

Show HN: Timeslot makes planning your day a breeze - chetan51
http://timeslot.me/

======
dools
My experience:

1) submitted my signup details, the page never returned a response and just
hung there, but I did receive an email and was able to login

2) There's no difference between "add item" and "insert after" on the last
item - but there is no way to add an item to the start of the list. I have to
insert after the first item then re-order

3) I could never use this on a daily basis but I could really use it for week-
to-week planning, especially if it had an API

4) As such I would prefer gcal style dragging/gantt style blocks

5) If you could create a simple "time block allocation" tool I'd pay to use
it.

The use case for me would be to plug my task system (for which I actually use
my own CMS where I create pages for each "sprint"). I currently use Google
Calendar but the API is kind of hellish and I've never gotten around to using
it.

The fact is that _daily_ planning revolves around a few things for me: things
that arrive in my inbox, things i'm supposed to be working on (time blocked
off in google calendar) sales/follow up tasks (I use highrise, this comes
under "things that arrive in my inbox") and appointments (for which I use
google calendar).

I then timesheet everything via an IRC chat room (as do my colleagues).

All that's missing is an elegant interface for blocking off time for tasks,
being able to rearrange them and then export all the information via an API so
that I can see directly how scheduling is affecting my cashflow without having
to update a bunch of spreadsheet data.

~~~
chetan51
So that's how someone would use the API. Other than it's current
functionality, what more would I need to add to the API for you to be able to
use it in your natural workflow?

~~~
dools
Well, as I mentioned I would prefer it to be inter-day rather than intra-day -
not sure how difficult it is for you to make that an option.

The API - I guess I need to be able to do this:

$estimated_days - numDaysScheduled($item_name) = $deficit;

where numDayScheduled is an API call. Then I would like a way to take a bunch
of sprints I've added in my task system, and dump them into the calendar so
that no task was overlapping for any one assignee - then I could go and play
with the schedule.

This whole thing is straying pretty far away from your initial concept,
though, maybe if you want to discuss it further send me an email.

------
chetan51
Here's a quick description:

Timeslot is a cross between a Todo list and a calendar. Simply add items to
your day's agenda, and specify how long each will take. Timeslot will
automatically generate start and end times for each item, so when you have to
make a change, your entire agenda will update to flow around it.

An interesting tidbit you might notice about Timeslot: Once you log in,
literally every bit of text on the screen is editable. I personally find this
quite neat :)

------
kloncks
A few things:

1\. What technology is behind this? Ruby?

2\. Mobile is VERY important. So important, in fact, that if I were you, I'd
make a mobile version of the website right now to work across
Android/iPhone/webOS/Windows/etc and start working on an actual native app
asap.

3\. Syncing. I'd love to be able to Sync this with iCal and Google Calendar.
Of course, this is a huge thing; syncing is a lot more difficult than most
people realize.

4\. Mixing To-Dos in there with the Calendar would be killer. Especially if
you let me bring over my To-Do list from popular To-Do list websites and then
make your own version.

5\. I love the fact that it's so simple and nice. Please keep it that way.

~~~
chetan51
It's using Django on the server and Backbone.js on the client. It was quite a
pleasure to code with these frameworks, actually.

As for your suggestions, I totally agree with all of them. They are all
features I would love as well, and I have some ideas on how to make it so it's
easy to plan on every level of granularity, from day to week to month to year,
and to make them all play well with each other.

~~~
kloncks
Best of luck to you then; truly great start it seems!

------
tomstuart
Looks interesting, but I don't want to sign up just to try it out. Have you
considered a demo mode where you can fill an empty schedule, or edit a
prefilled one, without being able to save changes? That's how I'd decide
whether I was interested enough to give you my email address, generate a
password, etc.

~~~
Quiark
Exactly. Now I have to go through countless number of clicks (register, check
email, click on the activation link, confirm activation, insert login details
again) just to try the service.

------
jkahn
I'm a business guy that has a lot of meetings. Why would I use this and not
Outlook?

~~~
jkahn
I'm surprised I haven't had an answer to this. I thought I was the target
market.

This looks like an inferior web based edition of Exchange/Outlook
functionality. It was a serious question - is there an advantage to using
this? If not, you might need to do some market research to better target the
problem you are trying to solve.

~~~
kaiwetzel
From the short presentation on the home page I did not get the impression that
you (a current exchange/outlook user) are the target market, actually. (But I
could of course be wrong or we got a different branch of an A/B test)

I think the examples are pointing in a different direction, i.e. a simple and
straightforward tool to help you juggle daily life with a focus on
spontaneously rearranging tasks, rather than fixed business meetings and
scheduling events for teams even.

------
Stuk
I really like this idea, and have been meaning to code up something similar
for a while. A few points:

* I would like to set lengths of time shorter than 15 mins. * If you visit a URL like <http://timeslot.me/agendas/#day/2011-4-29> without being logged in then the interface appears, and slightly works. A redirect to the login would be better * As others have mentioned, drag/drop of tasks and length would be great * And a random idea: I would quite like to have a "repository" (todo list) of tasks with the length already set which I could drag onto a day.

With the drag and drop functionality I would happily pay a few dollars per
month for something like this.

~~~
chetan51
* I'll make the duration selector better, so that you get a drop down of 15 min intervals, but also you can type out an exact duration if you want to.

* Yup, I'll fix that.

* The todo list idea is on my todo list (haha, see what I did there?). Thanks for the suggestion!

