I can't quite believe that it's the end of the year already! To keep my yearly tradition, I am sitting down to reflect on how 2025 went for me, and what are the things that I am planning to work on and improve next year.

Some things went great this year, while others not so much. In some ways this was the hardest year for me in a very long time, but more on that later.

Working on Timelines

In terms of work, I continued working on my indie time tracking app Timelines. I have released several major new versions, bringing features and improvements that users have been requesting for years, such as combined goals, easier tracking of subcategories, exporting to calendars, and more.

Revenue grew 33% year over year, which I am super excited about and grateful for. Because I was mostly focusing on improving the product, I was neglecting a bit working on other things that are necessary for growing the app. That's what I want to focus more on next year.

One huge blow during the summer was iOS 26 and the Liquid Glass redesign. I really hated it at first. It took quite a lot of work to support it properly. I'd say at this point I learned to accept it, but it's still refreshing to use apps that still have the iOS 18 look.

My main takeaways from this year in terms of work are:

• I need to focus more on monetization, marketing, online presence, and in general growing the app. I feel like there is still so much untapped potential. The app itself is in a really good place now, so it's time to focus on other things.
• For features that require a lot of focused effort, I need to carve out these long uninterrupted blocks of focused time, because otherwise things tend to drag on for a very long time.
• I need to avoid the temptation of implementing helper web services. This year I spent a lot of time on server-side purchase analytics and self-hosted newsletter, and in hindsight I am not sure if it was worth it.

Trips and conferences

I feel like in hindsight I could've been travelling more, but I am really glad for the trips and conferences that I attended.

In March I went for a week of cycling in Mallorca. Then in May I attended iOSKonf in Skopje (North Macedonia). This was definitely one of the best conferences I've ever been to. I was blown away by the care and effort the organizers put into it, and grateful for all the people that I met there.

A friend of mine was getting married, so in September I attended a wedding in Spain. I loved the atmosphere of it, and it was great to see again many of the friends that I met in Prague throughout the years, at the coworking space where I work.

Then in late September I attended MicroConf in Istanbul. This was my first time attending a business-focused conference, and I really enjoyed it! It was fascinating and inspiring to meet so many successful SaaS founders there, and the talks were also spot on, giving us lots of ideas what to work on. Also, it was great to meet in person many friends that I've known online for years.

Other updates and reflections

As is my tradition in these yearly review blog posts, I always try to also reflect on how I felt throughout the year. I must say that mentally, this year was one of the hardest for me in a long time. My parents' divorce and the related legal battles and custody battles for a family pet was making me really anxious, worried, frustrated, feeling helpless. I don't mean to go into more details, but I'm really disappointed with the outcome as well. At the end of the day though, there is only so much I can do, and some things I just need to let go because it is not in my power, nor it is my responsibility to somehow fix them (trust me, I tried).

In November and December I got sick several times, and that made it hard to keep some consistent habits. My overall regime suffered, I didn't really exercise regularly. Even now in the last few days I was sick yet again. Getting and staying healthy is my #1 priority now.

My main takeaways from this are:

• Travel somewhere during the fall. This year I stayed in Prague, and there were several waves of people getting sick. It really would've been a good idea to escape this environment for several weeks.
• Try to be more aware of my inner critic. I noticed at times that he was just running rampant.
• Work on accepting things that I cannot change, instead of internally fighting with them. Because that just drains me, and doesn't bring any benefit.
• Trying to always be productive is not sustainable. I suspect that doing this to an extreme can be a way how to avoid facing my uncomfortable feelings. Next year, I want to be better at just sitting with my feelings instead of rushing into the next task / next project / next YouTube video.

State of the world and AI advancements

I'll try not to be too political here, but I must say that I was shocked this year to be following what's going on in the US. And overall the geopolitical situation getting less safe. Also, it's disappointing to see how the sentiment regarding support for Ukraine among people in the Czech Republic is getting less and less supportive over time.

As for AI - while it's impressive how powerful the LLMs are and how much better they got during this year, I worry about the longterm implications.
I try to use it in my work where it makes sense, but so far I am definitely cautious and only use it for small specific tasks, where I can fully verify that the code it generated for me is working correctly.

If it keeps improving at the same velocity, I worry about the consequences it will have on the society as a whole. I think it makes sense to fully appreciate how things are now and that AI is not so extremely prevalent everywhere, because in a way this is the least AI that we will ever have in society. It will only go up from here.

My plans for 2026

With 2025 being quite a turbulent year, I want 2026 to be more calm (at least internally). In no particular order, here are the main things I'd like to work on and improve in 2026:

• Try to be less critical of myself. Recently I started reading a book about the internal family systems method (No Bad Parts) and it could be a game changer.
• Improve my daily discipline in terms of the basics: consistently getting up early, getting enough work done every day, exercising consistently, having a wind-down routine in the evening.
• Try to take better care of myself. Even in terms of improving how I dress. For the longest time I gave this a very low priority, but the upside of putting some effort into it could be big.
• More novelty. Especially the last three months this year were very monotonous for me. Taking more trips throughout the year (even shorter ones) would go a long way.
• Allow myself to take a break sometime and just be, without feeling like I always need to be productive.
• Do more reflection. Resume the weekly reviews that I used to do consistently.
• Be a better friend to people. When things get tough, I tend to isolate and distance myself from everybody. This needs to change.
• In terms of work: Focus more on non-programming tasks, even if some of them are way out of my comfort zone. And ideally also explore working on something new.

If you made it all the way here - thank you for reading! I hope it didn't come off as too pessimistic at times. I try to keep it honest. In spite of some of the challenges, I am super grateful for all the experiences that I got to have this year, and I feel blessed that I get to do what I love for work. I don't take it for granted at all, and if anything my work ethic should reflect the gratitude (but - I don't mean to get self-critical again! :D)

I hope you had a fantastic 2025, and I wish you all the best in the new year!

I can't believe that it's the end of the year already! Once again I am finding myself sitting down on the 31st of December, unsure which direction to take with this blog post. But in the spirit of my yearly tradition of doing these yearly reviews, here we go.

It's so hard to somehow summarize how an entire year went, because there are so many different perspectives that one can take. I feel like for me, this year went both amazingly and at the same time there was definitely a lot of room for improvement, depending on which area of life you look at. Let's start with the positive and then elaborate on some of the lessons I am trying to take from the not so great aspects of this year.

Growing and improving Timelines

I am delighted to be able to say that Timelines (my time tracking app) grew quite a lot this year. It's been on the App Store for 8 years already and this year I feel like the revenue from it got to a comfortable level. I feel really blessed. In no exaggeration, this is a dream come true for me, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Earlier in the year I have overhauled the initial onboarding sequence and, more importantly, added a 7-day free trial for the PRO version. This helped a lot because it allows people to fully try everything that the app has to offer before they commit to paying for it. This is one of those things that I probably should've done years ago, but that doesn't matter - it is there now and that's what counts.

Seeing the positive results of this is encouraging me to look at other opportunities to grow - what are some of the things that could potentially bring great results and which I've procrastinated on for a long time? It's so much easier for me to just work on improving the app as a whole, because that's where I feel comfortable and decently confident. With the growth and marketing tasks, it feels much less certain. But seeing how some of these did bring significant results in the last couple of years is helping me shift my mindset about it and give it a higher priority.

In terms of development, in February I released Timelines for Apple Vision Pro. Overall I've released three major updates during the year. I built support for Control Center widgets on iOS 18, and then later in the year, I started working on combined goals, which are still in progress.

Other things that contributed to the growth in a big way were creators talking about how and why they use Timelines. The biggest being CGP Grey on this episode of the Cortex podcast, and also Reysu talking about it in several videos on his YouTube channel (he has many great videos on productivity in general, you should take a look!)

Trips

While I feel like I've traveled less than in previous years, I'm happy for the trips that I did take. Back in February I went to Munich for a developer lab with Vision Pro. In March I spent a week cycling in Mallorca. Then in early summer, I went to Bosnia (Sarajevo and a road trip throughout the country) to visit a friend, which was an interesting but intense experience.

