Fighting procrastination

Procrastination is when you don't want to do something important now, putting it off as much as you can and doing something more pleasant instead. Like for an office worker surfing the web instead of doing work activities. For a student - watching a film or hanging out with friends instead of doing homework. Your brain tries to avoid negative feelings about doing unwanted stuff and proposes a comfortable but, obviously, wrong solution which makes you temporarily happy.

This causes a lot of problems - not only people don't do what is important, but in addition they know that and the feeling of guilt arises. Which makes them even more unhappy.

One of the ways to overcome this is to simply start doing that unpleasant activity. It is easy and it turns out, some time after you start the work, that negative feeling disappears. Thus, if you are facing procrastination issue with a task, one of the best ways to win it would be to just start doing it. Split your work into work and break periods, concentrate on the work during a work period, have rest on breaks. After some time you'll find yourself comfortable doing it.

Reminders on Recurrence days

New reminder setting has been added - On Recurrence Days. It means, when set, it will add a reminder on each day the action is set up for. The time when it will fire will be the one set for the reminder, i.e., time setting hasn't.

If, for example, you have a recurrence set for 'Every day' and a reminder set to 'On recurrence days at 9:00 am', then it will fire notification everyday at 9:00 am. To do so, every midnight it fetches all the actions for the next day, sees if any reminder is set there and registers them in the system.

I myself like the feature a lot and can't now imagine how did the app work without it before :)

As always, any feedback (bug/feature/suggestion/greeting) is very welcome!

Too complex

Yesterday I showed the program to someone who hasn't used it before. I wanted to start explaining, but then it all seemed to be too complex for her. All she needed was a simple Todo-list to quickly add her grocery list. This is what many people complain about when they first open the app - too complex and not intuitive to use. Once they get used to it, they often admit that 'it is thoughtful and feature-rich' (well, not all of them, but many do). But, not all of those who install it reach that mind-clearing  point :)

And, the question is - what to do with it? Make the app more simple just like hundreds other todo/task lists out there? Or, keep the current shape, not without constant improvements, of course (of course!) and have the app for those who seek something more than a dumb list? The latter comes at price of less users using the app. Hard question.

Pomodoro fix and reminders

The recent version 0.12.2 has 2 noticeable things: first is the pomodoro fix - the service now should work without problems and be more stable when you switch across the apps.

The other one is the Reminders section in the week plan. It lists all the reminders you've set for your action. Clicking on them you can go to that action and change/see the info. The work on the reminders will be continued in the near future with plans to make this section be used more.

Besides the section itself, the new update adds the fix for times, when your reminders were cleared or not set - after phone restart or backup restore. The app now checks these cases and re-sets the reminders, if they are after the current time in future.

Hope you'll like the update and the app will continue help you be more productive!

Pomodoro not working?

Anyone has problems with pomodoro after latest update?

Upd.: Released a new version, 0.12.2, the pomodoro should work now and even be better - if you close the app, it should stay there in the status bar ticking.

Can now sync across devices using Google Drive

We've added support for Google Drive.

You can now sync your data across your devices using your Google Drive account. To do so, go to 'Sync' menu on the left navigation bar:

When first accessing the page, it will ask you to enter the google account you want to use. You can use existing or add a new one. The steps are default to google and quite intuitive.

Then you'll have a new screen, something like following:

Here you can either upload (push) your current device's backup to your Google Drive account. Or, download it (pull) from there, if you've previously done upload.

The push operation will create a file called 'MyEffectiveness.bcp' on your Drive. Then this file will be uploaded when pulled to / pushed from this or other devices.

This syncing, by the way, does not restore reminders, which is something we have missed, but we'll work on that soon.

The functionality has just been implemented and probably has bugs and inconsistencies. So, we'll appreciate any feedback on the feature.

Hope this makes using the app much better!

19.02.2015 update

Today we've released two minor versions - 0.11.2 and 0.11.3. The first one introduced some minor fixes and enhancements of UI, but introduced a sever bug for Androids < 5 version. Thanks to reports from you, we've noticed it almost immediately and uploaded the new 0.11.3 version. Should be ok now.

