DO a Thing - Build momentum by sharing atomic habits

Build momentum by tracking atomic habits with your team. Meet people by joining in easily. Set reminders to get started and build consistency by tracking progress. Inspire each other by sharing wins.

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Inspiration

At the beginning of 2022, I wanted to learn how to write better. I found a class that puts people in groups of 30 with a common goal of publishing 250 words per day.

I lost my job the same week my class started.

I booked a ton of interviews and I was disappointed they would conflict with the class.

The first meeting of my class, I shared that I was overwhelmed and I felt I wouldn't get any value because I was too busy. A 73 year-old quickly responded sharing his story on how he had always tried to write online, but struggled for years. The class gave him the tools he needed and the support of the group carried him forward each day.

He suggested to me, while holding a sticky note in hand (with the intent to write something down), to choose ONE way to improve each week. That’s what he’s been doing and it was working.

I was really inspired by him and it made me think, it’s been awhile since I have had that feeling.

Adam Grant said it best in his Ted talk, How to stop languishing and start finding flow

I wasn't depressed. I still had hope. Wasn't burned out, had energy. Wasn't lonely, I was with my family. I just felt a little bit aimless and a little bit joyless. Eventually, I remembered there's a name for that feeling: languishing.

Being inspired helped me stop languishing and gave me the desire to DO things. That’s when I knew I wanted to build something to carry my experience into the workplace.

A place to rally around each other doing simple things to get inspired and stop languishing.

What it does

DO a Thing helps teams build momentum by sharing atomic habits.

Drink water, learn something new, publish 250 words per day, outbound calls, 1% improvement everyday, attempt hard tasks, exercise, inbox zero, daily focus, or 1 hour of being disconnected.

It works by letting anyone join in on a “thing” you want to do. Reminders are created for regular check-ins (or an extra nudge) to build consistency

How I built it

Once I figured out what I wanted to do, building it was the easy part. I’ve been making Slack apps for over 7 years.

I was able to tap into some of the core features I built for my other apps. I spent the last month or so, slowly refactoring code and making libraries so that it was easier to reuse for DO a Thing.

Challenges I ran into

I really struggled with messaging.

I didn’t want it to be a task manager, but no matter what I did, it kept going back to that. It was really hard to find a message that worked to communicate what the tool was meant to do. I had about 10 iterations before I landed on something I was happy enough with. The tool needed to be simple, yet a powerful way to join together to build consistency.

Another challenge was getting it all finished. In the final week before the due date I had planned to devote an entire week to polishing my app.

However, lots of other good things kept happening to me that took me away from it. A very promising opportunity to work for a company came along. There was no way to reschedule, so I had to do a ton of interviews for them, I even canceled another final round at another company. Near the end of the week, another company extended me an offer and I had to balance that. The combination of the 3 things ended up taking 3 of the 4 days I had planned to work on DO a Thing.

Luckily, I had done enough earlier, I was able to get it done in time by cramming about 30 hours on Friday and Saturday (I know, not healthy, but I really wanted to submit something).

Accomplishments that I’m proud of

I’m excited that I was able to build something I’ve always wanted to make.

In 2015, I built a habit tracker that I still use today, along with 100 or so users. Lots of them have contacted me over the years asking for a way to share their habits. Since then, I’ve always wanted to make a collaborative habit tracking experience.

The main issue with my habit tracker was it’s hard to accomplish goals and habits by yourself. It’s so easy to dismiss when you’re only accountable to yourself. Sometimes all it takes is someone else to report to.

I feel like I’ve finally made something I’ve always wanted to do and Slack made that possible!

What I learned

I keep learning this lesson over and over again. The most important thing to achieving your goals is getting started. After that it’s staying consistent.

I got to dive deeper into the Slack experience. I’ve been a longtime fan, and it just keeps getting better. It’s been super fun to be able to release apps with ease and have so much reach and potential. I’m super stoked to see if people will use Do a Thing to be inspired in the same way I was with the 73 year old man.

What's next for DO a Thing

After the Hackathon, I plan to fix a few more things and bring on a few organizations for early testing. After that, I’ll submit it to the world in the Slack app store!

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