Upon coming back I had some sort of food poisoning / stomach flu, and still now thinking back to it, I am just so grateful that my digestion works fine most of the time. You don't appreciate these things until you are in grueling pain for several days, unable to consume any food or even water. But I digress.

In September I went to Spain for NSSpain (a developer conference in Logroño). It was super inspiring to meet many new people there and catch up with old friends. The last time I was in Logroño before that was in 2016, so it was interesting to reflect on what changed since then, and where had life taken me, and perhaps how I want to change the course.

In October I went to Croatia for 10 days with my dad, enjoying the remaining sun and warm weather, dividing my time between working and cycling.
And in December I went to Berlin for a couple of days for a developer event, also meeting several indies and getting inspired.

Struggling with productivity

This was definitely the biggest challenge for me this year. Throughout large parts of the year I found myself being really dissatisfied with how much (or rather how little) I am able to get done in any given week. The more encouraging friends would tell me that I'm too hard on myself, which is maybe a bit true, but at the same time I know that I could be getting more done if only I was more disciplined.

I found myself missing the times when I was more immersed in building some major new features in the previous years. It's definitely harder for me to keep the focus when it's smaller programming tasks combined together. And especially so when I am fighting the tools, which was the case with the Control Center widgets during the iOS 18 beta period.

Somehow this keeps being a recurring challenge of mine, and I fully recognize that I most likely don't see it completely objectively. It's just that the gap between my expectations of what I'd like to be getting done, and what actually ends up getting done, was too wide at times. I probably need to reduce my expectations and increase my work output, to make this gap narrower and therefore reducing the frustration.

Another part of this conundrum (and what actually gives me a lot of optimism for addressing this more in 2025), is that I'd never been more optimistic about where this project and this career can go. The growth this year has shown me that it's possible. And also I still love working on the app. So I am eager to work more, to truly seize this opportunity. I feel like by "phoning it in" and being sloppy about my routine and about how I organize my time - it's just unnecessarily reducing the potential of where this thing could go. But all that being said, in some ways, I also feel like I need to do more stuff outside of work. So in a way, I work both too much and too little. If all this is too confusing, I'm sorry. This is just what happens in my head, and this is what happens when I am just winging it with this blog post as I go, haha.

As I was reflecting on this, here are some of the things that I'd like to prioritize in 2025 in terms of productivity:

• staying more on top of customer support
• keeping both my physical and digital spaces clean. Browser tabs, files on the desktop, etc.
• reducing the small day-to-day friction that accumulates over time
• doing a better job of allowing myself to rest, to take a break when I feel overwhelmed, instead of trying to 'push through it'
• do a better job of reducing distractions throughout the day
• having long stretches of uninterrupted & focused working time

Update on physical and mental well-being

I always try to have a section about this in my yearly reviews. I'd say overall things were good-ish. I feel like this year, especially in the first half, I struggled with getting sick quite often, which was tough.

On the positive side of things, I continued exercising with a personal trainer + by myself, and whenever I got to a routine where I was doing it consistently, I noticed how I just felt better, both physically and mentally. This is definitely something I want to make a priority in 2025.

On the mental health side of things, I definitely still struggled with anxiety throughout various parts of the year, but I feel like less so than before. A major family-related drama towards the end of the year certainly didn't help. I still have a lot of work to do in this area, and I am warming up to the idea of trying therapy again, after having had a break from it for the last two years. Plus I want to read more books about the related topics in 2025, such as No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz. It's about healing trauma with the internal family systems model, and it was recommended to me by several friends.

One thing that was quite rough this year is that many of the people from my core friends group at the international coworking space where I work left the country. I know that that's part of the deal when hanging out with expats and I sort of accepted that over the years, but it was definitely worse this year. This made me realize that I want to try to be a better friend to those who are still here. And a better friend in general.

The world shifting

I am both fascinated and worried about the major advancements in generative AI that we've seen this year. I am trying to be conscious about using it, and it has been very helpful for me especially when solving some obscure technical problems. But in terms of how this will change the world in the long term: I worry about the repercussions. Any picture or text or video you see online, you will have to always question whether it's real or not. Many jobs will disappear. I think that in the long term, the 'human touch' on digital products will be the biggest differentiating factor because that's what will be the hardest for the AI to replicate and imitate.

This really feels like the beginning of a major transition, the world literally shifting underneath our feet. And while I have my reservations about it, I want to try to be using it as much as I can where it makes, and I'd recommend you do the same. The train is leaving the station, and if you don't jump in now you just might get left behind.

To wrap up, while this year had its ups and downs, I am very grateful for it overall and I can't wait to see what 2025 will bring. If you've made it all the way to the end of this blog post, thank you for reading! I wish you all the best in the upcoming year! 🙌

Exactly 15 years ago on November 9th, 2009, I got my first MacBook and started learning how to build apps. I was fascinated with the idea that you can build something that other people will find useful and enjoy using. I also heard about those "indie developers" on Twitter who were making a living solely from their own apps and I found it fascinating. I got it into my head back then that this is what I want to be doing too, and somehow this dream, no matter how elusive and unattainable it felt over the years, never left me.

In this blog post I want to look at some of the biggest lessons I took from all these years, and also share some of my thoughts on this topic. As a disclaimer, by no means do I want to pretend like I am some kind of "success story". It took me a really long time to get to the point where I can cover all my expenses with income from my app(s) and it's really only been this year when that income is at a comfortable level.

Also, another disclaimer: many of these will be personal and not necessarily generally applicable. In no particular order, here we go:

Enjoy the process

I think what made it possible for me to stick with it for so long is that I really enjoy the process of coming up with the features, figuring out what the user interface should be, solving technical challenges when building the features, and then releasing improvements to my users. I enjoy the craft. If you don't enjoy the process, it will be extremely difficult to stick with it when things get tough.

Truly understand your motivation

Back when I was younger I used to pride myself on not caring about the money as much as most people seem to do. Which was important at the time because I wasn't making almost any money from my apps for a long time. Obviously back then I was still in high school (and later university) and my expenses were very low. My motivation was to be working on something meaningful, building something useful that I will enjoy using myself, and that hopefully other people will find useful and enjoyable to use as well. Obviously, as I got older and left university, my expenses went up and I needed to make more money, but still, the way I see it is this: I make money so that I can do what I love for work, not the other way around.

This is not to say that money isn't important, obviously, we live in a capitalistic world, but what I am trying to say that if you have making as much money as possible high on your list of priorities, trying to be an indie is probably not the right path. Especially not if you come from a programming background. I think it's important to be honest with yourself about your priorities (there are no good or bad ones, we are all different), and then decide accordingly.

Also, I wouldn't be fully honest if I hadn't mentioned that for a long time when I was younger, part of my motivation was trying to prove myself. It might sound a bit dark but there were times where it felt like I'm fighting to justify my existence in the world through my work. Not the purest form of motivation, but using trauma as a fuel can be a very powerful tool.

Risk and reward

I saw a post on Reddit where they were comparing trying to make a living with your apps to winning a lottery. It's really exceptionally hard. The way I see it: The risk is losing the money you could've been making by working for a company. Losing the career opportunities that come from working for large companies. The reward is finding your work fulfilling, having the opportunity to make your own decisions about the product, and having the sense of ownership over what you do. And if it works, have the sense that you are making a positive change in the world for people that are using what you built. That to me made it a worthy pursuit, despite all the struggles and doubts, and despite the reduced financial upside. Also, as a fallback, I thought that I could always take a job at a company if I came to the conclusion that I couldn't make it work.

Don't be realistic

There is something to be said for just going for it in spite of the odds being stacked heavily against you. The competition is global. The chances of 'making it' are slim. But that's what makes it even more enticing. If you want it badly enough, if you stick with it long enough, if you make the right decisions at the pivotal moments, it might just work out eventually. At least that's what I've been telling myself for all these years. And in my opinion, it's absolutely worth it to go for it with everything that you've got. Because what's the alternative? Taking the safe path because that was the 'reasonable' thing to do, growing old, and then wondering what things could've been like had you pursued what you wanted?