The update brings a new feature of showing your running pomodoro cycle in the status bar. No 'Stop' action, yet, and no other features, but should help you track the work/break cycle without having the app stay open.

Yabs

Just have release, what do you think?

Short: starting to roll out a new update.

Some changes to come.

0.10.6 update details

There are several things changed.

On the Week plan weekly actions:

• The layout has changed a bit
• Before the current update an action could be marked as done by swiping the action left or right. This was very counter-intuitive so we've modified it. Now you can do/undo the action by simply clicking on the tick.
• More information has been added about an action - day set, priority

 

On the Main page:

• The layout has changed a bit
• Pomodoro section has been decoupled from the next action. They say the pomodoro is helpful when tackling your procrastination - it helps you get into the focused mode faster. Doing so you should concentrate on the abstract process of working rather than on doing a concrete action - this is easier for your brain.

On Action page:

• 'Details to actions' now parses lines, too. I.e., if you have a text separated by new line, you can split it into subactions by end-of-line.
• Checklist items can be drag-n-dropped by 3-dots at the right of the item. There's a small bug with overlaying, but it will be fixed in the next update.

On all the pages

• The left menu is modified slightly so that the Home / Exit buttons are at the top of the menu now. This is not final - if the new layout is not better, we'll revert modify again.

There are also some bug fixes and other improvements on some other pages: for example, long-press on FTF and Actions didn't work; an action can be checked as 'done' from notification now; etc.

Happy Coming 2015!!!

Some status on current development

At the moment, the main development is going around adopting google tasks to our app. We need to find a way to map 2 level tasks structure (lists and tasks) to our multi-level hierarchy: role / goal / action. As said before, we'll map all the lists to roles with the same name, except for special lists called 'My Mission', 'My Influence' and 'Notes'. Currently we are working on the syncing and merging the roles part.

The web app had been started, has since been paused because of lack of time and resources. We'll return to it as soon as we finish the google tasks sync part.

The max count / planned amount of recurrences idea is evolving, adding some new stuff with every update.

The overall enhancements and various improvements within the app never stop, so while concentrating on big goals, we do various smaller actions, too.

And very many thanks to all of you who use the app, point to bugs and deficiencies, give us feedback and just simply support by words! All this comes as a great motivational force to continue working on the app.

FTF squares colors

Why the squares are colored the way they are? Shouldn't the first square be red?

This is a popular question and of course we understand why. The red color is one that best attracts people's attention. It is associated with action and activity. It is usually used to warn about danger (traffic 'STOP' sign), so people are used to paying more attention to it.

Thus your first wish is to put every action into the first square - the Urgent / Important one. You see all your actions both Urgent and Important at the same time. And you rush to do them all. This is the view of classical todo lists. But, it is not if you think about planning.

The first square should hold only the actions, that are burning right now, the crisis actions. That square should either be clear or you be running doing the action from it. The actions from it are usually stressful ones and you shouldn't have them in your normal, everyday life.

The more important among the squares, or even the most important one, is the second square.
Here you put your Important and Not Urgent actions. Don't be fooled by the 'non-urgency' of the actions - the fact that they are not urgent doesn't make them less or not important. It just means that they are under your control - you know about them, you know how important they are and you have thought and planned when you will do them. There's no need to throw everything you are doing and run to do them. So, this is the most important square with actions for you. And since it is the most important, you should be attracted by it more than by others. Thus the red color of the square.

The other colors were chosen so that they try to distract you less.

The BUG has been caught

At least we think so. But, we had already thought so several time in the last 2 days, so if I were you, I would not count on that 100%. As you probably undersand it, one more update is out there: 0.9.3) So, if you have given us 1-2-3-4 star ratings, it's time to review and give the deserved 5 stars!

