Free tools

Small things that answer one question each. Every one of them grew out of an article on this site, so every number it gives back can be traced to a sentence we published — and where we’ve estimated something, the tool says so. No sign-up, no account, nothing you type leaves your browser.

Focus & studying

Plants

Health & life

How these get built

Each tool starts as an article. If we’ve written a guide with real numbers in it — how long a bonsai in a small pot goes between waterings, which Pomodoro interval suits which subject — then those numbers are already doing the work, and putting a few questions in front of them saves you reading two thousand words to find the paragraph that applies to you.

That also sets the rule we hold ourselves to: a tool can’t say something the article doesn’t. Our succulent guide argues that watering on a fixed schedule is what kills succulents, so the calculator returns a day to check the soil, never a schedule. Where we’ve had to turn a qualitative sentence into a number, the page says which parts are estimates and links back to where the rest came from.

And some questions get an answer that isn’t a number. Ask the bonsai tool about a juniper on a coffee table and it won’t give you an interval, because there isn’t one that saves the tree. Tell the migraine test your log covers three weeks and it tells you to keep logging — a false answer there is worse than no answer.

Free, and quietly so

There’s no sign-up on any of these, no account, and no data collection: everything is worked out in your browser and forgotten when you close the tab. Each one is made by the same person who makes the apps — if a tool tells you what to do once and the app is what helps you keep doing it, that’s the whole business model, and you’re free to take the answer and leave.

Something you’d like a tool for? Tell us — and the blog is where they all start.