300 hours. 3% of the journey. Each square represents 100 hours. Sample practice records.
10,000 Hours app icon — original 1024 × 1024 image, uncropped.

Inspiration

I have never been good at sticking with practice when the results are hard to see. I built 10,000 Hours to make showing up feel worthwhile: start a session, save it, and watch the hours add up.

What it does

10,000 Hours is a minimal iPhone timer for learning and long-term goals. Choose a goal, start a stopwatch or countdown, and save your practice. Unnecessary labels fade away while you focus. A grid makes the journey visible: 100 squares, 100 hours each. History lets you review, add, edit, and delete sessions. Live Activities keep an active session visible outside the app, and countdowns can send a completion notification.

One complete goal is free. A one-time purchase unlocks up to five separate goals, each with its own timer and history. No subscription or account registration is required. Practice records are stored locally on the iPhone.

How I built it

Built in Swift and SwiftUI, with durable timestamps and local persistence. The version 1.3 update integrates RevenueCat for the one-time unlock while preserving existing purchases and practice records.

Challenges and lessons

The hardest part was keeping the interface quiet without hiding the controls, and adding multiple goals without risking existing records. The candidate passed 120 automated tests. On an iPhone Air, existing purchase access and records survived the upgrade and relaunch. A new live purchase is not claimed as verified.

Current status

The RevenueCat-integrated version 1.3 is now publicly available on the US App Store, independently confirmed on October 1, 2026. It preserves the existing one-time purchase and practice records. The demo uses sample practice records.