New Action UI page

+ Looks like we've localized the crash point - will release today later

Action page got a different face. There are lots of changes. These are some of them:
+ no 'Edit' and 'Save' buttons - everything gets saved when you leave the page (auto-save)
+ right-side menu has been removed, features from there brought to the page itself into a collapsible panel.
+ checklists and projects are now added in-place on the page
+ reminder setup made much more pleasant with several setups (like in Google Keep).
+ action notes are visible on the page, no matter if it is a complex action or a plain one.
+ and more

As you remember, the best way to say you liked it is to rate the app here in the Play Store

Widget crashing

Anyone's getting the FTF widget crash when switching between the squares? We've got several crash reports, but can't reproduce the bug - don't know the exact steps or conditions. Most reports come from Samsung devices S2, S4, S4 mini. There are quite few of them, but we still want to have this fixed. So, any help would be appreciated.

Recurrence: Select week days + more

Can now select the week days on which to show the action - new recurrence type! With this functionality, the Week day and Week end recurrences seem obsolete, but let's keep them for a while.

The other important update (actually, all of them are rather important) - the view of the WeekPlan is now persistent! Whatever view you see last on the page, that one will open when you return - the weekly goals or the weekly actions. This will meet the needs of both those who preferred the old actions view and those who like the new goals view.

The priority and week day choose dialogs were improved - a new section called Now! has been added to both. When you choose this section, it sets the priority of the action to A and day to today.

On the FTF page, in the expanded mode when the squares are full screen without details section, clicking on an action now opens it on its page.

On the Note editing - the Save/Cancel buttons at the top have been removed - they clashed with default Copy/Cut/Paste components of the android and made them unusable. So, the note now is being saved automatically, whenever you leave the note page. And the Copy/Cut/Paste works well!

And some playing around with colors - we prefer to think the app is alive and evolves as everything around us :).

As you see, a lot of work has been done in quite a short period of time to increase the productivity of helping you increase your productivity! Don't forget to reward us with a a good, fresh 5-star rating out here!

Enjoy :) !

Upd.: Recurrence Start-Stop has been removed. Turned out not very popular feature)

Again Brasil

Did you and do you see the games? The latest, Belgium - USA is not yet over, but one can already say - what a game! And the previous one, esp. the last few minutes - what a drama!!!! This championship is the greatest I have seen!

Brasil '14

What started as a fast, sparkling, ingenious joy in every game now goes on as a big drama in almost every game. At least in every one I watch. My sincere respect to Chile and Mexico!

Recurrence Start-Stop

Do you even use it? B-)

Yabs The Game!

If you still remember, Habits are not the only app we did so far, though it has been the main theme of the blog and of application of our resources for quite a time now. What you probably don't know, is that we have been developing a game for mobile all this time. I won't share the details of the game right now, will have it public soon. Can just say that it came out to be a good one :)

Week Plan. New big changes.

As you remember, the WeekPlan page is relatively young in its current view - we have updated it just several months ago. The new look has been practical and much more pleasant then the old one. It does great job in everyday action checking. One of the most used pages by me personally.

But, every time I entered it I felt like I missed something. It was all in front of me and, still, something was missing. So, one day it struck me. And we've implemented it. The new updated will be out within few days. And when it is out, you will ask yourself - how come we haven't thought of it before and how had you lived without it? It will be a natural fit.

Meanwhile, hope you are enjoying the great feast of bootball that's happenning right now in Brasil, just as we do! Here they show some of the games at 2 a.m. due to the time differences, which, of course doesn't stop us at all :).

Now that the Spain is out, who do you think will be the King of football for the next four years? I can tell you my favourites: Netherlands, Chile, Mexico - these teams showed beatiful, fast, bold game. Besides them, I think Italy and Germany are pretty strong. And, of course, Brasil and Argentine.

Checklists strange behavior

Does anyone have a strange shaking behavior on a Checklist page?

