✴️ How I'm Making... #25

Author

Ben Jang
November 17, 2024

I’ve been at home this week. Going back home made me realize that I prefer who I am when I’m working.

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✏️ Summary

  • It’s okay to be protective of your time

  • It’s okay to say ‘no’

  • It’s okay to be different

Protect your time, protect your future

I've been thinking about time recently. Since starting this journey into entrepreneurship, I've become more and more impatient with my time.

I may not spend every moment working, but I really dislike wasting time on things that don't interest me. I've gotten pretty good at managing my schedule, carefully choosing how I spend my time, which lets me enjoy my free moments however I want. Maybe it's just that these moments are rare, so I make sure to protect them and use them thoughtfully.

The way you spend your time determines what you change about your life. If you spend your days socializing, you get better at talking to people. If you spend your time drinking, you build up an alcohol tolerance. If you spend your time working on your goals and dreams, you pull them closer to reality.

Spending your days exactly how you want might seem selfish, but think about the other extreme: a life dictated by others' demands, where your dreams fade into the background.

Learn to say “no”

Being protective of your time means you will have to learn to say ‘no’.

Right now, you spend your time doing something. If you want to do other things, you have to stop the things you currently do. This sounds obvious, but can feel very strange. To me it felt like I was doing something wrong, and making a much bigger change than I really was.

Saying no is really the first step to making a change. We all have the same 24 hours. Substitute, don’t add.

Be who you really are

When you decide to make a change, you will see some resistance - friends, family, even your partner might not approve of your new habits.

Pay them no mind. It’s your life, your future, your goals. When you’re 50, will you be happier that you gave your goals an honest shot? Or happier that you didn’t upset this person? Expect the resistance, but don’t stop being who you need to be in order to make your reality match your dreams.

🔗 Progress Update

Feedback is King.

I really loved the graph view of the sentences, but it’s clear now that it isn’t actually that useful.

So with the next few iterations, I will be going all-in on the sentence flow feature.

There’s a lot of information on these cards.

  • The colour of the card - how relevant the sentence is to the rest of the paragraph

  • The colour of the connection - how well each sentence block flows into the next

  • The indicator on the top right of each card - reading grade level of each sentence

I find that having bite-sized cards I can play around with really helps me hash out ideas. Plus, I can integrate AI into this feature set in a modular way - without disrupting the user flow.

Exciting days ahead!

What’s Next?

It’s build, test, build, test! I have thoughts on how to add tasteful AI to the app that isn’t lazy generation. Something that is actually helpful to writers.

That’s all for now!

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Ben | X