

Chain productivity tool launches.  Accomplish something every day - palish
http://cha1n.com/
Fill in the blank: "I'm going to _____ every day."  Thinking of something?  Great!  Head over to the site, and you can make posts about your experiences, share your chains with the world, and meet other people who are accomplishing the same things.<p>No, the site won't delete any of your data if you miss a day.  It simply gives you friendly reminders. :)
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palish
Fill in the blank: "I'm going to _____ every day." Thinking of something?
Great! Head over to the site, and you can make posts about your experiences,
share your chains with the world, and meet other people who are accomplishing
the same things.

When you add a link in your chain, it's automatically submitted to a
centralized place where others accomplishing the same goal will upvote you and
cheer you on.

No, the site won't delete any of your data if you miss a day. It simply gives
you friendly reminders. :)

I posted that here because I can't seem to edit the initial text.. But have
fun!

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createaccount
I'm recommending the f __* chain to my girlfriend right now!

I've been trying to find a way to show her that we've been slipping:)

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palish
I'd really, really appreciate it if you all could list the things you hate (or
like) about the site. Anything you'd like changed can be changed. We take your
feedback seriously.

How can we make this thing useful for _you_ , specifically? Whomever is
reading this, right now. Post something you would find useful, no matter how
outlandish it is.

We're two people with time and hacking experience and we can make anything you
want work, and we'd be really indebted to you for making demands. How would
you want Chain to look if it were your own project?

Is there anything you saw that made you think "Hey, that's neat"? We'll
accentuate it. Something that frustrated you? Removed. Something missing?
Added.

Thank you so much.

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r7000
Is the current representation of the chain just the number under the picture?
I think you need something to visualize the continuation from day-to-day of
the chains and any breaks. If you do break the chain it would be cool to have
an update on what your previous record was for keeping the it intact:
motivation to keep the current chain going and beat the record.

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palish
Great idea! Right now it represents how many upvotes that post received from
others. The idea was you'd create an interesting entry and others would read
about your experience. But that probably won't be useful until there are more
people using the site.

Thank you!

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dpapathanasiou
You're taking that Seinfeld slogan _way_ too seriously.

If you're stuck for a project idea, why not go on a few dates with the
opposite sex (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129>)?

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palish
Why not make the chains 'think of a project idea' and 'go on a date'?

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dpapathanasiou
Touche

:)

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altay
If I'm trying to reach a big goal, like "run a marathon" or "bench-press my
weight" or "launch my site", the way to do it is to break it up into bite-size
chunks with discrete milestones.

It'd be cool to offer some "goal templates" (e.g. "how to train for a
marathon"), and allow folks to make and share their own templates. Match up
folks with similar long-term goals to form a support network. You could even
use that to jump-start the community... market it to a group of people (e.g.
marathoners) who are already working towards some big goal.

Plus, this could be the basis of a better encouragement system. If every day's
goal is the same ("run"), I don't have any particular reason to cheer you on
the 12th day any more than the 9th day. But if you reached a specific
milestone on the 12th day I'd give you props.

~~~
palish
Thank you for that idea. That sounds pretty cool. You could click "Make a
Milestone" and choose the date for it, then the application will countdown
until you've reached your milestone, while building up chainlinks.

Or maybe the milestone could be X number of chainlinks without missing a
day/week/whatever, and you choose X.

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amix
The idea is great, the execution (and design) is currently really bad. If I
was you I would concentrate on making things more "simple" (or hidden). Maybe
make a front page that explains the idea and does not present so much "raw"
data.

~~~
palish
Fully agree. I'm going to make safe-for-work upvoted images appear on the
front page to get some nice graphics going, and cut down the chain lists to
maybe ten at a time.

I tried to make the process of creating your chains and maintaining multiple
chains really easy. Chain's biggest strength is the fact that it's useful even
though no one else is using it. So maybe we can figure out how to emphasize
that a little more..

Also, having a full time job is _incredibly_ frustrating.

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r7000
I wonder if the image modding system, particularly with the way it is worded,
will encourage people to try and shock the modders. Maybe you'll do a flickr-
like transition and in a month you'll be wh0cangr0ssme0ut.com

~~~
palish
Yeah, you're right. But I'm going to be fighting that.. It's all I can do.
We're gonna implement a public ban system for griefers.

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omouse
It's cool but I don't get how the chain-linked fence image works.

Also, how different from 43things.com is this? Why would a 43things.com user
want to switch to cha1n.com?

~~~
palish
Hiya! Ours is a bit more proactive. If you're doing it, you can make a chain
about it. But 43things a nice place to make wishes, so if you enjoy that
better, that's fine :) We really hope that the site enables a success story to
emerge.

And yeah, that chain-linked fence texture is going to be the first to go in
the coming improvements.

~~~
omouse
I signed up for 43things yesterday and I found it alright.

This does seem better because you can track your progress.

Good work :D

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falsestprophet
So, it looks like a lot of our peers are sexually frustrated.

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Alex3917
I keep waiting for someone to start a thread like, "So as a busy entrepreneur,
how do I find time to sleep with all the hot women who want to sleep with me?"

~~~
falsestprophet
Well, pimpin ain't easy. Although I have tried the GTD system and consulted
other productivity blogs, you can't beat the simplicity and efficiency of
orgies. If you looked hard enough, I'm sure you could find some relevant
documentation on the internet.

edit: for folks with the polar problem, I recommend the gangbang solution

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r7000
the + looks like a +/- sign

I keep on reading "plus or minus 2 people will exercise"

good work! nice layout ;-)

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mynameishere
Just wondering: Did you actually do the paperwork and start a company called
"Chain Enterprises"?

~~~
palish
Nope. That's YC's thing.. :)

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palish
It's quite nice finally being off work to really sit down and hammer out the
rough edges. Check back tomorrow guys, many new features coming.

~~~
palish
Okay, I added reply counters to each conversation and a counter for how many
discussions a certain chain has. Much easier to figure out when someone's
started a conversation.

I also cleaned up the chain display page. Now when you look at a chain page, a
chain link only shows up if it has a post with more than 10 letters. That way,
you can always read interesting content from other people without seeing blank
chain links.

Removed the not-safe-for-work chain from the front page. ;)

I've accentuated some little things. What do you all think about the redesign?

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vlad
Cool! Keep it up!

