[macOS only, free] Native, offline, AI-powered anti-procrastination tool

Hey everyone,

I built a free, private, offline focus app that uses Apple Intelligence to understand what you're actually doing.

I was fed up with focus apps that just block a list of websites. I find that blocklists are too "blunt", for example, I could genuinely be using YouTube to research something, but a blocklist sees "youtube.com" and immediately blocks it.

I built an app called Zenit. It's a completely free app that uses your on-device Apple Intelligence to understand what's happening on your screen to determine if it's related to your goal or not.

You start a session and describe what you're working on (e.g. "finish my biology revision" or "finish testing the app"). Zenit uses Apple Intelligence (running entirely on your Mac, fully private) to understand whether what's on your screen is actually related to that goal.

Another problem I had with every other focus app is that it's very black and white: either nothing happens or you're completely blocked. Zenit has four levels:

Level 1: A custom notification popup that appears above all your windows and overrides Do Not Disturb. This is a gentle nudge, and is easy to dismiss.

Level 2: Same notification at increasing frequency.

Level 3: Full screen overlay across all your displays. You have to type a random 5-letter word to dismiss it. The act of stopping and typing (hopefully) breaks the procrastination loop.

Level 4: Full screen overlay with a trivia question generated by Apple Intelligence. You either answer correctly to dismiss immediately, or wait 15 seconds for a skip button. By this point it fires every 1 - 2 minutes until you get back on task.

I know the trivia thing sounds gimmicky, but my logic was that by the time you've read and thought about the question, you come to your senses and hopefully realise that you have a task at hand. Also, it will keep doing that every 1 - 2 minutes you're not focused so it becomes quite hard to ignore.

Other stuff

- Hard block mode: automatically closes any app not in your session's allowed categories

- Make the app hard to close: forces a 15 second wait before quitting mid-session (for when you know you'll be tempted)

- Scheduled breaks with automatic reminders

Requirements

Because Zenit uses Apple Intelligence, you need to have an M1 Mac or later, running macOS 26, with Apple Intelligence enabled.

GitHub: https://github.com/SejDevStuff/ZenitApp

I am happy to answer any questions about how it works, and I would love to continue working on it and perfecting it if you have any new features.

It is my first ever Swift app, so I am sorry in advance if there are bugs!