How to install, configure, and safely use Sisyphus.

Install

1. On Windows 10/11 x64, download SisyphusSetup-2.1.1.exe.
2. Run the installer.
3. Read and accept the Sisyphus EULA.
4. Approve the Windows administrator prompt.
5. Launch Sisyphus from the Start Menu or optional desktop shortcut.

Download installation is Windows-only for now. macOS support is underway. The Windows installer is unsigned in this release, so Windows SmartScreen may warn you before running it.

Updating Sisyphus

Moving to 2.0.0 is a one-time manual install. From 2.0.0 on, every future update is one click — Sisyphus updates itself.

Installing the 2.0.0 update

1. Download the latest installer from the Sisyphus home page and run it.
2. It upgrades your existing installation in place — your settings, todos, goals, notes, and history are all kept.
3. Approve the Windows administrator prompt; Sisyphus relaunches itself when it finishes.

Automatic updates from 2.0.0 on

1. Sisyphus checks for a newer version on startup, and you can check any time in Settings → Check for updates.
2. When an update is available, one click downloads the new installer and verifies its SHA-256 checksum before anything runs.
3. It then asks for Windows administrator approval to apply the update, installs it, and relaunches itself — no manual download or reinstall.

Your data is always preserved across updates. The installer is unsigned for now, so Windows SmartScreen may warn you the first time you run it.

Recommended First Test

Before blocking a real game, test the workflow with Notepad.

1. Open Sisyphus.
2. Open Blocked.
3. Add C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe.
4. Add one simple todo.
5. Launch Notepad normally.
6. Confirm Sisyphus appears before Notepad opens.
7. Remove the Notepad block after the test.

Blocked Apps and Games

Sisyphus blocks launches by executable name through Windows Image File Execution Options.

1. Click Blocked.
2. Click Add game.
3. Select the executable you want to interrupt.
4. Approve the UAC prompt.

If you block LeagueClient.exe, every executable with that file name is affected. Use Remove or Remove all blocks before uninstalling.

Todos

Todos are the checklist shown before a blocked app can launch.

1. Click TODOs.
2. Type a task and click Add.
3. Edit text directly in the list.
4. Use move controls to reorder tasks.
5. Click Save todos.

Todos reset to unchecked each time a blocked app is launched.

Goals and to-do list

• Today summary: the top of the list shows how many of today's todos are done, such as “3 of 5 done”, with a progress bar.
• Goal cards: each goal has a colored stripe and shows how many of its todos are done.
• Todo rows: rows are simpler, and Go now is an accent-colored button.
• Goals tab: each goal shows today's progress toward its target, or its usage against its limit. Usage turns red once you go over the limit.

While the to-do list or the notepad is open, clicking into another app no longer collapses Sisyphus to the compact clock. Both stay open beside your work.

Go Now

Go now turns a todo into an action shortcut and a tracked work session.

1. Open TODOs.
2. Add a target to a todo: software path, website URL, or folder path.
3. Optionally add a focus music URL.
4. Click Go now from the checklist.

Software sessions can often stop automatically when the process exits. For websites and folders, use Stop tracking when you are done.

Todo shortcuts

1. Open TODOs and edit a todo.
2. Under Shortcut, add what the task needs: + App (an .exe or a Start-menu shortcut), + File, + Folder, or type a website or path and press Enter. You can mix as many as you like.
3. Click Go now. Everything in the shortcut opens at once.

Todo hotkeys

1. While editing the todo, click the Hotkey box and press the combination you want, such as Ctrl+Alt+1.
2. Press it from anywhere to run that todo's Go now and start tracking the task.

In the list, a small chip on each todo shows how many things are linked and its hotkey. If a shortcut includes websites, you're asked to pick a browser at most once per launch.

Notes

A lightweight multi-tab notepad for capturing thoughts fast — and turning them into action with the AI.

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+N anywhere to open it, or use the Notes button in the Todos window.
2. Write freely. Add tabs with + New note, switch with Ctrl+Tab, and close a tab with Ctrl+W.
3. Click Analyze tasks to have the AI extract to-dos from the open note, or AI Coach for advice on how to tackle it.
4. Adjust the open shortcut, text size, and window size from the gear icon or in Settings → Notepad.

Notes follow your chosen theme and are saved automatically. The cursor lands in the note the moment it opens, so you can start typing immediately.