The line between success and failure is thin

What I mean by this: Still three years ago, I could've come to the conclusion that I failed, because after many years of working, I still wasn't making enough to cover even my basic living expenses and I still had to do part-time freelancing on the side. I could've said to myself back then: okay, that's it, I am giving up. Clearly I wasn't made for this. I don't have what it takes to be successful as an indie. But then there was the other part of me, wondering what if it's just around the corner? The feedback for my time tracking app from my users was great. I still believed in the premise of the app and I thought that if I could find a way to get it into the hands of enough people, I would be fine. So I decided to stick with it. To keep building features that complement the core experience of the app. Also, I thought that I owe it to my younger self not to give up on his dreams. I wanted to make the 16-year-old me proud. And I wanted to make the future 40-year-old me not be filled with regrets over giving up on this.

Find your niche

For me, I've always wanted to have a product that I strongly believe in, and that also scratches my own itch. After working on a GPS sports tracker for a few years and not seeing much growth, I decided to build a personal time tracking app (timelines.app). I always found the topic of managing your own time fascinating, and I felt like I had some good ideas on how to approach the functionality in a different way than the competition. My long-term goal is to keep striving to have the best app on the App Store for this specific purpose - making the most of your time.

Obviously, there are other ways to approach it. Some people like to have a large portfolio of apps because it makes things more interesting for them. Also, there is an argument to be made for not putting all your eggs into one basket. Whatever piques your interest, I am just saying what worked for me.

Provide additional value

In the era of ChatGPT wrappers and people trying to ride the latest wave in tech, even if that makes more money temporarily, I believe in providing sustainable value over time. In my case, one of the examples is the unique interactive visualizations in my app. Ideally, it should be something useful and technically challenging to build so that others can't just copy it easily. Also, I try to always go the extra mile when building new functionality and improving existing features to make it as useful as possible while not making it overly complex, and always striving to make it completely reliable.

Prepare to wear many hats

In my opinion, this is what makes indie development so tough. You have to take care of so many things. Product, design, development, marketing, promotion, user support, social media. It makes things overwhelming but it also keeps you on your toes, and I like the variety of it because if I was just a programmer, I can imagine it would get monotonous after some time.

What if I am not good enough?

This is a question that I've asked myself so many times. And many times the answer is "Yes, I am not good enough". But instead of going down the rabbit hole of what that means, I try to remind myself that this is not the right question to be asking myself. The better question is: "Am I doing my best?" And if the answer to that is no - then why not? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you prioritizing eating healthy and exercising regularly? Are you putting in focused work time without constant distractions from your phone? If the doubts are nagging at you, try to mold them a bit so that they go from dragging you down to lifting you up.

Reflect regularly

I feel like by far the best tool in life, not just in indie app development, is deep reflection and introspection. I try to do weekly reviews where I go over different areas of my life and reflect on how things went there. I also try to do monthly reviews, where I look at things more broadly (though I must admit that I'm not very consistent with those). And for day-to-day mental hygiene and reflection, I do my daily freeform writing.

Understand your strengths and weaknesses

Through having been in the industry for many years now and doing these regular reflections, I think I have a decent idea of what my strengths and weaknesses are. I feel like I am fairly good at programming and making decisions about the product itself. But I am pretty bad at marketing, social media, and generally presenting my work online. That is something I need to improve.

I feel like my biggest strength is working through things and finishing them off even when it seems very challenging and it takes a long time. But this strength also happens to be a weakness - things tend to take me way too long. I tend to spend way too much time on miniature details, and then neglecting other parts of my responsibilities that would have far greater impact on the business. So I am trying to be mindful about that.

Regardless of your own personal mix of strengths and weaknesses, being aware of them and utilizing them to your advantage is the best way to go, in my opinion.

Learn and apply your lessons

This follows closely on the previous paragraph, and it's probably my weakest part - it's so easy to be stuck in your ways, doing the same thing over and over again. In the regular weekly reviews and daily writings, I oftentimes felt like I've had revelations about all the things I should improve in my life, only to find myself back in the same routine shortly afterward.

I think the best way to approach this is to try to be compassionate with yourself. Approach making the improvements in your life one small step at a time. And keep evolving.

For me specifically, it means finding a better split between working and personal time. Scheduling doing marketing on a regular basis. Improving my online presence. Staying more on top of what's happening in the iOS community. Just to name a few.

Find people who can help propel you forward

Out of all the points in this post, this is by far what has made the biggest difference in my indie journey. Back in 2018, I attended a conference in Denver where I met a developer friend who was an indie. He told me about a small group of successful indie developers that he was a part of and alluded that maybe once they are looking for more members, I could try applying to join them. Half a year later, I applied and I got in. We help each other out with all things related to indie app development, such as design, marketing, monetization, coding, and more.

In particular, getting feedback and advice from them about how to improve monetization in my app has been immensely helpful. Eventually, I moved to the subscription model, improved my paywall, increased prices, added free trial, and much more. All that led to a significant increase in revenue over the last several years, and just last month (October 2024) I reached my long-term 'stretch-goal' monthly revenue which seemed completely unrealistic even just a few years ago.

I love how in the group it's a very encouraging environment where we celebrate each other's successes and I am very grateful for being a part of it.

Luck

It might seem ridiculous for me to put this here as a "lesson", but hear me out. It wouldn't be fair to not mention that in some part the reason why I eventually found at least some success is luck. I was lucky that my time tracking app was featured on the App Store when I first released it. I was lucky to meet the developer friend who introduced me to the group of successful indies. It was luck that my time tracking app got mentioned on several podcasts and YouTube videos in recent years. But at the same time - in all these instances it required me to take a chance. To contact the App Store Editorial team. To travel to conferences and try to meet people there. To build an app that serves its purpose and some people find it the best match for what they need.

What I am trying to say here: I believe the best any of us can do is to play to our strengths, try to do the best that we can, keep putting in the work, and maybe the universe will help us out here and there eventually.

Some closing ideas

I haven't written a blog post for almost two years so my writing got a bit rusty, but I hope you find at least some of this inspiring. Also please take everything that I wrote with a grain of salt, I don't want to try to appear as if I have all the answers because I certainly don't. And if I were to look at it honestly, I feel like the modest success that I eventually found, it was more in spite of my approach instead of because of it.

In the traditional business sense, I've probably done most things wrong. But that doesn't matter, onward and upward from here! Many of the things that I wrote here are also reminders for me and I'm looking forward to implementing them more in the near future.

Some more thoughts: As much as possible try to leave the ego out of it. The world doesn't owe you anything. Whether it ends up working or not, it doesn't change your value as a person. Try to balance out what you enjoy working on with what's good for business. Prioritize having fun with your work. While things can always be better, they could also be worse, so try to be grateful for your current circumstances. And if things are not the way you'd like them to be yet, it could just be that the reality hasn't caught up yet. It isn't over until you decide to stop trying.

I feel incredibly lucky to be doing this as my job and to be living in the only era in history that something like this is possible. If you want to take a look at my time tracking app, you can do so here: timelines.app (the website needs major improvements)

And if you are pursuing any sort of creative endeavor, I am rooting for you! Feel free to comment on this blog post or reach out to me at lukas [at] glimsoft.com if you have any questions or comments.

It's that time of year again. I can't believe that it's the end of the year already - it just flies by, doesn't it?

To keep my yearly tradition I wanted to once again take a look back at how the year went for me, what are some of the lessons that I learned, and what I want to prioritize going forward.

While it's impossible to summarize an entire year in one blog post, here are some of the highlights:

Releasing Timelines 3.0

It had been a long time coming, but in July I finally released a major new version of my time tracking app Timelines that brought synchronization between devices (so that you can use the app on your iPhone / Apple Watch / iPad, and have the data available everywhere, in real-time). It also has a new independent Apple Watch app re-built in SwiftUI, and a native iPad version, among other things. I wrote about it here: A quick reflection on the two years of building Timelines 3.

I'm happy to report that even in production, with several thousands of users, the synchronization is working well and it seems that the painstakingly long process of building it really paid off.

Trips related to iOS development

After 3 years of pretty much no conferences, it was really refreshing to be able to finally attend an in-person iOS conference again. In September I attended iOSDevUK and I had a blast! Inspiring talks and getting to meet many new people and also those that I already know from Twitter - overall it was a super inspiring experience.

