Personal software
Hi friends!
This week I had some extra free time to tinker, so I built an app for myself called Terminal. The idea is that it’d be a catch-all piece of “personal software” for myself, where can build any mini-apps that I want to use.
I’ve built 3 of these mini-apps (pages) this week:
A page for logging activities and tasks for Buttondown, which I do freelance work for.
A page for tracking habits, with a concept mostly borrowed (stolen) from Polar Habits.
A simple weekly planner that really helped me manage tasks and stress last semester.
I also left a page for a Dashboard, where I could add little bits of information pulled from each of these pages and keep an eye on them.
But now, I’m in more of a burn-it-all-down mood.
I get into these moods sometimes, where I create something and then I think about all the reasons why it’s not useful and want to get rid of it again.
I can’t tell if the feelings are correct. There probably is no “correct”. But I do build a lot of things because they’re fun, and not necessarily because they’re legitimately useful.
Like the week planner — that was perfectly fine as a note in an app, or on paper, and perhaps I will eventually even fold it into War Room.
The habit tracker? I’m probably better off using the real Polar Habits, where there are humans behind it who will work to improve it while I sleep.
The Buttondown logging? Could also definitely be a note in an app. Or a piece of paper.
So now I find myself wanting to get rid of Terminal, like it’s a liability on my brain. Another thing to think about and maintain. A bit of cognitive load that I find myself wanting to shed.
I’m not sure. I go back and forth a lot, in general.
Being able to build these tools means that I immediately jump to building stuff for myself instead of snapping together off-the-shelf solutions. But the off-the-shelf solutions are maintained by people, often whose whole job is to improve those off-the-shelf solutions.
I’m not sure. I’m happy I built the thing, though. It was fun to tinker with, at least for a few days this week.
Onwards,
Ben