Bardo

Almost 600 commits, lots of conversations, hundreds of hours later I’m proud to introduce Bardo for everyone to use.

Since Bardo has been on my mind for almost 10 years I started working on the first versions of it around 2017. There has been a lot of talking. Talking to people, talking about the idea, and sometimes talking to myself while I fixed a bug, again.

Everything changed around January when I told myself that I will spend the next three months committing to only work on Bardo and blocking everything else.

I liked the way Jonnie used the Cushion Blog as a journal to reflect on his work on Cushion. Decisions but also everything related to the product. That’s why I’m also introducing a Journal which will soon contain what’s and what was on my mind while working on Bardo. Since I’m a productivity nerd myself, I’m always trying to be more productive. Well, … build your own project management tool without being a productivity nerd.

Over the past few years, I learned, that this could backfire if you are already disciplined. You start micromanaging yourself with yet another routine that won’t fit your way of working. Because CEOs of top 500 companies, or your favorite YouTuber do it, it doesn’t mean it will benefit you.

I also felt this way while working with teams since I started working as a designer and developer. Processes looked fancy in a book or Medium post. If the company behind the book has 500 or 50.000 employees but you are a team of five, fancy post-its, recurring meetings, and methodologies probably aren’t the right way for you to work.

Why Bardo?

Like I mentioned already, I tried routines that weren’t mine, new things I didn’t know how to apply. Why also building another project management tool? Because I want to build something that enables individuals and teams to do their best work and remove uncertainty. Bardo should do exactly that, it will reflect for and with you. It will learn from your past, so you can too.

You are very welcome to try it: https://bardoapp.com