A more useful lyphe.

I original thought when starting this app that simple would be better. I thought that by having a single data type and concept for the user to handle it would make it cognitively simple, both from a developer standpoint as well as for a user. I was definitely mistaken, the app has many, many problems with usability. One of the metrics I'm using to measure success is that if I stop using the app for more than a few days, I've failed and something needs to change.

I'm making this app for myself first before anyone else! If I can't keep the primary user, I've done something seriously wrong!

Time management was always the issue

Lyphe started not as a script or code or an app, but as a scheduled skill for OpenAI Codex. It would scan my work email, work calendar, company Linear, and personal calendar to make a minute-by-minute plan for the day.

Unfortunately I'm not Sheldon. I can't schedule my bowel movements.

The problem is that I have never been someone who can schedule things down to the minute. Hell, I can barely show up to a doctor's appointment on time, let alone schedule my day so tightly even if I work from home.

I have a wife, a newborn child, a dog. I get emails and work messages I need to check on constantly. I want to get coffee, water, snacks in between tasks and meetings. I sometimes pace when I think, I want to get up and take a few minute walk around my yard or throw a ball with my dog to let me mind process something or even just to decompress between meetings.

Its one thing to need to be to a meeting on time, but as someone with ADHD its already enough of a challenge to manage my time. Now I have to schedule it down to the minute?

Not to mention that with AI being an integral part of my workflow now, many of the tasks I need to complete can actually be done in parallel so long as the context switching isn't too drastic.

That initial bad design made it into the first few version of lyphe.

And the problems are still in the underlying code and design of the app itself.

A Heavy Redesign

Since I'm the only user at the moment, there's no better time for a heavy redesign than right now!

I won't be completely throwing this project away, however I will be stripping out a lot of features and code, and will be replacing them with lots more features and code.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

I originally thought having a single data type would make this much, much simpler as previously stated. But now we're moving a bit closer to what many other task management apps do. There will be three new data types.

• Task
  • Something you need to get done once, either in a single or multiple sessions.
  • Anywhere from a quick minute to 2 hours of work.
• Habit
  • Something you want to do on a regular basis, either daily, weekly, or monthly.
• Reward
  • Something you want to do for yourself, once everything else is done.
  • Not part of any category, not tied to a timeframe. Just something you get to do guilt-free.

Some things are just improving.

The killer feature of this app is and was supposed to be the triaging (or Choose) system: the gamified way in which you can select what tasks to do today. Choose is only for your backlog of tasks that needs completed, habits are not optional and will not appear during Choose. They must be completed, and if you do choose to skip it, they will be presented the next day. And the next day if skipped again. And the next day.

Until you finally finish it. And it'll show in your analytics and records how many times you missed the habit fully.

Capacity is a budget, not an itinerary

Capacity is area based

Each area gets its own range of hours where you can work on these items. They can overlap or not, and they have a priority on each. By default, work comes first, then home, then personal. This priority matters since for most people home and personal tasks will overlap, and for people who work from home like me, you can get all of your work tasks done and then move on to home tasks with little to no transition. You'll set up what times you want for each of these during onboarding, and you can even set them to have gaps to account for things like travel time or just needing a break for yourself.

Capacity is calendar-aware

Calendar integration is another item that I don't plan on removing, just improving. Originally this was intended for the same thing as the Codex skill, where you plan your day down to the minute. Now its just going to be a way to judge your capacity for the day, as well as for intelligent notifications gently reminding you of what tasks you can do during the gaps.

What capacity is not for

You are not supposed to use capacity to judge what you should be doing on a minute-by-minute basis. This was the biggest misstep that I took when I was first developing lyphe as a system. What you should instead do is work on as much as you can with the time you're given, and especially for non-habit tasks, just be okay with missing a few each day. They'll reappear the following day, and you can try again to complete them at that time.

Capacity counts habits

One of the biggest pitfalls of my time management is that I never reserve time for things that should become habits. For example, I never reserve time during my day to do chores. I just work until I'm tired of working or until time runs out in the day. Frankly, I'd much rather go to work than do most of my chores, so the chores really never get done unless my wife does them or the laundry finally piles up so much that there's no longer any clothes to wear. By including daily or weekly or monthly habits in your task scheduling, it will force me and you to complete those chores regardless of what time they happen at and force you to reserve time in your day to complete them.

Habits are good, but I don't like habit trackers

I don't forget that laundry exists. I forget to leave enough time and energy to actually do it.

By the time I remember, I'm either out of clean clothes or staring at a pile large enough that doing laundry has become the rest of my evening.

For me, it's usually chores

There are chores I don't mind doing. I like cooking, and mowing the lawn is fine when it isn't 95 degrees outside.

Then there are things like laundry and cleaning my office. I will find almost anything else to do first, including more work, which is how I end up spending the entire day at my desk and wondering why nothing around the house got done. Some days I even have enough motivation to run the laundry through the washer and dryer, but not enough to fold it and put it away properly. The clothes are clean, technically, but now the laundry basket has become a dresser.

A reminder doesn't fix that problem.

I already know the laundry needs done. What I need is for lyphe to leave enough room for the entire chore, not only the part I had enough energy to start.

A habit is not another task

A task should eventually disappear. I finish it, mark it complete, and move on. A habit needs to come back because completing it once doesn't solve it forever.

That means habits shouldn't go through Choose with the rest of my backlog. If taking out the trash needs done every week, I shouldn't have to repeatedly decide whether it belongs in my life.

It does. The useful decision is how often it needs done and how much time I should leave for it.

Its all for the reward

A common "hack" for ADHD that's recommended by behavioral therapists is to use a reward system to help motivate yourself to complete tasks that you don't want to do. The reward should be something simple, something tangible, and something you can do quickly after completing a task.

My rewards are usually things I want to do. Things like playing video games, jumping in the hot tub, or spending some guilt free quality time with my wife and child.

Rewards are their own thing

Rewards are stored separate in the app. There's a list of rewards, which can be anything you would want. After you finish choosing the tasks for the day, you can select a reward you get once all your habits and tasks are complete.

Onboarding, rewritten

Onboarding now becomes a much more important part of the app.

You'll be told what the app is, what it does, and the difference between tasks, habits, and rewards.

Rather than adding a single repeat task and showing how the daily Choose works, instead you'll be walked through the process of adding up to 3 tasks, 3 habits, and 3 rewards.

It will be much more guided than before

First, you'll enter some tasks. You will be asked to enter a quick 2 minute task you need to do, a task you want to do today that takes about an hour, and one you want to start today but finish tomorrow (multi session task).

Once that's complete, you'll be asked to add 3 habits. There will be a few examples as chips you can quickly select, or you can enter your own. You'll be able to edit certain attributes about each habit in the following screens. Examples include if its daily, weekly, or monthly, what time of day you'd like to be reminded of it, what day of the week or month, and roughly how long it takes to complete the habit.

Finally, you'll be asked to add 3 rewards. Again, there will be a few examples as chips you can quickly select, or you can enter your own. These do not have a time attached and will appear every day and allow you to select it at the end of your daily Choose session.

The productivity numbers, Mason

What is self improvement if we can't prove that there's an improvement? We'll have daily metrics that track task completion rate, habit completion rate, and time spent on tasks and habits.

The calendar will show you a history of tasks completed, habits complete, and rewards earned. This will allow you to see trends over time and adjust your habits and tasks accordingly.

This app is for me, but I want it to be useful to everyone

While I'm the target customer, I want this to be as useful to others as it is to me. For now since I'm the only user I'm going to primarily target myself, however as I get more users and move along with the project I'll find more ways to make the app better and better to make sure we're all as productive as possible.