

Remember that Lifehacker post about Seinfeld's productivity secret? I made a small site based on it. - brett
http://dontbreakthechain.com/

======
brett
The post: [http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-
pr...](http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret-281626.php)

I tried a paper calendar on my wall for a few days after I read that. Then I
decided this was a good chance to do something in python which I've been
looking to learn.

Looks like palish is working on something based on the same post:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45374>

~~~
byrneseyeview
Nice.

Feature request: could you offer more than one chain? Chains that aren't daily
(e.g. if you're in sales, it wouldn't make much sense to expect the same quota
for Wednesday as for Sunday)?

~~~
brett
Yeah. I've been thinking about how to best add more than one chain since I
started. My main concern is making sure that at any time you can single click
on a day with an unambiguous result (viz. it toggles color). So far I'm
thinking some sort of tabbish view where you only see one chain at a time.

Adding non daily chains is something to think about.

~~~
ph0rque
Brett,

Here's a suggestion for non-daily chains: say I want to work out twice a week.
I can set that property (somehow) in the chain name, and when I work out on
Monday and market it on the calendar on Monday, it will have mon-wed marked
off. Obviously, there's a problem with fractions, but it should work.

------
palish
Oh snap. You sneaky sneaky. We might just have to launch tonight instead of
tomorrow. Well played!

I really like how you've kept it drop-dead simple. Our site offers a little
more social-wise, so I'm sure there will be plenty of people who prefer your
application. Great design!

~~~
brett
Thanks. And thanks for inspiring me to get it out. I look forward to seeing
what you are working on.

~~~
palish
<http://www.cha1n.com>

------
bootload
_".. 500 - Error Opps broke the chain Whoops. Looks like something actually
did get broken. ..."_

Damn... I broke it. Nice error message though ~
<http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/1218317738/>

    
    
     - created user account
     - logged in 
     - clicked on 2 successive days after today
     - they went red
     - clicked 'last 4 weeks'
     - barfed
     - now 500 on every login
    

~~~
brett
Nice. Thanks. Should be fixed now.

I kept thinking that I should disable being able to toggle days after today
because it did not provide any utility. It could have helped out in this case.

~~~
bootload
_"... Nice. Thanks. Should be fixed now. ..."_

Thanks brett, checked it, works.

_"... I kept thinking that I should disable being able to toggle days after
today because it did not provide any utility ..."_

so I shouldn't have been able to click the days after today? Oh also found
another PIA which is going to require a bit of a login detail. I'm Aus and
close to the date line. Today, now is 2007AUG241154 meaning I'm working
yesterday.

Any chance of making the default time format GMT, UTC ? Should allow everyone
to be on the same page OR you'll have to (probably have to anyway) modify
users time by selecting location then adjusting the date-time to the user
location.

~~~
brett
"so I shouldn't have been able to click the days after today?"

No, I did not get to that. I just fixed it so that if all the days you've
clicked are after today (PST) then it does not try to calculate the streak of
days between today and the beginning of time.

And yeah, I was just lazy to not include timezones. I should fix that.

~~~
euccastro
I have no idea if this is possible, but what about trying to read the timezone
settings in the host computer with Javascript, rather than asking the user to
set that?

~~~
bootload
_"... I have no idea if this is possible, ..."_

Either do I but it would be just as easy to add a login, select timezone &
store that, but then if you take a plane from foo to bar and your zones change
you have to change it again.

This is a good idea btw. And I have looked at calendar apps in the past. The
big PIA is time-syncing in with where you are at the moment.

~~~
brett
Okay. It _should_ now pick up your timezone via js. Unfortunately right now
you won't notice it until the second request. I could have js refresh the page
when it detects that the tz needs to be set/changed, but I don't want to do
that until I am totally certain it cannot end up in an infinite refresh loop.

~~~
bootload
_"... The big PIA is time-syncing in with where you are at the moment ..."_

Though I was thinking this fails if your machine has the wrong time.

_"... It should now pick up your timezone via js ..."_

and you can use this to check against user preferences in TZ. I'll be checking
the src how you do this. Difficult to find out how?

~~~
brett
JSTZ_OFFSET gets set by the backend from the session:

    
    
     var offset = new Date().getTimezoneOffset() / 60
     if(offset != parseInt(JSTZ_OFFSET)){
       new Ajax.Request("/jstz/" + offset);
     }
    
    
    

~~~
bootload
thanks for the code sample. didn't know JS had a date object. then again there
are lot of things I don't know ...

------
adamdoupe
Pretty nifty, I must have missed the initial post. Now I have something to
motivate me to workout daily. And something to haunt me when I consider
marking my alcohol intake (in this case, you don't want to start a chain).

------
djonesx
That's awesome! Wow.

I have a new home/start page in my browser, and I NEVER normally use a start
page!

Please keep it as simple as it is now! Its beautiful! If you must add new
features, please hide them away so as not to clutter it.

------
abrown
I like it. One nitpick is that when you go to the login page the cursor does
not default to the login field. This is kind of expected behavior.

Anyway, pretty useful little app. Thanks!

Edit: Feature added, rock on.

~~~
brett
Thanks. Should be fixed.

------
jsjenkins168
Thanks for doing this! I actually printed out calendars and have been making
X's but this is so much cooler...

------
Alex3917
I like it. I added it as a link in my Firefox bookmarks bar. Definitely needs
to support multiple chains though. Instead of multiple tabs, I think it would
be best just to have a column of color blocks with the name of the chain on
the right hand side of the page. Then when you clicked on a color that chain
would be displayed.

~~~
brett
I think you're on to something. nickb's comment about iCal had me thinking
along the same lines.

------
joshwa
Ah, datablogging. I did something similar back when I was jobhunting, to track
how many resumes went out (and how many responses received):

<http://joshwand.com/php/jobsearch2.php>

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henning
after you've read the lifehacker post for this, the app is completely self-
explanatory just by looking at the interface and clicking a few days.

i'm impressed, and i'm a jaded snob who is totally cynical about web 2.0 crap.

------
paulgb
I like the iGoogle widget, this is something I could actually use.

~~~
brett
At first I just tried to use the site itself as my homepage. I missed iGoogle.

~~~
paulgb
Actually, that's not a bad idea. I don't use iGoogle as a homepage anyway, I
found that too distracting so I switched to something less boring (it
backfired, now I am in the habit of opening iGoogle as soon as I open the new
browser window anyway), but making this a homepage would remind me without
distracting me.

------
djonesx
Although it does need a user timezone setting. It thinks its Thursday, when
its actually Friday here in Australia! Threw me for a moment there!

~~~
brett
Definitely. I knew I was going to get a comment on that.

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samson
This is quite nice, i like the look that it has on iGoogle.

P.S does anyone have a link to info on creating widgets for igoogle.

~~~
brett
<http://www.google.com/apis/gadgets/>

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mattjaynes
LOVE the simplicity! Great job! And extra kudos for the iGoogle widget!

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eusman
interesting! but one detail: the advice talks about a chain created by X. So,
it should look like XXXXX but in the app it's red boxes not connected...

~~~
euccastro
I like the red boxes better. Big chunks of those are easier to recognize as a
block.

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puneetht
how about allowing me to track more than one project (i.e chain). Nice work.

