The mind that climbed everest can't start the laundry.
The same species that deigned the spacecraft for the moon landing stays up thinking about something that was said 9 years ago.
The same mind that creates these amazing melodies falls victim to watching 20 reels of cats getting scared by cucumber.
I dont think this is a glitch, I think this is how we were designed.
The moment the stakes are not real we are likely to lose the focus we previously had. We consider things like jobs, relationships, and building a legacy to be meaningful, but for most things we just don't think about it.
The ancient Greeks captured the feeling of doing a task that has no end or positive outcome but is repetitively done as Sisyphus. Camus didn't think of it as punishment but rather as the human experience. Every end of day has no real ending. Just another day.
Building Uphill has made me think about a lot of different things - a to-do app where you literally push tasks to the top of the screen to complete them and feel resistance on how “heavily” you’ve weighted them. No badges, No #count of tasks completed today, No graphs. May be sometimes a notification that says “The universe is 13.8 billion years old. Your deadline is Tuesday.”
We are not supposed to compete with yesterday all the time. Sometimes its better to just do the work.
Nice link between Greek philosophy and Building!
Thank you... Orrdee :)
Any mention of Ancient Greece is like catnip to me. Great post 🙌
Intrigued to see how you get on with Uphill, hope it goes well. The oblique notification feature really cool btw 👌
I am glad you like the concept of oblique notifications... just getting started with the app... hope it helps people.
This is interesting — especially the framing around “uphill.”
It made me think about something I’ve been exploring recently:
most products try to reduce friction, but some experiences actually become more engaging when you reframe effort itself as part of the reward loop.
Like turning progress into something slightly unpredictable or game-like instead of purely linear.
I’m curious —
have you thought about whether making parts of the journey less deterministic (vs fully structured) could actually increase engagement?
Or does that go against the core philosophy you’re building with?
"Great minds think alike".. I was thinking the exact same way while building this.
here is how I see it, after spending so much time on the internet in the last 2 decades (just writing this makes me feel old). Somewhere, the conscious part of the society has started to lean away from the "engagement" itself. I would be lying to you if I say, "this app is not for engagement, its just for getting things done" because thats not how our minds work. We want something to measure our efforts against. However, if I let too much engagement in the app, then the essence of absurdism will be lost.
Somewhere, in the struggle to figure out things, I came up with the idea of "Uphill Buddy" feature, which pairs the user with another user. This is one way I am trying to keep the engagement and spirit of competition alive. But for now, it only shares the count of tasks completed.
Honestly, this is an extremely difficult balancing act of decision making, how much of engagement should be introduced and how much should it still be rooted in absurdism.
I would to hear from you, have you used a product or came across one which maintains this balance fairly well?
What was the idea/feature/concept that made you feel, that the product is still on your side?
P.S.: While writing this, thought a little about closed leaderboards. A group of people competing with each other, without the display of competition to the world. But it would still be just numbers, no shares, no likes or such. I am hesitant on badges as a winning gift. Wait, may be a fading badge, like in life. I'll think about it some more.
I was really hooked by the headline, the inspiring phrase. Good luck with your app!
Thank you Balyberdin.. :)
That’s an interesting way of thinking.
It really makes me think.
That’s an interesting way of thinking.
It really makes me think.