[ok_dad]

"it's" just means "it is"

for everything else, there's "its"

I believe that will get you out of 99% of the "it's vs its" problems you find in day to day life.

Bonus: If you're almost sure you need "it's" but not totally, just read the sentence as "...blah blah IT IS blah blah..." and if that doesn't make sense use "its" instead.

Edit: Some would gatekeep English, I don't personally care except that it seemed to give you a lot of stress and I hate to see someone upset, truly, so I thought I might help. I have a lot of trouble with grammar rules, too, so I have certain ways of thinking that I figure could help you and others. In reality, its or it's will read the same in your head and have further context as you read, so it doesn't really matter.

[thejohnconway]

I understand contractions, but “its” doesn’t track with possessive nouns, which is why this is such a pervasive “error”. English has some dumb rules that we don’t need to protect.

[aleph_minus_one]

> "it's" just means "it is"

> for everything else, there's "its"

"it's" can also mean "it has".