The notepad is an independent window. It stays open when you click into another app, so you can keep it beside your work. If it's minimized or hidden behind other windows, Ctrl+Alt+N brings it back. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+N while the notepad is already in front of you starts a new note.

Drawing mode

Any note can switch between Text and Draw with the toggle in the notepad toolbar. The note keeps both the text and the drawing.

• Pens: Draw mode is a black board with preset pen colors (white, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple, pink) and a color bar for picking any other hue. Ctrl + and Ctrl − change the pen width.
• Eraser, undo, and clear: the eraser removes whole strokes. Ctrl+Z undoes the last change, including a clear.
• Auto-shape (on by default): when you lift the pen, a rough stroke becomes a clean line, arrow, circle or ellipse, rectangle, or triangle. Draw a line and then a “V” head, and the two strokes merge into one arrow.
• Tidy (Ctrl+T): organizes the whole drawing for diagrams. Lines and arrows snap onto the circles they connect (trees and graphs), node circles get a uniform size, tree levels line up, rows of boxes (arrays) become equal adjacent cells, and handwritten labels inside a node move with it.

Auto-shape and Tidy run only when you lift the pen or press Tidy, so they don't slow down your PC.

Zoom and tools

The board is a large canvas you can scroll in any direction. The toolbar has four tools: Pen, Text, Select, and Eraser.

• Zoom: pinch on a touchpad, use Ctrl + mouse wheel, or press Ctrl+Alt + and Ctrl+Alt −. Ctrl+Alt+0 or the zoom percentage button resets to 100%.
• Text: click anywhere on the board to type in a text box. Press Esc to finish.
• Select: drag a loop around strokes or text to move them together.
• Eraser: besides strokes, it also removes the text boxes and fills you click.

Structures

Click Structures, pick a ready-made diagram, then click the board where it should go.

• Data structures: stack, queue, linked list, doubly linked list, array, 2D array, binary tree, and graph.
• Logic and Venn diagrams: A ∪ B (OR), A ∩ B (AND), A ⊕ B (XOR), and A − B, with the selected region shaded, plus a three-set Venn diagram (A, B, C).
• Flowchart: start → process → decision → yes/no → end.
• Text: a bulleted list or a text box.

The Size stepper sets how many elements a structure has, such as cells, nodes, or items. Labels like index numbers, head and null, top, front and rear, or Start and End are typed text you can edit. Ctrl+Z removes a structure you placed.

Handwriting and arrows

• Handwriting to text: Tidy (Ctrl+T) also reads handwritten numbers, letters, and short words and replaces them with clean typed text. Text written inside a circle or box, such as a value in a tree node or an array cell, is centered in it. Ctrl+Z brings back your ink.
• One-stroke arrows: an arrow drawn in a single stroke is now recognized and cleaned up, including when you go back over the head, draw a one-sided or triangle head, or draw the head first. Two-stroke arrows still work.

Handwriting is read by the handwriting recognizer built into Windows. Nothing is sent anywhere, and nothing extra is downloaded.

Export

The notepad's Export button saves a text note as a .txt file (UTF-8), or a drawing as a PNG or JPG image cropped to what you drew. PNG keeps line drawings sharp and the file small.

Analytics

Analytics shows where active computer time goes. It counts time only when there has been recent keyboard or mouse input, or while a full-screen app is in front.

• Day is the default view.
• Week, month, year, and custom ranges are available.
• Browser activity can be grouped into a Web browsers row.
• AI reports follow the selected app language.
• Videos: each YouTube video or stream appears as its own entry named by the video title, instead of one “YouTube” row. Twitch, Vimeo, Netflix, TED, and similar sites work the same way.

What's left out of your records

• Idle gaps: if there's no keyboard or mouse input for your idle threshold (Settings → Idle tracker, 5 minutes by default), the whole gap, counted from your last input, is left out automatically. Sisyphus no longer asks “Are you still working?”.
• Full-screen apps still count: a full-screen video, a game, or a slideshow is counted as active even without input.
• Not app usage: the lock screen, the desktop and taskbar, Alt+Tab, the Start and search flyouts, and Sisyphus's own dashboard windows are not recorded. The notepad is still recorded, since that's writing.
• One activity, one row: a window title that only changes by an unread counter such as “(3)” or a spinning status icon no longer splits one activity into many rows.

On its first start, version 2.1.0 also cleans previously recorded lock-screen time and impossible sleep/wake credits out of your history.