Checklist items UI change

There are some changes to the checklist items now:

• They are one-liners now: when you press enter on the keyboard, they get added. I.e., enter on the keyboard has same effect as the + sign near the text.
• Drag-n-drop is by long-press now. Before current version (0.8.4) you could drag an item and move it up or down by three-dots at the right of the item. The problem was it was difficult on some devices to catch the required drag-able margin, so some users complained about this. Now you just need to long-press on any place on the item to move it.
• More room for already added items while adding new one - this was on of the worst things about this page: when you were adding, you couldn't see already added items and the one you've added the last. Now we show 2-4 already added items when adding. And when you press the + or enter buttons, the list is auto-magically scrolled to this last one. Much better UI experience.
• The items are dismissable by swipe. Just like on many applications out there, like gmail, to delete an item you just need to swipe it off the screen in either directions. After that, you'll have about 2-3 seconds to undo your delete. Again, much much better UI experience.

The other update was about fixing adding photos to the Role page - when the photo/picture was in some remote gallery, it usually failed. Now it's fixed. Thanks for the reports!

Hope you'll like the changes as much as we do and support them by rating us on the Play Store - nothing keeps us stay awake at nights enhancing the app better than a good, old 5-star rating out here!

FirstThingsFirst/Actions page important change

An important change introduced with the update, currently rolling out staged (20% lucky users will get them first), to the First Things First, Actions pages and the First Things First widget (aka Habits / FTF Squares): the filters you apply on these pages are persistent now.

What does this mean? It means, they are saved between visits to these pages - when you go back to android home screen and back again, or when you switch between the pages within the app. And, the FTF widget will reflect these filters. E.g., if you set filter for #day: Saturday(as on the picture below), the pages and the widget will show actions for that day:

This makes the widget and the pages more consistent with each other. Furthermore, it should help you concentrate better on these pages. We think this is not fully finished so some changes will most certainly come. But the general idea - to have filters persistent and for widget to reflect current FTF/Actions pages, also most certainly, will be preserved.

Also, the common left sliding menu is added to two more pages: Week Plan and My Roles.

First Things First widget

Will look like this:

Together with Quick the widget and application icon:

Squares are selectable, scrollable. Clicking on a task you'll go to its details, clicking on a square (if you manage to hit it :-) will lead you to the FTF page.

This is the initial version, some enhancements and adjustments are to come. Staged rollout is on, first 20% of lucky users will be able to try it out within the next few hours.

Enjoy! :)

First Things First widget

Will be out in first version later today!

Upd.: Sorry, guys, today is Champions League day!) Widget will be tomorrow ;)

Habits new widget

New 'Common' widget is out with today's update. Update is staged (means, first will be available to ~20% of active users) - will try to use this feature so that, if any problems with the update, it doesn't affect all the users. If by evening everything is ok, will do the full rollout.

The name 'Common' is not final, reflects the common most used operations: add a note, go to First Things First page, go to My Roles page, add an action (go straight to entering the text). If you find a more suitable, we'd be very grateful to hear :).

The widget looks like this:

Together with the Today's Actions widget and app icon:

Besides this, several fixes were done. As always, your feedback and reports has helped a lot - a big Thank You for them!

Enjoy the new functionality!

Add to calendar, goal details to actions

Some new functionality out there:

+ 'Add to calendar' button has been added to the action right-side menu, where reminders and recurrences inhabit. Clicking it you can add the action as an item to your calendars on the device. If you have several calendar apps, a 'Choose action' dialog will appear (usual android behavior). If your device is Android 2.x (below 3.x) - the function might not work, couldn't well test it. If you have issues, would be really great if you contacted us and we tried to solve it together!

+ Goal 'Details to action' function added. Remember in complex actions you could type your sub-actions in the Details pane, then click one menu 'Details to actions' and the app would auto-magically create the sub-actions for you? Same functionality has been added to the goal 'Envision' section now. The motivation for it is simple (as always) - it is often much more convenient to just type the steps you want to implement, entering in a kind of action generation flow. Type your actions, separate them by one of the symbols: '+' ,  ' . ' , ';', and click 'Details to actions' - and get a list of actions for this goal. You can then cleanup the generated stuff deleting and/or renaming, prioritizing them.

+ It appeared that 'Snooze reminder' didn't work for some time periods. This has been fixed. Thank you for pointing this out!

+ Ads are back :) I know this sounds not so encouraging, but we tried to show them on as few pages as possible. And we'll be rolling out the paying feature soon, so wanted to see the behavior of the app and users with ads before that.

