a week of flow

a Saturday night stream of conciousness about making so much progress this week

The competiton

Last weekend I learned about a competition that FlutterFlow is having to celebrate their 3 year anniversary. The theme was to reimagine an app or an app feature.

I went back and forth on whether or not Impulse Bye fit into the theme, and ultimately decided that it does. It reimagines what a money tracking app does. What its main purpose is. It’s not about tracking what you have spent and how much you have left. It’s about tracking what you didn’t. It’s about managing your impulse to spend money in exchange for dopamine and doodads. I like this bit of copy I wrote for my post in the forum:

It's built for those of us who spend just a little more than we mean to each month. Each time you add something you didn't buy, you'll see your total saved amount go up and up and up. Paired with a few journaling questions, adding things to this app (instead of your cart), will give you the space to practice being intentional with your spending.

The fears

Sharing my work, writing about it and what I want it to do and be, is fucking terrifying. Which seems so silly!

There’s a part of me that has the fairly common fear of being judged and judged negatively and being judged and deemed unfit to belong to the Group.

But there’s also a part of me with this fear that I think stems from ADHD. I’m afraid that I’ll post so enthusiastically and lovingly about something, and then forget about it. Like, just full on fucking forget. Not instantly, but in a few weeks or months. I guess the fear is still of judgement though - being judged for being so very much not single-minded.

The focus

I’ve been in flow for so much of this week. But I also rested when I needed rest. And I moved my body when it needed to generate energy through movement. And I kept cleaning when and what I could. And I did so much work on this silly little app. It’s totally possible that I worked on it more this past week than I did for the entirety of October.

And all it took to motivate and focus me? The tiniest sliver of hope to win $5000. That’s the first prize amount for the competition. I don’t think it’s likely that I’ll win, but thinking that I might is incredibly motivating. It motivated me to get so much work done in one week. It motivated me to share about Impulse Bye in the FlutterFlow community and on Indie Hackers.

I usually think I’m not motivated by money. But maybe that’s a narrative I need to let go of. Or maybe it wasn’t just the money. Maybe it was the urgency. Learning about the competition exactly one week before it ends. And knowing that if I got to MVP by then, I’d be that much closer to launching something before the end of the year.

The results

I’m still not done. There are a few more things I’d like to squeeze in before Monday night. And there’s also a weird search bug that started happening at some point today. But holy crap it looks so much better than it did a week ago.

I really need to start taking regular periodic screenshots so I can reflect on how far it’s come. That was the original idea for this newsletter, so maybe it’ll start now.

The main list screen, now with a receipt-like style instead of cards, and a ticket/carbon receipt inspired form. I also moved the pep talk to this screen - it shows up when you start typing with whatever motivational message you give it. The in old pep talk screen now shows your total saved amount increase by whatever you just added.

The detail page. Not much actually changed on this page. The biggest difference is that the labels are hidden for statuses and desire levels that aren’t selected. I also changed it so that when you first add an item and get to this screen, you don’t see the date, cost, and status fields. I wanted to bring the journal entries more into focus, and theoretically you wouldn’t want to update any of those things so immediately.

The final push

Just about 48 hours left before submissions close. I need to refine some things (or maybe even remove search for now, or make a duplicate and remove search?). I need to record a walk through. And I’d like to make a landing page. Although that can be done after Monday. Just in case the right eyes start seeing Impulse Bye.

✌🏽+💗,
SJ

instagram: @themostawful