Jot: One keystroke to catch a thought before it's gone

Hi Product Hunt, I'm Arun.

I built Jot because I kept losing my best ideas in the four seconds it takes to open a notes app.

You know the moment. You're deep in something and a thought shows up: a fix you'll forget by lunch, a name you need to keep, the one good line for the email you've been avoiding. To save it you have to leave what you're doing, find the right app, and by the time you're back the thought is gone and so is your place. A dozen times a day, that's a lot of good ideas quietly lost.

Jot is the fix. Here's how it works:

Press Option+Space from any app to open a small box over your work.
Type the thought, then press Command+Return, and it's saved to a searchable log on your Mac.
The box disappears and drops you back exactly where you were.

Later, you can search all of it, click any line to copy it, or export the whole thing to Markdown.

A few things I chose on purpose:

It stays on your Mac. Captures are plain-text files you own. There's no account and nothing to sync, and it works with the wifi off.
It asks for nothing. No Accessibility prompt, no microphone, no screen recording. It runs the second you open it.
It does less than it could. It skips folders, rich text, and AI, and captures, searches, and exports well. The restraint is the whole point.

It's $4.99 one-time (Product Hunt launch: 40% off with code PHLAUNCHJOT, limited availability). No subscription, free updates, good on up to 3 Macs. It's a direct download with your license key by email.

One honest question for this crowd, because I doubt it's just me: how many thoughts do you lose in a day simply because catching one means stopping what you're doing? Curious how you deal with it.

Coupon code: PHLAUNCHJOT

Website: https://jot.arunbrahma.com

Forum Threads

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17h ago

I kept losing ideas in the four seconds it takes to open a notes app, so I built Jot

I built Jot because I kept losing my best ideas in the four seconds it takes to open a notes app.

You know the moment. You're deep in something and a thought shows up: a fix you'll forget by lunch, a name you need to keep, the one good line for the email you've been avoiding. To save it you have to leave what you're doing, find the right app, and by the time you're back the thought is gone and so is your place. A dozen times a day, that's a lot of good ideas gone.

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