In June I took a short trip to Copenhagen to meet some online friends from the community, and also to attend a meetup with live-streaming of the WWDC Keynote. It's amazing how far these events can go in terms of re-igniting the spark and the excitement for this field and to keep going forward.

Working remotely in Tenerife

In the fall I got to spend 5 weeks in the Canary Islands. Half of it was in the south, in Costa Adeje, and then the second half in Santa Cruz. For the first half, I was there with my dad, and we got to do many cycling trips and also one day we climbed up Mount Teide - the highest peak in Spain at 3715m. In the end, it was quite tougher than we expected - especially in terms of being at such a high altitude. But we made it! 😅 💪.

In both places, I was working out of coworking spaces. I can definitely vouch for The Zen Den in the south, and then Espacio Kernel in the north. It was refreshing to meet many other remote workers there, and generally being immersed in that world - because it's been over 4 years for me since my last month+ trip to Thailand.

My main take-aways from this trip were:

• Man, I should really do this more often 😅. While I still can. I shouldn't take the freedom that I have now for granted.
• Productivity was actually much better than I expected. Turns out that the combination of sunny and warm weather, lots of exercise, and being in a new environment, can do wonders in terms of a better mood, which then directly translates to better productivity too.
• Reframing my FOMO - this might sound obvious to most, but to me, this was kind of a revelation. When I left Prague I knew I'll miss out on the social events in the coworking space in Prague. Then as I was leaving Costa Adeje, I felt the same too - I only got to start making friends there and I was already leaving them behind. And then the same in Santa Cruz. But then I realized - maybe the whole way I was looking at it was wrong. I tried to notice and then release the grasping that I was feeling. I got more in tune with the idea (fact) that the only constant that I'll ever have in life is me, and that - yes, at any given time, by choosing one thing I'm missing out on all the other things / events / possibilities. And I realized that I want to be way more deliberate in how I do this and what I choose to prioritize.

Continuing to work on my mental health

I always try to mention something about this in my yearly reviews because I feel like it's an important part of my life, and I want to play a small role in making these topics more acceptable and normal to talk about.

In terms of mental hygiene - I kept my daily habit of meditation, a gratitude journal (Five minute journal), and then the free-form writing that I do in the evening. I've also kept going to therapy pretty consistently for most of the year. In terms of other education through books and through listening to interviews with experts in the field - I've definitely toned it down a lot compared to previous years - I felt like I didn't need it as much. But I still did watch a few Medcircle videos and they were illuminating.

A few thoughts or learnings that I came to during this year:

• When in a situation that keeps negatively affecting you - sometimes ruminating on it and trying to "fix it" doesn't really make things better and only makes you feel even worse. As counter-intuitive as it might sound, sometimes the solution to a seemingly impossible puzzle is to stop trying to find a solution.
• When trying to not lose a relationship, make sure you don't lose yourself in the process. At the end of the day, the relationship you have with yourself has to come first, always.
• We're only responsible for our own mental well-being and can't be held responsible for others', regardless of what they might want you to believe.
• Trying not to evaluate things as good or bad. Trying not to judge my work performance. For the longest time, I've had the tendency to berate myself when falling short of my expectations. But I'm really trying not to do that as much - not necessarily because it's not true, but because it doesn't get me anywhere. I'm trying to give myself constructive criticism instead which can lead to actual improvements.

Going 100% indie 🎉

In October my long-term freelancing gig that I had on the side wrapped up, so I'm now in a position where I can give 100% of my attention to my own apps (mostly Timelines). Combined with improved sales after the big update came out during the summer, I'm really glad that my income from my apps can now fully cover my expenses (barely, but still). It's easy to always look at the next goal and feel inferior to it, but I wanted to take a moment here to appreciate and celebrate this fact because this is literally what I've been working towards ever since I started with apps development over a decade ago. There's still so much more to do and so much to improve, but I'm excited to go into 2023 with a clean slate, list of exciting ideas, and the determination to bring Timelines to a whole another level.

Thank you for reading! I hope your 2022 went great and best of luck for the next year! ✨

I'm delighted, nervous, and excited to say that tomorrow I'll be launching a big 3.0 update of my time tracking app Timelines, which will bring synchronization between devices, a native iPad version, and an independent Apple Watch app.

Building the sync was the most difficult technical challenge that I attempted in my development career so far. But I learned a lot and there were many exciting moments when I managed to solve some obstacles that before seemed too daunting. I’m happy with the way it turned out and confident that it is reliable, and I can’t wait for all Timelines users to have access to it.

I found that walking at the edge of my comfort zone and trying to push it ever so slightly is both terrifying and exhilarating. I want to start doing more of that in life too.

I also found that it’s about perspective. I hope tomorrow goes well. I did the best I could. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter that much - it’s more about the long-term effect of these improvements that I’m interested in and hopeful about.

In the last few days, I also found it’s about acceptance. I wish this had taken me a shorter time. But I’m okay with it taking as much as it did. And I’m excited to be finally at this point, after two years.

I can’t wait for Timelines users to be able to start using this update! You can follow me on Twitter for the official announcement (well, tweets.. 😅) tomorrow, or just download Timelines on the App Store and get the update tomorrow automatically.

I wasn't really feeling like writing this post today, but I didn't want to break my multi-year tradition either so here we go. When I look back at this year, I see a mixture of growth, missed opportunities, great moments and some struggles as well. But ultimately I'd say this was a solid year for me, and overall I'm grateful for it.

Why the year of synchronization?

In my app Timelines, I wanted to have a way for users to be able to use it on multiple devices and have their data available everywhere. For anyone who's ever tried implementing this, they know it is quite hard. I'm planning to write a dedicated blog post with a technical overview, but in short: I chose the way of building it from scratch, with change tracking, changesets (inserts / updates / deletes) that are tracked locally, processed locally, and stored on the server in a database. There are many edge cases and technical challenges that had to be taken care of, and during the year I've run into several massive roadblocks, which made me question whether my choice to build this by myself was a bad one and whether I'll have to abandon months of work because I have run into some problem which just isn't possible to overcome in some reliable and performant-enough fashion.

To make a long story short: it was a huge struggle for me, and a humbling experience because I really felt like I "bit off more than I could chew". But in the end, even though it took me most of the year, I came to a state where everything is working reliably and I am decently confident that all conceivable edge cases are taken care of. Obviously, I will know more once I start beta testing it with more people, but I don't expect any surprises at this point (hopefully not the "famous last words" kind of situation :D).

What I learned from this whole endeavor: while it's deeply frustrating to do something that oftentimes felt beyond my abilities, I also loved figuring out these conceptual and technical challenges, and I enjoyed learning more about server-side development. Also, it was a welcomed change from the iOS / app UI development that I'd been doing for many years before this.

For the rest of this blog post, I will point out several themes / activities which were specific for me for this year and I will try to draw some conclusions which are hopefully also useful to some of you.

Learning how to play the piano

At the beginning of the year, I started to learn how to play the piano (keyboard). This is something I had at the back of my mind for many years, and this year I finally decided to go through with it. Having no musical background and no prior experience with playing an instrument, I found that I actually really like this. It's not about any end result for me, but rather enjoying being in the moment and having an activity that is very different from my work, yet very enjoyable and satisfying. For anyone also considering getting started with this: I'd highly recommend the Simply Piano app because it makes learning it fun, and teaches you how to read the notes in a gradual fashion. Plus you can play the songs you know with just the level of difficulty that you are capable of depending on your current progress in their course.

Started with basic investing

This year I also started with investing in stocks and cryptocurrencies. It's one of those things which I felt for a while I should get started with, but it wasn't until several of my friends taught me more about it and provided the much-needed tips and insights that I actually went through with it, set up an account at Interactive Brokers and bought some specific stocks and ETFs (and kept buying throughout the year). For following what's happening in the markets and also some general tips for investing, I'd highly recommend the Millenial Money YouTube channel.

I feel like this is the kind of thing that would be good for almost everyone, but most people don't do it because it feels foreign / risky / "not for me" (I was one of those people until recently.). But by investing even a small portion of your savings at first, you can start learning more about it, and it can make a big difference over the long term.

