The Microsoft Office bundle kickstarted the revolution of office productivity. While its products weren’t revolutionary, grouping them together was. I believe we are in the same situation with software designed for our personal life. There are tools for journaling, meta tools like Notion, and Calendar apps but they don’t communicate with each other.
If we were to build a new suite it has to start from first principles. What does it mean to have a productive life? Decades of happiness research spanning more than 50 years suggest that productivity is not just about ticking off tasks on a checklist. Rather, it’s a sense of belonging and engaging in regular physical activity that correlate strongly with happiness.
Imagine a tool that helps you maintain healthy habits, keep in touch with loved ones, and journal your thoughts – a tool that feels as natural as talking with a friend. I believe a lot more people would journal if they would be able to have their ideas documented without the need to use a text editor.
The Habit Tracker
Take the Habit Tracker as the first element of this personal productivity suite. Picture an app where you can set daily reminders to exercise, read, or engage in activities that help you improve. You can visualize your progress on a dashboard reminiscent of Health.app, motivating you to maintain your streaks.
The Habit Tracker should also have a place to browse habits. For example, you could import “Wim Hoff’s Breathing Techniques” into your Morning Routine schedule.
Personal CRM
The Personal Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, is an idea sparked by Sivers’ queue system for managing connections. This tool keeps you aware of important dates such as birthdays and anniversaries, ensuring you never miss a special moment.
Imagine each contact as a unique file, populated with a history of interactions. It’s not just a digital address book but a record of shared experiences, conversations, and milestones.
What makes this tool unique is its reflective feature. It prompts you to review your recent encounters on a weekly or monthly basis, asking questions like ‘Why is this person important to you?’ This encourages you to cherish the relationships in your life and recognize their value.
Moreover, the CRM has a feature that takes your conversations to a deeper level. It provides interesting questions inspired by A. Aron’s study on Interpersonal Closeness. For instance, ‘Would you like to be famous? In what way?’ These prompts can help cultivate more meaningful dialogues.
The CRM tool is also an experience guide, offering ‘quests’ to help you interact with your contacts in new and unexpected ways. For example, activating ‘Chance Encounters’ could prompt you to invite a friend, randomly selected by the app, on a trip one year from now. It’s like having an App Store for experiences, turning routine interactions into spontaneous adventures.
Diary
This isn’t just any diary. You don’t even have to write in it, as it’s automatically populated with artefacts from the Habit Tracker and Contacts.
The personal suite principles
Such a deeply personal suite is first and foremost about data privacy. If you are using it every day you shouldn’t have to think about what would happen if someone had access to it. Conversely, there is a theoretical risk that the company or open-source collective behind it could cease operations or lose interest. However, you should still be able to access it 20 years down the line.
To do that, the database should be obvious. You could theoretically use the app without interacting with its UI. It uses Markdown or an interoperable system, like Joel’s Block system
Data should be stored locally or synced with your existing providers (ex, Dropbox or iCloud)