Decisions & goals September 2026

5 apps for a decision that won't fit in your head

A decision stops being hard and starts being heavy when it no longer fits in your head all at once. These five each hold a different part of it outside: the shape of the problem, the case either way, the arithmetic, how you actually feel about it, and the weeks that led up to it.

The apps for a decision that won't fit in your head are Xmind, SWOT Pal, Soulver 4, stoic. and Agenda. I built SWOT Pal; the other 4 are other developers’ apps.

MiaAppLog— an iOS developer who reviews other people’s apps
Published September 2026 · apps and prices last checked 6 October 2026

Four stars is my score for how well an app answers this moment. An app I built gets four and a half — that is a rule, not a comparison. The App Store’s own average is on each card beside it.

1. 

   Xmind

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Productivity · App Store 4.8 (6,973)

   Xmind branches it out: one node per consideration, dragged around until the shape of the problem shows. It switches to a plain outline when the map gets loud.

   Skip it if you are mapping on a phone: it is a desktop tool wearing a mobile app, and reviewers report upgrade prompts continuing after they have paid.

   Official site ↗More lists with Xmind

   
2. 

   SWOT Pal Editor’s pick

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.5 · Free · Productivity · App Store 5.0 (8)

   SWOT Pal takes the name of the thing you're deciding about, researches it, then fills a SWOT and a TOWS matrix, each line traced back to a source you can open.

   App Store ↗More lists with SWOT Pal

   
3. 

   Soulver 4

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Productivity · App Store 4.9 (431)

   Soulver 4 is a notepad that does the arithmetic in the margin. Write the numbers as sentences, line by line, and each answer appears beside the line you typed.

   Skip it if you want your sheets where you put them — version 3 moved sync into a managed iCloud store, and you cannot look around without starting a trial first.

   Official site ↗More lists with Soulver 4

   
4. 

   stoic.

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Health & Fitness · App Store 4.8 (35,872)

   Morning and evening prompts in stoic., with what you write kept behind a passcode. For the half of a decision that is really about how you feel about it.

   Skip it if you want to look around before deciding: the subscription prompt arrives before the app does, and the free tier is deliberately thin.

   Official site ↗More lists with stoic.

   
5. 

   Agenda

   ★★★★★★★★★★4.0 · Free · Productivity · App Store 4.6 (3,682)

   Agenda puts notes on a timeline beside the calendar, so months later you can find not just the decision but the week that led up to it.

   Skip it if you expect it to plug into Apple's own Reminders and Calendar data; it largely does not, and the first hour goes on working out how Agenda wants you to think.

   Official site ↗More lists with Agenda

   

SWOT Pal is one of mine — everything else on this list is someone else’s app. How that works.