Doing more therapy

I've had mixed results with therapy in the past, and still hold the view that having no therapist is better than having a mediocre one. But - if you find the right person with whom you can build real trust over time, it can really help you like nothing else. I believe that self-educating and discussing with friends can get you far, but there's a limit to how far it can get you. Working with the right professional (emphasis on professional) can make a world of difference. A good friend of mine gave me a tip for this specific one, and I am super grateful to her for that. I'm also looking forward to continuing with this in 2022 because I still sure have some things I need to work through.

(A quick note on this section: I know that seeing a therapist is still a bit of a taboo subject, especially where I come from, but if I can do my small part in making it more "mainstream" by talking about it openly, then I'll gladly do it.)

Also another tip: a great resource for learning more about mental health is Medcircle. They host interviews with world-class experts on specific subjects, and most of the videos I've seen from them were super informative.

Overcoming being stuck in Prague

For a large part of the year, I didn't really feel like traveling because of the Covid situation. It wasn't until I got my vaccination in September and got through some subsequent health problems that I finally got around to taking a week-long vacation on Madeira. Which was awesome!

My reasoning used to be that "I'll take a break once I get work into some better shape" - but I am slowly starting to learn that I might never feel satisfied enough with where the work is. So it's better to just go. At least once every few months. Both the short-term and long-term benefits are well worth it. Also: a good friend of mine kept poking fun at me for never going on a vacation and that contributed in a small way to me finally taking one - so if you are reading this: you were a bit annoying at times, but: thank you! ;)

And a few lessons and learnings

I'd say the biggest ones came to me while I was in Madeira: namely the realization that I too am getting older, and there is no point in dwelling over things that I have no control over. I still have some goals I want to pursue, and I am absolutely convinced that they can be reached, as long as I make them more of a priority.

Also: I came to deeply appreciate the importance of attention. What is occupying my mental space matters, and when I reflected on what was there for large parts of the year prior to this trip, I realized that big chunks of it were not really helpful and weren't getting me anywhere. So - what I am actively trying to do now is to be more mindful about where my attention is going, and try to assess it several times a day. And if certain negative themes keep coming up I try to work through them in my daily writings and in my therapy.

Secondly on the topic of attention: the small daily frictions, be it a messy apartment, cluttered desk at work, tons of opened tabs in the web browser, etc. - these matter. And their cost in terms of lost attention and lost focus accumulates over time. In 2022, I want to make it a much higher priority to keep these things in order - to keep my physical and digital spaces as clean as possible so that I can focus on what truly matters to me.

Phew, at the beginning I said I didn't feel like writing this one, but now that it's done I'm glad I forced myself to do it. Thank you for reading, I hope this was useful for at least a few of you :). Happy New Year 2022!

Phew, what a year. If somebody told me at the beginning of 2020 that it will turn out like this, I'd have thought he is crazy. But here we are. Before I proceed to talk about myself, I want to say that I truly feel sorry for and sympathize with people who were heavily economically affected and people who've lost their loved ones due to this pandemic. It's almost impossible to comprehend just how much life has changed for so many people during this year. Hopefully, things will start improving now that we have the vaccine.

It has become my tradition to do these yearly reviews, and similarly, as in the last one, I want to organize it into several sections. I'll also do my best to keep it concise.

My path towards minimalism

This is something that caught my attention a while back. I've also been somewhat aware for years that having lots of things and clutter in my environment has a negative effect on my well being and my ability to focus. Long story short, it wasn't until this year that I actually started doing something about this.

At the beginning of the year, over several weekends, I had gone through all the things from my childhood at my parents' place (they were forcing me to either get rid of it or move it to my apartment, which was a drag, but in the end, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise). I managed to get rid of a lot of things, and as I was doing that, I almost felt as if I was becoming "lighter". It felt as if I'm dealing with the past by going through all these things and deciding what to keep and what to discard.

Even though I used to have a lot of difficulties parting with things, what made it much easier was that I have read the Marie Kondo's book and applied her famous Konmari method. In short: going through things by category, taking each item in hand and deciding whether to keep it or not based on one simple question:

Does it spark joy?

If you haven't read it yet, I'd highly recommend it: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.

After having had finished up with the "old things", I continued in my apartment. It was a long process that I did throughout the year in different phases, and while I still have some things left that I know I don't need, compared to how it was before, I definitely am in the cleanest space and the lowest number of things that I ever was in my life. And it feels great.

Having had the experience of both living as kind of a slob (with many things / clothes / boxes laying around), and now living in a fairly minimal setting with only the essentials in visible places, I can definitely say that:

Clean space brings clarity of mind.

Another shift for me this year is that I am more conscious and picky about the things that I decide to add to my life. The cost of having a thing around which I don't need and I have to deal with somehow is oftentimes higher than its price tag - and the best way to avoid this situation is to not buy said thing in the first place.

Finishing Timelines 2.0

(Timelines is my time tracking app for iOS which helps people visualize their time, identify time-sinks, and generally be more efficient and conscious about how they spend their time.)

In terms of my work, finishing and releasing this 2.0 was the biggest thing for me this year. With this update, I made the difficult decision to switch to the subscription model. To justify that, I felt like I needed several big new features, to entice existing users to upgrade. In concrete terms: the biggest new features were:

• Goals (ability to define daily, weekly, and monthly targets, and then track your progress towards them)
• Bar chart (to see trends over time)
• Import from Apple Health (workouts, sleep, and mindfulness)
• New tab bar layout for clearer navigation

There was supposed to be synchronization between devices as well, and I spent decent time working on it, but ultimately decided to postpone it for later.

I'm happy to report that in the end, it worked out well, and the future of Timelines with the subscription model is looking promising. I'm excited to be continuing to work on it almost full-time next year. But, I must say that the whole year and a half of working on this update, in the end, turned out to be very emotionally taxing, and a few times I've almost crumbled under the pressure I was putting on myself. The scope was just too big, and there are definitely many lessons I took from it.

If you're interested in reading my raw & unfiltered feelings about it the day before I released it, you can do so here: Reflecting back on the 1.5 years of working on Timelines 2.0.

On the personal side of things

It's always difficult to talk about the topic of mental health because it's still such a taboo in our society. Last year it was the main topic of my review, this year I just want to touch on it briefly. I'm happy to say that overall, even in spite of the lockdowns and other COVID-related challenges, this year was way better for me mentally than last year. I feel like things just got better.

At the beginning of the year, I read the book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. The author has over 30 years of experience in the field of trauma. If you were to read just one book on this topic, this should be it.

The thing with some childhood trauma is that it gets stored in the body and then keeps coming up in the form of unpleasant physiological responses to certain situations / smells / triggers, in the form of anxiety or fear. This is a huge over-simplification of course, but this book as well as some others that I've read this year has really helped me understand my own situation in a much clearer way, as well as gain more empathy for the situations of some people around me.

I know that some people might cringe over ever doing this, after all, it's just so much easier to bury certain things down and pretend as if they never happened. But the thing is, depending on the severity of the trauma, it can severely affect how we function in life. And by not addressing it, you might unintentionally be putting a ceiling on what your life could be. The alternative - going through the mud of trying to understand it and address it - is more painful short-term, but in the longterm, it's a much healthier approach that will liberate you for things and experiences that just didn't seem possible before.

(Disclaimer: I know that each situation is different and by no means am I trying to make it sound as if it's easy, or as if I knew what will work for everyone. I'm only speaking from my limited personal experience.) The quote that comes to mind which I subscribe to 100% is this one (from James Baldwin):

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed that is not faced.

Some other books which I'd highly recommend to anyone interested in this topic are:

• Running on Empty
• The Drama of the Gifted Child
• Human Magnet Syndrome

Other tips for mental well being

I hope it doesn't come of as preaching for me to say this, but I thought I'd share some of the other tips that I found had a positive effect:

• keeping a consistent sleep schedule and getting enough sleep
• eating well (if not sure what, see the book Genius Foods). There's a big link between mental clarity and the food we consume.
• basic physical activity. At the very least going for 20-30 minute walk every day
• finding somebody to talk about it

Try to talk about it

I feel very fortunate and grateful for several of my friends this year with whom I could discuss these topics, and who were supportive along the way. It's scary to bring certain things up, but being truly vulnerable with people can really deepen the human connection we have. And the thing you'll often find is: most people have some struggles of their own. Years ago, I used to feel very isolated because of these things, I used to feel like it must be "just me", but now I see that that couldn't be further from the truth.

