I don't know what to work on today

I built a product whose job is to refuse you. There's a gate at the end of each phase, proofs you file to get through it, and push-back when what you filed doesn't count. On Wednesday I ran the numbers on everyone using it who isn't me.

Nine people have opened it on a morning with a live goal. Thirteen mornings between them, 16 August to 11 September. Nothing declared on any of them.

Nobody has reached the refusal. Outsiders have got as far as VALIDATION twice and have never opened BUILD. Every proof that was ever pushed back, and every phase cleared above that line, is mine.

The empty box

The morning is one field. It asks what you're doing today. The goal, the phase and the bar you're working against are already on the page when it renders.

My attention had been on the evening, where you have to produce something and where the product tells you it doesn't count. The evening only happens to people who got through the morning.

A declaration is the first thing in the day that can turn out to be wrong. Opening the app costs nothing. Reading your own goal back costs nothing. Typing talk to three people about the onboarding problem is a sentence you have to stand next to twelve hours later.

Planning never does that to you. I put the opposite of planning on the first screen, and then spent my time on the gate behind it.

The four who typed something

Four people outside my account have declared, once each, between 5 and 15 August. Four different people; nobody did it twice. Two produced a proof that evening and completed a day. The other two declared and never proved, and they're the only outsiders who have ended a day still owing one.

Neither of the two who completed a day came back the next.

Two people is two people. It isn't a retention rate and I'd be embarrassed to draw a curve through it. Nothing has been opened at all since 11 September.

The product says nothing to them, on purpose

There's a nudge that chases you in the evening when you declared something that morning and haven't filed a proof. It deliberately skips anyone who declared nothing. The rule is written down in the code: a day with no declaration has nothing to hold you to, and a notification that says you didn't start is the scolding this product refuses to do.

I still think that's right, and it means the thirteen mornings got silence. The people furthest from using the thing are the only ones it won't speak to. The obvious fix is to message them anyway, which is the exact behaviour the rule exists to prevent, so I haven't changed it yet.

I wrote a cleaner version of this

The first draft of my internal write-up opened with outside this account the morning has never once been used. It was false on its own page. Completing an evening requires a declaration to exist, so those two complete days are two mornings, used. They don't show up among the thirteen because they happened before the table that counts opens existed.

Six claims in that draft were wrong, or stronger than the numbers behind them. One said every open-day an outsider has ever had, over a table that only starts on 16 August. One asserted which account was mine, which the report can't print; it prints a flag on one row and I was reading the rest in.

Every one of the six made the finding cleaner than it was.

The same thing had already happened a day earlier at a larger scale. The first run counted me along with everyone else and reported 88% of mornings ending undeclared, which reads like a bad result with a bit of hope in it. All three of the declared mornings inside that 88% were mine. Taking myself out took the hope out with me.

What I can't tell you

I know where people leave. I don't know why.

There are at least three explanations, and they're three different products:

• the screen has too much on it, and the box isn't obviously the thing to do first
• they know what the box wants and can't get the day into a sentence
• the first night of a new idea is thin, and an honest declaration would look it

Those want a layout change, a wording change, and a change to what the first phase asks for. Nothing in the database separates them.

Nobody has ever sat next to someone while they open this on a morning. That's the next thing I'm doing, and I've written down what to record: the first thing they touch after the page renders, and the moment they close it.

If you recognise the box

Masterji is free, and the morning is the first thing it asks you for. If you open it and close it again without typing anything, that's a result and I'd rather have it than not.

If you'd rather not sign up, the question works on its own. What were you about to type, and what stopped you?