------
masnick
This is a really interesting idea. A few thoughts:

I personally think the click+drag interface in Google Calendar or iCal is more
efficient for setting the length of events. The select box with all the time
intervals from 15 min to 24 hr in 15 min increments seems hard to use. I
personally would even prefer typing "15 min" or "1 hr" to trying to scroll
through all that.

It would also be great if this pulled automatically from Google Calendar (or
any iCalendar) to fill events. I would probably use this to schedule my day if
I didn't have to manually put in my recurring events, meetings scheduled with
Tungle, etc. that are already in gcal.

Nice work -- thanks for sharing!

~~~
chetan51
Drag to extend / shorten duration of events is on my todo list; it would
definitely improve the interface.

It seems like Google Calendar syncing is something everyone is looking for.
I'll be sure to focus on that. Thanks!

------
csomar
This is a great start to solve the calendar and time management problem. Here
are a few points.

1\. The Mobile App will be a killer feature. I'm not in front of the computer
24/7, but my mobile is. It's faster and quicker to take my mobile and start
typing.

2\. Your App works for daily usage. However, I can plan things on the morning
but I can also plan them a day or more before that. There is a need that your
app account for that (calendar), but no sure how the implementation should be.

3\. Smooth integration with Google Calendar can be a killer feature too. For
example, if I set day xx is my friend birthday, so it remembers me to plan for
it the day before.

~~~
chetan51
Thanks for your feedback!

1\. Yes, I will definitely be making a mobile version of the app. Maybe it can
be part of a paid plan?

2\. You can actually already plan any day of the calendar. Just click on the
date of the agenda to edit it.

3\. Yup, another great idea I plan on implementing in the near future.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
> 2\. You can actually already plan any day of the calendar. Just click on the
> date of the agenda to edit it.

Editing the date of the agenda seems quite counter-intuitive. I would think
that editing the date would move all of the current events to that future
date.

------
fragmede
This is quite good.

I look forwards to todo integration.

I'd add that forcing a item to start at '4' probably shouldn't default to 4am.

Start with one-way gcal into Timeslot - things I've scheduled into my calendar
are less likely to be movable since there are other people involved.

I quite like the simplicity of the UI, but there needs to be more signaling in
the UI that things are editable - the date, especially. I did not think I
could edit it until after I tried editing the URL.

~~~
chetan51
Thanks for the feedback, you're quite right. I'll make it more obvious that
everything is editable.

------
nametoremember
Somehow I added in a 12 hour free time slot. I WISH I had 12 hours free but I
don't. I can't get rid of the 12 hour free time slot.

That's the end of the road for me and this app.

------
abhishektwr
I small feedback, I am assuming you are using django-authentication which
might have few problems, 1\. User can register many accounts with same
email(make it unique to avoid any problems) 2\. While I am authenticated I can
still visit register and login pages, may be you want to redirect user to
avoid any confusion. Otherwise looks good to me, just added few slots on my
account. cheers

------
codejoust
Another Suggestion: I like the interface, but iCal sync and/or having it
printable with checkboxes, etc. would be really helpful to get it OFF the
computer (or cell phone interface, jQuery mobile, etc). I like how you
currently implement the add to day interface, keep up the good work!

------
swah
Does the program learns how bad my time estimates are? That would be the
something interesting for me.

If I already knew how long it takes me to do each thing, I probably wouldn't
need the app.

------
Maro
I don't understand. I signed up, I logged in, but it only lets me add an
appointment at 7AM. Is this a bug or a feature?

EDIT: I guess I have to edit by hand and type the time? Not liking that.

~~~
chetan51
You can edit the start time of the day -- just click on it. I guess it's not
clear enough that's editable, I'll fix that.

------
dshipper
This is really cool. I would send this over to Sebastian Marshall at
sebastianmarshall.com. His blog has a good amount of readers and I think he
would love to cover something like this.

~~~
chetan51
Thanks! I was wondering how to spread the word about this. I think Lifehacker
would be interested too. I'll be sure to contact Sebastian Marshall.

~~~
kloncks
Sebastian is great.

But I'd also just start contacting literally every news blog you can think of.
TechCrunch, TheNextWeb, GigaOm, CenterNetworks, ReadWriteWeb, everyone.

What can you lose ;) ? And just getting one of those will get you a lot of
hits.

~~~
eitland

        What can you lose ;) ?
    

Mostly agree, wouldn't like to get all attention at once, thoug.

~~~
greengirl512
I reviewed it on Useful Tools: <http://www.usefultools.com/2011/04/plan-your-
day/>

------
mike-cardwell
I added the item "マイクカードウェル" and it worked. Then I refreshed the page and
every character was replaced by question marks. You need to fix your encoding.

~~~
chetan51
Will do. Thanks.

------
marquis
Consider making an API available, perhaps as a paid service? I can think of
several projects that would like to be able to use something like this.

~~~
chetan51
Sure, that would be no problem (it's already built on a REST interface). How
do you think other projects would use this?

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ramupatil
buddy, you need to go to drawing board again. As a user, at this moment, it is
of no use to me. Complete it then share with others. IMHO, it is incomplete.
Let people feel privileged to give opinion about your work. People reading
this site are serious. Wish you luck.

~~~
Sukotto
Downvoted.

I read your comment as condescending and I strongly disagree with your advice
for the OP to complete the app before asking for feedback.

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gpambrozio
Interesting idea. Will try it. Congrats.

------
netflask
this is a really neat idea and I like the clean design.