Lessons / thoughts / realizations

Here are some of the things that didn't fit well into the other sections, in no particular order.

• Lack of novelty was a big problem for me this year. I need to find ways how to have more of that even when most places are closed down due to the pandemic.

• Getting the basics right goes a long way. That's something that I realized after reading through my weekly reviews from this year. Consistent sleep, eating healthy and in reasonable times of the day, getting in some physical activity, and maintaining friendships. I'll probably never get it completely right, but I'll sure keep trying.

• The compounding cost of postponing things. This is something that's been a big challenge for me for a long time. Decluttering my apartment was one of the things, there are many others that I need to address and take care of. Postponing something makes that thing grow bigger in our mind - it's oftentimes easier to take care of it sooner rather than later.

• "Don't be ungrateful" This is something that I try to tell myself when I catch myself wishing that I was doing better than I currently am. While it's good to strive for more, I think it’s equally important to recognize and appreciate all the things that are going well in my life.

• Essentialism - I've read this book recently, and found it absolutely fascinating. The basic idea is that instead of trying to do everything, it's much better to take the time to identify what's the most essential, and then do just that. And come to terms with the fact that in order to make our highest contribution, we need to sacrifice many of the things that are just "good" and not great.

Even with the unique challenges of this year, and even though I once again feel like I should've been able to accomplish more than I did, I'm grateful for the things that I managed to get done, and for the experiences I've had, and the things I've learned. Now, 2021, bring it on!

I hope this post was useful for at least some of you. And I wish you all the best in 2021! ✨

It feels unreal for me to say this, but later today I'll be releasing a major update of my app: Timelines 2.0. I have been working towards this day for a year and a half, and now it's finally here.

I have a proper marketing-oriented blog post ready, but I wanted to do a reflection on the process itself, and share some personal aspects of this story. I want to keep it as honest as possible, sharing both the good and bad, as well as lessons learned. Also: I don't have as much time, unfortunately, so I'm opting for a bullet-point list for most of this blog post (also, please excuse possible typos).

The goal for this update

Timelines is a time tracking app that aims to help people make the best use of their time. It was towards the end of 2018 when I transitioned from having a semi full-time freelancing gig to working mostly full-time on this 2.0 update. The goal was to have sync, an iPad version, and a couple of big features. Most notably: fully interactive bar chart, goals, import from Health, and perhaps even integration with calendars. At that time, I thought it shouldn't take longer than half a year. Oh, how naive I was.. 😅

This is a tale of hope, doubts, perseverance, struggle, and ultimately: acceptance.

The biggest struggles

• the deep gap between my expectations and what I was realistically able to get done in any given time period.
• Sync - I managed to get quite far with it, but seeing how much more work it will still need, I eventually came to make the difficult decision to postpone it to a future release.
• changing the business model. Timelines 2.0 will be moving to subscription. I was pondering this decision for years, but ultimately decided to go for it. Here, I’d like to acknowledge and thank to the many of the experienced people from our iOS community who weighed in with their opinions and experiences, and helped me come to this decision.
• just so much work. It felt overwhelming at times. Everything was turning out to be much harder than I thought it would be. I know that I should have expected this, but it still took me by surprise.
• massive imposter syndrome at times. I really felt like a pretender, and that everything is taking me way longer than it would have taken other people.

The positive highlights

• working on the interactive bar chart, and polishing the heck out of it. It had interesting technical problems, and I enjoyed figuring them out.
• finding the perseverance in myself. In spite of all the hardship and second-guessing that I did, I always knew that I will eventually finish it.
• learning Server-side Swift with Vapor. I’ve had such a great time doing that. I was a beginner again, and it reminded me how exciting it felt when I was starting out with iOS development many years ago. I ended up using this knowledge to build a simple web app for managing subscription lifecycle and App Store receipt validation.
• I’m really happy with how the update turned out. I didn’t cut any corners when it comes to quality and robustness/reliability of the features there. This was the most important thing for me: to not compromise on what I stand for. With how this update turned out, I can honestly look myself in the mirror and know that I achieved that.
• The brief periods of “pride” - feeling like I’m working on something that has the potential to make a meaningful difference in many people’s lives. And choosing to do this, instead of doing freelancing full-time, where I’d be much better off financially, but internally I would know that all the money would just be a metaphor for me selling out on what I believe in.

The biggest lessons

• the longer it kept dragging on, the higher the expectations of the launch day and the worry that it won’t live up to what I’d like it to be (this relates to the last section of this blog post)
• I was imagining this day for so long. I was putting so much pressure on myself that it was almost unbearable. Managing to take a step back is what allowed me to actually cut myself some slack.
• With the business model change - I’m taking a leap of faith here, and stepping into the unknown. I can’t know in advance whether this is the right decision or not, but I would never find that out unless I actually take this step and do it.
• Positive delusion - in my mind, at any given point in time in the last year and a half, I was actually never further than 6 months from the release. I feel like this is such an important aspect of it. If I knew in advance how difficult this will turn out to be, I don’t think I would have been able to do it.
• Choose your compromises. Otherwise, you compromise by default, through missed opportunities. When I was younger, I had this idea that I don’t want to do any compromises when it comes to working on products (apps). Changing this approach was a long process, but it really crystallized while working on this update - I realized that actually: if I don’t compromise on anything, then I’ll never actually finish this. That’s why I decided to cut some of the planned features, as well as postpone updating the website for the app.
• Tasks tend to take whatever time is allocated for them. I think part of my problem here was that I didn’t have any deadline set in stone. I was in the fortunate position of having some savings and some money coming in from the freelancing I was doing on the side, so I didn’t have the external pressure that I used to have before.
• Trying to separate myself and my sense of worth from this product. This is a big one. There are times when I manage to have this distance from it, and there are times when I really don’t. But what helped me reduce the pressure is realizing that this whole indie pursuit is just one part of my life, and I can’t expect it nor ask of it to compensate for other parts of my life.

Is the path forward acceptance?

When I was approaching the finish line, and I was mostly wrapping everything up, I was starting to have the sinking feeling that “this is it”, and that now I’ll be evaluated based on what I did. And the second-guessing started to seep in, hard. What if I’m delusional about the value that these new features bring to users? What if I suck as a developer, and I will be “found out”? What if I missed some big-picture element and it will all come crashing down when I switch to the new business model? It wasn’t until positive feedback from beta testers started coming in, and until I made solid progress with the new App Store screenshots showcasing all the new features, as well as working on other marketing materials, that I managed to kind of take a step back. Look at it from a different perspective. And I realized that in the grand scheme of things, the launch of this whole update actually isn’t that big of a deal. It doesn’t matter if it ends up not being covered by journalists. What matters to me is knowing that I managed to get it to this stage. Wrap it up. It’s been dragging on for so long, that at this point, I just want to get it over with. I want current users to be able to take advantage of the new features. And I want people to be able to try Timelines without having to pay for it right away. For me, releasing this is a closing of a big chapter. As if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. And I feel ready and excited for whatever comes next.

Hopefully, there won’t be any major bugs. Hopefully, there won’t be any harsh complaints about the change of the payment model. And even if either of these things happen, I’ll deal with it. What’s important to me is that I did the best I could, and my heart was in the right place throughout this process. How it’s received by other people is secondary to that.

(But, don't take me wrong: if you happen to be using Timelines, I absolutely do hope you will enjoy this update! 😅)

I'm always both excited and worried about writing these posts, but it wouldn't be a good end of the year for me without getting it done.

2019 was a more 'quiet' year for me. After settling down in Prague in September last year, except for a few trips during the year, I mostly stayed here. The main goals were to have a peaceful time, maintain a productive routine, and finish a big update of my Timelines app. Now, most of these things didn't go nearly as planned, but at the same time - I'm grateful for the progress I did with all of them. I titled this blog post the year of introspection, because that's something I was spending a lot of energy and effort on behind the scenes (I explore this later in this article).

Let's split this post into multiple sections to give it some structure.

