why I built QTR

There are 10,000 to-do apps that claim to make you more productive, with new ones launching every week. Do we really need another one?

One day I got a notification from the app I was using: Task snoozed for 167 days. That's when it hit me — to-do apps are broken. Not because they're badly built, but because they're solving the wrong problem.

From the founder

The story of QTR

In Swami's words

“I had this vision — what if I could offload everything in my head into a second brain? My commitments, ideas, deadlines — all organized into time frames. Focus on what's important now, get reminded as things get closer.

That vision is what QTR is today.”

Watch the full story

I'd been a power user of Asana, Notion, Trello, Todoist — a beta tester for most of them. I even used to send product sketches to the Todoist team regularly. These are genuinely great tools. But they're task managers, not goal managers. They make you feel productive without necessarily moving you forward.

The real question isn't whether you're managing your tasks efficiently. It's whether you're managing your time effectively. Are the things you're doing today connected to where you want to be in three months? Studies show only 6% of people can answer yes to that.

The system that changed everything for me was simple: begin with the end in mind, work backward to figure out what needs to happen, and then time-block those actions on your calendar — not as aspirational items, but as actual appointments with yourself.

I've done this every day for years. In that time I've launched three startups, two podcasts, a YouTube channel, a photography business, and written 100+ pages of my upcoming book — all while working full-time as an engineer. People ask how I do it without burning out. The honest answer: I'm not just managing tasks. I'm managing time.

QTR is that system, built into software. You start with your goals, work backward through the quarter, cascade down to the week and the day, and end up with a time-blocked calendar where every task has a reason. The command line makes planning fast. The visual map makes the big picture impossible to lose.

You're not just managing tasks anymore. You're managing time — and you can actually see where it's going.