Alright, let’s talk about what I call “monica season 1”. This wasn’t some fancy TV show, just my own name for the first real crack I took at sorting out my project mess a while back.
Getting Started
Everything felt chaotic. I had notes scattered everywhere – on my desk, in different apps, some probably lost forever. Juggling work stuff, personal projects, even just remembering to buy milk felt like a full-time job. I figured I needed a system, something simple just for me. Not those big, complicated tools everyone pushes. So, I thought, why not try building a basic thing myself? That was the start of “monica season 1”.
First thing, I grabbed a notebook. Yeah, actual paper. I just wrote down the absolute basic things I needed to track:
- What the task is.
- When it’s roughly due.
- A simple way to mark it done.
That’s it. Seriously basic. I didn’t want fancy features, just clarity.
The Messy Middle
I decided to try putting together a super simple web page thing. Something I could just run locally on my machine. I knew a bit of HTML, some CSS to make it not look terrible, and a tiny bit of JavaScript to make things happen, like ticking off a task. I wasn’t aiming for perfection, just something usable.
So, I started coding. Spent a few evenings just tinkering. It was slow going. Things broke. Stuff didn’t line up right. I remember getting really stuck on just saving the tasks. Tried local storage first. Worked okay-ish, but felt clunky. Then I thought maybe a simple file? Got complicated fast. It was frustrating. I almost gave up a couple of times.
I realized I was trying to be too clever. Went back to my original list. Simple. Simple. Simple. I stripped out some ideas I’d added along the way – like categories and priorities. Just the task, the due date (optional, I decided later), and a done button.
Got a very rough version working. Started actually using it for my own tasks. It was ugly, not gonna lie. And buggy. Sometimes tasks would disappear. Sometimes the done button wouldn’t work right. But, I kept using it and fixing the bits that annoyed me the most each day. Little tweaks here and there.
What Came Out of Season 1
So, after maybe a month or so of on-and-off tinkering, “monica season 1” was… well, it existed. It was this barebones webpage that kinda sorta worked. It definitely wasn’t polished. It wasn’t something I’d show anyone else, really.
But you know what? It forced me to learn. I learned what I actually needed day-to-day was much simpler than the complicated mess I first imagined. I learned building even basic tools takes way more effort than you think. And I learned that just starting, even if it’s messy, is better than waiting for the perfect plan.
Did I keep using it long-term? Honestly, no. It served its purpose for that specific period when I was overwhelmed. Eventually, I found a simpler rhythm, and the need for my clunky tool faded. I called it “season 1” because I knew it was just a first attempt, a learning phase. Maybe there’ll be a “season 2” someday, maybe not. But the experience itself? Yeah, that was worth it.