Working on my indie app

This year was the first time for me when I was able to dedicate 90% of my total working time to my own app - Timelines. All that while not burning through my savings. I'm super grateful for this, because this has been my goal pretty much since I started with apps those 10 years ago.

For this year, I had a goal of finishing a big update 2.0 and releasing it during summer - and while I did fail to do that (and the update is still not done), I'm glad that I got to work on exciting features, such as an interactive bar chart or ability to define time goals. And hey - I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

Also, I became more comfortable with going into directions that ultimately lead to nowhere, and then abandoning those as soon as I find that out. I had one such experience with building sync in my app - I learned quite late in the process that the framework I was going to use isn't actually going to work well enough for my use case. So I had to abandon it and start over. David taught me last year about the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and that helped me a lot.

Lastly, a huge help with keeping up my motivation was a secret iOS Mastermind group that I joined (was accepted to) early this year. We have weekly Google Hangouts, and it's a great experience to share our struggles, and also being able to learn from people who are much further in their indie endeavors than I am.

Daily routines and schedule

This was a hit or miss for me. There were periods where I felt like I have a good hold onto this, but then there were times when my sleep pattern was completely off, and that had huge negative effects on my productivity. But I'm glad I was able to keep my non-negotiable daily habits:

• meditation in the morning - to practice mindfulness and still my mind
• Five Minute Journal - for practicing gratitude
• free-from writing - to work through my thoughts and emotions

In terms of sleep, my longterm aim is to be consistently going to bed at around 10:20 PM and getting up before 7:00 AM. I had about three weeks this winter when I managed to mostly keep it up and it felt really good. This is something I definitely want to try prioritizing more in the next year.

Nutrition

I discovered a great book titled Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life. I loved the author's scientific approach and detailed descriptions how specific nutrients affect the specific parts of our digestive system and metabolism. What I also loved is the specific advice he gave about what to eat. If you are even just mildly interested in this topic, definitely give this book a try.

Based on this book, I have significantly changed what I eat on a regular basis, and I noticed substantial improvements in my mood and my overall ability to focus and keep attention.

Just to name a few, here are the things that I started consuming on a regular basis: kale, avocados, dark chocolate, blueberries, extra-virgin olive oil, Omega-3 supplements.

Life balance

For the majority of the year, I kept having the problem of worrying that I'm not getting enough done. But I realized that there are legitimate excuses for it. In short, I have been trying to balance:

• having consistent (and enough of) sleep
• socializing, hanging out with friends
• working on my app, and trying to hit my daily and weekly goals there
• eating well - cooking regularly, and eating all the stuff I mentioned in the previous paragraph
• doing all the daily habits
• also going to some events from time to time

This has been a struggle of course, and I don't have any definitive solution to this (and maybe I'll never have one). While socializing has been eating into my productive time the most, I have to say that I'm very grateful for all the friends I met throughout this year, and have hung out with. Many of them through the coworking space where I work. Especially in the last few months of the year, the environment there was just so friendly and positive, and I genuinely appreciate that. We also started doing indoor climbing every Sunday, and I also can't omit the regular pull-up sessions at the coworking space which are a great opportunity to take a break and also do something good for our sedentary bodies.

On the personal side - trying to leave no stone unturned

This year, perhaps more than ever before, I tried to turn my attention inwards. I feel like I keep alluding to this in every blog post I write, but clearly, there is something in me that wants me to put this out there, so I'll try.
There was a friendship which fell through, and it really kind of made me feel devastated. And I kept asking myself: why did it end up like this? Why did I mess it up? And why did I get so hung up on it? It kind of stirred up some older wounds too, and I found myself pondering frequently just why is that. How did I get here? Through various techniques, I tried to dig deep into all the underlying problems, and have been trying to make sense of it all. This is one of the big reasons why I do my daily meditation and daily writing. But it wasn't until this year that I consciously decided to fully look myself in the mirror. Face the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is. Keep trying to find ways to see things more and more clearly, and don't shy away from admitting things and shortcomings to myself which would be so much easier to just ignore and sweep under the rug.

Also, in terms of what I want to accomplish in life and where I want to get: I realized that working through these emotional patterns and issues is absolutely necessary. My future literally depends on my ability to do this.

I strongly believe that facing the truth is an absolutely necessary step towards any meaningful long-lasting improvement. There is no other way. Things sometimes need to get worse before they can get better.

As for the techniques I tried to work on this: during the spring, I did regular therapy sessions for some time. While it did eventually fall through because we just didn't see eye-to-eye on certain approaches, she did help me in several ways. One of the big ones: opening my eyes to the fact that I see certain aspects of myself and the world in a distorted fashion. And consequently, realizing how a lot of people (me included) project both negative and positive characteristics on certain people around them, based on their subconscious biases and past experiences. This was a bitter pill to swallow, but accepting it was a huge help for further progress on this path of self-discovery.

I also read several interesting books about this topic. Two of them that I'd highly recommend:

• Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristina Neff. It has helped me treat myself in a more healthy and accepting way, and it helped me give myself a break from the frequent judgemental attitude that I used to have towards myself.
• On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy by Carl R. Rodges - he was way ahead of his time in his novel approach to therapy, and even though the book is from 1961, it is still relevant today. One quote that I loved from this book: "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

One thing that has also been a major positive shift in my attitude: realizing that I'm not responsible for the happiness and actions of others. And also: realizing that I can't really change/save somebody who doesn't want it herself/himself. I can try, and I have been trying for a long time, but this year I finally decided to kind of put my hands off of it and let it be. I made the decision to start putting myself first, and am learning not to feel guilty about that.

But, contrary to how gloomy and serious this all might sound, I am really glad that towards the end of the year, I found myself in sort of a state of equanimity. Understanding how things get passed (often unknowingly and unintentionally) from generation to generation, and that when you look from a wide-enough context at a certain person, you find compassion for them, and you realize that you can't really blame them for certain negative outcomes of their behavior. Not to say that people are not responsible for their actions, but I believe it's way more nuanced than people often realize.

Most importantly, through all this, I managed to change the way I relate to myself as well, and I am happy to say that I see myself in a much better light than I did at the beginning of this year. But I'm fully aware that it's still just the beginning, there's a lot of work ahead of me on this front.

I hope that if there's anyone out there reading this and going through similar challenges, that this has been helpful to you.

Admitting all of these things publicly is either quite brave or ridiculously stupid, I can't tell right now. If I change my mind later, I might take this post down tomorrow :P.

To close this off - this has been an important year for me, and overall I'm really grateful for it. Now I need to go celebrate the New Year and the arrival of the new decade. 2020 will be huge! 🎉

Exactly 10 years ago, on November 9, 2009, I got my first MacBook Pro and I started building apps. I didn't know nothing about anything, but I absolutely fell in love with it. My programming experience at the time was half a year of C (self-taught), and then about a month of learning Objective-C. I was 16, attending a dreaded high school.

App Store was just about 1 year old, and there was this idea of independent app development. You could build something you care about, and then other people from around the world would be able to use it, and hopefully enjoy using it. It felt magical. And in the best-case scenario, you'd also make a living this way - so that you can focus all your working time on it. Becoming an "indie". I fell in love with this prospect. It became my ultimate dream, and something I've been pursuing ever since.

What are the odds?

Exactly. I was a student at high school, with no background in computer science. With time-consuming school obligations, having to memorize tons of facts in Biology, Chemistry, History, Czech, and other classes, which I knew I'll never use in my life. But somehow, I just believed I can do it. That I'll eventually get there. And even if I didn't, I was having so much fun while learning and working on the apps that it didn't really matter.

Even lately, I find this question fascinating and hugely motivating. Who wouldn't want to beat the odds? Yes, when the odds are too low, it becomes discouraging. But when they are just low enough but still realistic, trying to beat them becomes almost addictive.

What is success?

I spent an awful lot of time thinking about this in the first couple of years. Lots of people around me at the time seemed to have been defining success as admiration from others and doing well financially.

But when I finished my first client work at 17 and got paid for it (which I thought was a decent amount), I remember thinking "oh, so this is what everybody is after? It just doesn't do it for me". Chasing money just for the sake of it fell shallow. I realized that no amount of money can substitute for me the feeling of doing something meaningful. Something that I'm passionate about, something that I love.

