Projects & Progress Bars
I have so many projects on the go but I get overwhelmed with them very easily. I am not a programmer or developer and I know very little code. But recently I vibe coded a health management app that lives locally on my computer and it has been working really well for me. It tracks my calories and exercise per day and even has a little coaching button which helps me maintain motivation. I prefer using a local first approach and am trying to move away from commercial apps and trackers as much as possible. So now that AI can help me build custom apps I'm going to go that route.
I use Obsidian pretty extensively for note-taking and organization and I've decided that I'll build an Obsidian project plugin. I have a Cursor subscription so I'll use Composer 2.5. I would use Opus 4.8 if I could but I tapped out my API this month on my health management app. Composer 2.5 should work okay if I use an incremental process and keep it on track with very specific prompts. I downloaded the code from Github for a sample plugin and now I can point Cursor toward that folder and tell it to help me build the foundations so I can build up from there.
The real challenge is getting the system architecture right and planning out how I want it to work and how I need it to support me. My hope is to have it create a dynamic dashboard that can generate progress bars for each component of each project. It should also be able to track and analyze actual time that it can compare to the estimated time that I've given to the project. I am notorious for underestimating how long things will take. I'm usually way, way off. It's one of my major challenges. So right off the bat I can program it to add 30% to any time estimate I give any project. I'll also put in a time analysis of what is going on in the rest of my life so it can realistically generate time frames that work around my lifestyle so I can avoid getting overwhelmed and burnt out.
I have learned a lot over the years about what works for me and what doesn't. I've worked with a lot of the productivity frameworks out there to help me get things done and I've found two aspects of goal setting that have always frustrated me. One is breaking tasks down small enough to keep me from getting overwhelmed and the other is holding the overall project in my head so I can always have an idea of where I am at with it and where I want to go. I need to be able to re-orient myself when I return to a project after I get busy with other things. So the most important aspects of it are to have a visual dashboard with progress bars for all levels of a project and its tasks. These views would be dynamically generated from an editable markdown note that lives in each project folder.
The other thing would be to use an LLM to help me break projects down into smaller and smaller steps so it's easy to get them done over the long term. There has always been a catch 22 in doing this. I know breaking things down into tiny steps works for me but then I end up losing the thread of the overall project which causes me to lose motivation. The dynamic views and project bars should help me with this. The visual overview of what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what the very next step is should help keep me on track. It would be nice also if I could have a master view that pulls the top level progress bar from each individual project .md note so I can have an overall view of my entire project base. These could also be made clickable so I can easily click into each project from the master dashboard.
For the LLM I would prefer that it be local. I have been messing around with local LLMs on LM studio and I know I can use a small Qwen model through a local server that can work directly in an Obsidian side bar. I can use this to chat my way out of overwhelm and get me back on track. I could even have a "Re-orient" button that will bring up this interface and have the LLM automatically run an analysis that gives me a quick summary of where I am at and what the next step is. The app should also be responsive to my energy levels and real life. There can be a main markdown note that has my schedule and ongoing commitments so the LLM can help me make better choices about time frames and priorities.
Overall the app will serve as a cognitive prosthesis that is very specific to me and my needs that a commercial app could never replicate. This reminds me of that poem by Richard Brautigan "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace." When I first read that poem I was disturbed by it but now I realize I am already a cyborg and I use machines all the time to support my functioning in the world. I still think it's a bit creepy though. As a Gen Xer I grew up on a steady diet of dystopian tech-noir so it's hard to think of a machine as a benevolent god that will watch over me while I graze peacefully in a utopian meadow! But I can certainly say technology is incredibly useful and has been pretty life-enhancing for me personally even as I watch it break apart our society in ways that I find chilling. We are living in an age of extremes.