First post on Indie Hackers! Here we go:
Yesterday I burnt a big chunk of the day trying out a bunch of different calendar apps. I've been using Google Cal religiously for what I'd consider to be pretty intense daily time blocking for the better part of a year now, but it just feels like it isn't optimized for the way that I'm aiming to use it. I like to really schedule my day down to minutes, even when I'm just getting tasks done on my own. Google Cal isn't great for this because (1) it doesn't have enough precision on the UI side, and (2) creating and reordering sub 15 min tasks with it is a real chore. Finally got fed up and decided to try a bunch of other calendars hoping to find one solid enough to switch over to. Spent the day combing through them, but none of the options had what I was looking for as far as I could tell.
Eventually, after going through enough of the different alternatives, I just gave up. Accepted the fact that I wasn't going to find what I was looking for and decided that I'd build my own as a side project. Have been a lurker on here for a little while now, and liked the idea of posting about it both to get advice and to keep myself accountable. Excited to jump in. First step is going to be ironing out the initial concept through writing, and then from there, I'm going to do some research as to what might be a viable tech stack for this (...low code?!). Wish me luck :D
I have been through the same painful attempt at finding something that can solve for timeblocking, specifically.
None did the job adequately (although I am curious about https://butleroy.com but they never got back to me), and even if they were okish as a calendar (like Fantastical), they didn't integrate well with tasks.
In the end I went for Ticktick, as its calendar handling is quite good. There are lots of little pain points and annoyances with Ticktick in general, but for timeblocking and connecting a task, its duration, it's due date, time spent on it, and visualizing it on a calendar, nothing comes else I've found comes close to Ticktick.
I'd be happy to alpha/beta test at some point, depending on what direction your development goes :)
Good luck!
Thanks! And sweet! it's great to hear that I'm not the only one out there that this was bugging :)
Will definitely check out butleroy. And I actually used Ticktick too for a bit a while back-- also thought it was a great product. Probably a good amount to learn from it. And will definitely keep you in mind come beta time :)
Good luck! I'm a bit of a calendar nerd, too. I don't share this exact pain point, but I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
One of my first startups built calendaring tools, roughly between 2006 and 2008. At the time, we found that space very difficult to monetize. A lot has changed since then, and hopefully that's one of the things that has changed!
Noted, thanks!