Do The Thing (thing.do) Origin Story
On July 14th, 2016, I was being pretty hard on myself.
Normally a Vancouverite, I was sitting in my July-in-Montreal sublet adventure—on the rickety balcony with the plants and the view of the brick buildings—and I was staring at my screen.
I had a website coding deadline for a client.
I didn’t want to do it.
That’s not right. I wanted to do it, but I just… couldn’t. All I had in me that day was staring, not doing.
“Well this is silly,” I told myself. “I’m a productivity nerd. I’ve lectured friends about productivity a thousand times. I know how to do this. In fact, I could write out the steps to do this and then follow those steps.” (I love lists and steps.)
Before I knew it, I had written out an (unpublished) blog post.
Was I then ready to do the thing? No, I had more procrastination left in me. “It would be better if I had a web page that walked me through doing these steps, carrying the info forward to each step, giving me a timer, etc. Then I will be able to focus on my work easily.” (I have excellent procrastination logic.)
For the rest of the day, I brushed up on my Javascript skills and I made one page that made going through my steps a breeze.
I set the timer to 25 minutes, a standard Pomodoro sprint. I still just couldn’t. The thought of even the “doing nothing” step was too much.
I told myself, “Ok, 10 minutes or bust.” I changed the timer to 10 minutes and you know what? I finished my original task in that 10 minutes.
That’s the day that the very first version of this tool was born.
Many iterations later, in January 2018 I launched the adorable version you see now. Featuring the UX of Anton at WP Developer Pro and the illustration & graphic design skills of Leanne Padgett. Yes that is a cartoon me that she created. ^_^
Curious to hear more about my process? You just read Part 1. Read more on my maker blog, starting with Part 2
Is This An App? A Website? What Is This?
Technically it’s a thing called a web app, but that gets confused with phone apps. This is not a phone app — yet. It could become one in the future.
So for now I’m going to call it a web tool or a website.
Whatever it is, I’d love to hear how it helps you. Join our Facebook community
About Jill Binder
At the time of making this tool, I was doing WordPress coding freelancing for agencies. I am no longer doing any web work or any coding. Since 2019, I have been doing my business Diverse In Tech full-time. This includes running the Diverse Speaker Training group (#WPDiversity) in the WordPress Community Team.
I was voted runner-up for the 2020 BraveIT Award, featured as a Person of WordPress on WordPress.org in 2019, named one of the top 100 Influencers of WordPress in 2014 by Torque Magazine, and listed one of the top 10 Women of WordPress by CloudWays.
I’m also a productivity nerd. Let’s talk productivity in the thing.do community!
This is my first web app (web tool). (Like it? You can buy me a coffee! ❤️ )