GitJournal October Update

Wow, it’s been a crazy month. October just flew by. I’ve barely managed to make progress on so many parts. I overall feel like October has been far too messy, I’m still figuring out the path forward, and I’ll share more details soon.

For October my goals were -

1. Revenue: 750 €

2. Payment via Website

Here are the numbers -

I reached 687.42€ and with an extra 11€ as donations makes it about 700€ (↑48%). I might have made it to 750€, but I’ve lost a good 80€ to a payment bug in the code, which I still haven’t managed to fix.

Sadly the second goal of the enabling payments via the website still hasn’t been finished. I’ve now mostly figured out the backend architecture of GitJournal and I’ll be rolling out the concept of a “GitJournal Account” early next week.

The main benefit is that you’ll only need to pay once, instead of having to purchase it separately on Android / iOS / Desktop (soon).

Even though I reached fairly close to my revenue goal, I feel as though this month has been quite bad. Progress has been quite slow (health issues), but at the same time I’m thrilled about the revenue growth in a less productive month. This has led to me introspect on how GitJournal as a project is being managed, specifically how I manage my time and energy and decide which tasks to do.

Most teams operate in sprints. You plan out tasks for a few weeks and then you execute them. This doesn’t always work for me. Depending on how my energy levels are that day and how motivated I’m feeling I find it easier to do some tasks vs other. I broadly divide these tasks based on three different factors - Creativity, Unknowns and Experience.

Tasks where little creativity is required, a few unknowns, and in my area of expertise are the easiest. Depending on my energy level and mood I can make myself do other kind of tasks, but this month has been a low energy month and I’ve mostly gravitated towards these low-energy tasks.

These changes are mostly related to one under the hood effort that has already being going on for weeks which is having native Git support. Once I finish this you can expect faster development (more features coming out), the application will be snappier and it will mark a before and after for the stability of GitJournal

Other important tasks like Documentation, Marketing, and Customer Support have fallen through the cracks.

November Goals

I’ve decided to focus less on revenue this month, and try to lay a better foundation for future growth.

1. Revenue: 800 €
2. Implement a better task management system

I badly need to figure out a better way of assigning tasks, keeping track of them and what to do when a certain task is proving to be too difficult or I just cannot make myself do it. My current approach has been to just try harder. But willpower only works up to a certain point. It’s better to have proper systems in place.

GitJournal is not a small project and it needs better management. I plan to share the processes I decide to use and maybe even try to measure the progress in some way to see if the system is working.

I would love to hear about any ideas of how to find a flexible systems which take personal energy levels and motivation into account. Especially when you’re just a one person team.