Smaller data files

• When: activity older than a month is compacted automatically, and once right after you update.
• What's kept: each day keeps its exact total time, its top windows, and its top 3 tasks. The rest is summarized per app, site, and category and shows as Other windows or Other tasks, so no time is lost and analytics still work.
• How much smaller: on a real 77-day history, the activity file went from 3.7 MB to 1.8 MB, about half.
• Old copies: when Sisyphus repairs a damaged data file, it keeps a copy of the damaged file. Those copies are now deleted after a month.

Share Card

Turn your day into a clean, shareable image straight from Analytics.

1. Open Analytics and click Share in the goals section.
2. Sisyphus renders a card with today's top apps (and what you worked on), a top-category ring, your weekly focus average, and your current and best streak.
3. The image is copied to your clipboard and saved to Pictures\Sisyphus, ready to paste or attach.

For fun, the card also shows a books'-worth-of-focus estimate and an optimistic projected-earnings figure based on your weekly focus — motivation, not financial advice.

Settings

Settings controls startup behavior, activity tracking, compact overlay behavior, language, and AI configuration.

• Startup tray mode: starts Sisyphus after Windows login.
• Activity tracking: records active foreground software time.
• Compact overlay: place the overlay in any corner, top center, or bottom center.
• Language: choose English or Korean(한국어). Korean mode also guides AI reports to answer in Korean.
• Idle tracker: sets how long without keyboard or mouse input counts as idle (5 minutes by default). Idle gaps are left out of your records automatically.
• Dashboard position: the dashboard and compact clock stay where you put them on each monitor, and move back on screen if a monitor is unplugged. The compact clock always shows at the size you set.

Battery & sleep

When you're not using your PC, Sisyphus goes fully quiet, so it no longer keeps a Modern Standby laptop working, or warm, in your bag.

• When it goes quiet: the laptop lid is closed, the display turns off, the screen is locked, or the PC goes to sleep.
• What stops: timers, trackers, and blockers pause, and nothing is written to disk.
• When you come back: everything resumes on its own, and the time the machine was asleep is never counted.
• Less work in general: data files are written only when something changed, and at most once a minute. CPU use is also lower while a terminal is in front.

Customization & Appearance

Sisyphus is yours to style. Appearance is chosen during the guided first-run setup (with a live preview) and can be changed anytime in Settings.

• Themes: eight coordinated color presets, including light themes (Latte, Pinkworld, Morning Calm) and dark ones (Midnight, Graphite, Cyberpunk, Violette, Original).
• Text & timer size: scale the interface text and the dashboard timer independently for readability.
• Font & text color: pick a UI font and an optional custom text color.
• Guided setup: re-run the 6-step wizard anytime from Settings → Guided setup. Theme changes apply with a quick restart so every window matches.
• Consistent look in every theme: each theme uses one accent color everywhere, including selections, checkboxes, and highlights. Checkboxes, radio buttons, password boxes, and progress bars follow the theme, corners are rounded consistently, and all 8 themes have visible keyboard focus rings, hover and pressed feedback, readable disabled states, and stronger contrast for secondary text.

AI Coach & API Setup

Sisyphus uses the Anthropic Claude API for AI coaching, grading, and auto-planning. You need your own API key.

1. Open Settings or the AI Coach tab.
2. Click Manage API.
3. Get an API key from console.anthropic.com (create an account if needed, then go to API Keys and generate one).
4. Paste the key into the API key field and save.
5. The AI Coach tab will now show coaching, grading, and auto-plan features.

Your API key is stored locally and never sent anywhere except Anthropic's API. Usage is billed to your Anthropic account. If no key is set, AI features are simply unavailable.

Uninstall

1. Open Sisyphus.
2. Go to Blocked.
3. Click Remove all blocks.
4. Approve the UAC prompt.
5. Uninstall Sisyphus from Windows Installed apps or the Start Menu uninstall shortcut.

This order matters because Sisyphus creates Windows registry entries for blocked executable names.

Troubleshooting and Manual Recovery

If a blocked app will not launch and Sisyphus is unavailable, remove the IFEO entry manually.

1. Press Win+R, type regedit, and press Enter.
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\.
3. Find the subkey matching the blocked executable, such as LeagueClient.exe.
4. Delete that subkey.
5. Launch the app again.

Only delete keys you recognize. If you are unsure, stop and ask for help before changing the registry.

Updates

Every release and what it changed. Updates install over your current version — check for them in Settings → Updates.