Again, thank you all for your constant feedback.

And one more thing - we have decided to change our update policy - we'll try to roll out updates more often, as soon as they're working, not waiting for week(s) period or for several updates to couple together. This way, we think, you'll get the best use of the app as soon as we prepare it!

Some news on the recent updates to Habits.

+ Have removed most of the widgets - only the QuickAction left from the previous ones.
+ Added the 'Snooze reminder' functionality with previous update. You can snooze for several periods, from 5 minutes to 24 hours.
+ In Android 3x and above - have added the 'Today Actions' scrollable widget - can see your Today actions from the Home screen now.

The list is identical to what is shown for Today on the WeekPlan activity. Have been thinking of adding the full WeekPlan widget, but don't know if it is demanded - will see the result of current update.

Note: unfortunately, the widget works only on devices with Android versin of 3 and above - they allow scrollable list to be added to home screen widgets.

Translations

Have rolled out initial translation of the Habits into Russian. Since main part of the work is done, can try to translate into other languages. If you want Habits translated into your language, write us at ksasdk@gmail.com, we'll send back the resource file (file with original English texts).

How do I (usually) use it

Hi all,
Sorry for the long silence in the blog and in app updates - it has been a pretty busy after-the-new-year period - at work, studying, private life and other projects :). Though it puts off a bit the planned functionality, I prefer to look at it as an opportunity to have a little rest and take an overview look on the app - hope it will bring fresh ideas to further development. Meanwhile, did a little update to the other app - the 'A-to-Z Notes' free version. The app is pretty simple and not as rich as other note-taking apps, but has its audience. And I myself find it useful in practise)

That being said, the actual reason of this post is I wanted to share the way I use the app myself.

First of all, don't know if comes as a surprise to anyone, but most of the daily task work I start from the week plan. Not the Eisenhower matrix. In fact, many users say they like the app due to the matrix, but I almost never-ever open the matrix. This is because all the actions I enter end up in the 2nd quadrant: important and not urgent. So, all of them are colored red. I don't use the advanced filtering of the FTF and Actions pages, because I go through the week plan for today, top-down - actions are already ordered there for my use. Not sure if it is the best way to plan/work, but it is how it is now.

As you know, actions are listed in the lists by priority from A at the top to F at the bottom. For an action to come into today's section of the week plan, I usually add it from a Role. So, the main planning starts and goes via the 'My Roles' section. I find a role of interest, add a goal I want to implement being in this role, then write the action(s) needed to reach that goal. The actions are then given priorities (and maybe days). I usually do the planning for today in the morning or a day or two before the day needed. Often actions I couldn't finish today get transferred to tomorrow. For some actions I do the planning ahead of the week, as it is supposed to be the best. But, unfortunately I still can't reach that point organisation when all the things would be done ideally and not describing the ideal way but the way I happen to do it.

Most actions I use are simple actions - no recurrences. There's one action, though, that has an 'every day' recurrence set - do the morning warmup exercises. I don't do them everyday (I wish I did), but they are in the top of the list as a reminder :). And when I do, I cross the action and feel good accomplishing something. After using this action for quite a time, I came to a conclusion that we need to add another type of action into the app - good 'Habit'. This is needed for long-lasting general actions like 'doing exercises'.

The recurrence type I use (and like) most is 'Once until done'. This is for the action types that should be started and finished whenever you finish them - no special schedule is required. If not done, it appears on today's week day in the week plan, every day until you do it. Feels like it's swimming with you into the next day) Ongoing work tasks best fit into this category.

If an action is a complex one (a project), I use the 'Next Action' function, as a convenience guiding functionality. For it to work, the actions must have already be ordered by priority. Often I write down a project's action steps in the details, then use the 'Details to actions' menu option - this divides the actions auto-magically into required sub-actions.

Since I've wrote a long text already, will stop now and continue in the next post :) Hope it's not very cumbersome and an apparent picture can be made out from the description. Not sure if it will be useful, just wanted to share :)