Granted, at that time I didn't have almost any expenses, so this might seem like a naive way of thinking - of course, as we become adults, we need to be able to make the ends meet.

But even with that, I decided that I won't take money as a metric of value, as a metric of my worth. And I believe that this is the main reason why I've been able to stick with the indie dream for so long; and hold onto it in spite of all the frustrations, difficulties and struggles. And why I was okay with living very modestly, even though I could've been 'milking it' instead, just like so many people around me did.

Freelancing and contracting were just means of covering my expenses and buying myself time to work on my own stuff.

Mountain of regret

This post wouldn't have been honest without me acknowledging this - looking back, I can feel a little bit of bitterness over the huge amounts of opportunity and time that I wasted, for various reasons. One of the big ones - not having enough strength until recently to escape a somewhat stifling environment (but this is perhaps for another blog post). Also - just not prioritizing my goals enough. Not holding myself as accountable as I should've. Don't take me wrong, I'm grateful for what I had accomplished, but I know it could've been much more, and that's a bitter pill to swallow.

On the flip side: there's a big argument to be made for being compassionate with yourself. I've actually read a book on this topic recently that I'd highly recommend: Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff. I realized about the regrets that I have: I behaved, made decisions and acted in the best way I was capable of at that time, given the circumstances back then, both internal and external. There's no reason to dwell over it now. On the contrary - I'm grateful that things have been gradually getting better and better. But I do think it's worth keeping these at the back of my mind, as a reminder to always keep striving for better tomorrows.

One last note on this: I was also realizing lately that I just had somewhat unrealistic expectations of myself, and I'm trying to keep them more in check now. Also: berating yourself for not performing as well as you'd like is not really helpful in any way - it's much better to instead reflect on what causes you to underperform, and what can you do to improve that.

A glimpse of light in the darkness

This is the most important point I want to share today, in my reflection over these 10 years. This indie dream of building apps has been something of a life-saver for me, and I truly mean this, both figuratively and literally.

I've gone through some dark periods, where I was left fearful, confused and anxious. With this building of apps, it's as if the universe had thrown me a lifeline. It said "I'm giving you this chance, this opportunity to prove yourself. This opportunity for a better life. Will you take it?". And I sure as hell wasn't going to pass up on it. Instead, I used the hurt from the past as a catalyst and an almost inexhaustible source of motivation.

Even later on during these ten years, dedicating myself to building apps has always been something I could hold onto, at the time of need. Something that provided a sense of purpose for me. A sense of meaning in my life. A feeling that I'm making a positive difference in the lives of my users. And for that, I'm deeply and eternally grateful.

It's been a love-hate relationship, with lots of peaks and valleys. Sometimes it feels too hard, oftentimes I feel like I suck at this and "what am I even thinking?", but it's a relationship nonetheless; one that is genuine and real, and one that I wouldn't trade for anything.

Here's to ten more years! 🎉

(Update 17/11 - To learn more, you can check out my Timelines Time Tracking app or follow me on Twitter.)

Since my posts tend to be overly long and drawn out, I'll do my best to keep this one short, succinct and to the point. While this year had some unique challenges for me, all things considered, it was a great year. And, dare I say it, transformational. Here are the main themes, in no particular order:

Partnership on a weather app

Last year in September, David Barnard together with Greg Pierce have released Weather Atlas - a weather app that combines maps, radar overlays and forecasts to provide unique weather experience. Back then, I've sent David long feedback about it in the hopes that perhaps sometimes we could work together on something.

A long story very short: we decided to partner up on building 2.0 version of this app (now called Weather Up), and we spent a significant part of the year working on it, together with a designer from Denmark Michael Flarup.

If you are not in the iOS community; just know that these two are among the most successful people in the mobile apps industry. I feel so grateful that I got to work with them on this app. I've learned a lot from David about marketing apps, and his process of bringing apps to life through continuous refinement and willingness to toss out things and features that turn out not as nice as we'd imagined them to be. Michael's novel ideas, killer design skills, and candid feedback were also invaluable. You can read his detailed article about the app on Medium: Designing Weather Up.

We've released the app in the middle of November, and while it didn't do as well as we had hoped, I still believe we've built a great app, and it was exciting to see it covered on sites such as TechCrunch, The Verge, and iMore.

Settling down in Prague

In 2017, I spent 6 months abroad. While being a 'digital nomad' has a lot of advantages, I ultimately found out that it's not for me. I wanted to be productive, have a solid routine and have long-term friendships. That's why I eventually decided this year to settle down in Prague, and also finally move into my own apartment.

The average prices of rent in Prague have increased significantly in recent years, so I could no longer rely solely on my income from my own apps to support it. That's why partnering up on Weather Atlas + working for another client from California on the side throughout this year was a great help in making this decision easier for me - knowing that I'll be able to afford living here for a long time to come.

I've moved into the apartment in the middle of September, and while it was definitely a big change for me, I see now that it was absolutely the right decision to go for it, and I probably should've done it a long time ago.

Figuring out health

Prior to this year, health (or rather lack of it) was a major source of frustration for me. I lost way too much time by being sick, and not being able to work productively. That's why I'm really excited and grateful that this year, I wasn't sick almost at all. I attribute it mostly to:

• nasal hygiene. There is this great spray with seawater that helps the tissue in your nose to stay clean and avoid catching diseases. It's called Physiomer. I've been using it regularly, and really can't recommend it enough
• daily meditation - to be more mindful and calm
• daily Five Minute Journal for practicing gratitude and positive thinking
• cutting out sugar from my diet, and trying to eat healthily

I plan to focus even more on healthy lifestyle next year - I want to exercise regularly and eat more healthy through cooking for myself more often.

Struggle towards the end of the year

Not everything went that great this year. I don't want to get too much into details about this, but a combination of a challenging family situation, lack of sunlight in these fall/winter months, and some unresolved issues that keep rearing their ugly head - all that combined caused me to really struggle emotionally at times during the fall and winter period. I've experienced quite severe anxiety and unfortunately, it has affected other aspects of my life too. I acted needy with certain people I care about and looking back at it now, I really wish I haven't done that.

I've been able to moderate these rough periods and try to understand them through my daily writing practice, but still. What I realized is that I need to really work through the unresolved issues that I have. I'm neither feeling sorry for myself nor taking this as some sort of excuse to subpar behavior. Which brings me to the biggest realization of this year:

It's just a 'thing', and the 'thing' needs to be taken care of in order for me to truly move forward and live life to its fullest.

And that's precisely what I want to invest in and focus on early next year. There's no shying away from it anymore.

One thing I'd like to add to this: I feel very fortunate for having several friends around me who were open to me opening up to them, and who offered advice and encouragement. It's really appreciated - you know who you are.

What about Timelines?

In case you didn't know - Timelines is my app for tracking and visualizing time. It's a project near and dear to my heart.

Don't take me wrong, I really enjoyed working on Weather Up, but since it took much longer than expected to finish it, I've been growing more and more restless about not having time to work on Timelines for so long. It has been the longest break from working on my apps that I ever had.

It has occurred to me recently just how much I relied on the feeling of expressing myself creatively through building something the way I want it to be, something that others enjoy using. I was starting to feel like I'm losing the excitement for it, and that was terrifying.

I knew I had to do something that will get me excited about it again. So a couple of days ago, I built a prototype of an interactive bar chart - a new feature that will enable users to see trends in their distribution of time in specific categories.

I've dreamt about this feature for a long time, and seeing it come alive was mesmerizing. I could feel the excitement building up again. And that is exciting!

The plans for 2019

I'm absolutely confident that 2019 will be a huge year. With enough runway to be able to focus on my own apps for most of the year, I want to really seize the opportunity and go for it. Timelines has so much potential, and I want to do my best to make it succeed. I now have a solid work setup at my apartment + a coworking space nearby, there is really no excuse for me not to be productive.

While being productive is the main goal, equally important is working on myself - both physically, spiritually and mentally. I already have some specific plans how to do that (but that's for another article). I'd also like to learn to be more open and honest about my feelings, which is something that I've historically struggled with for various reasons. And be there for others too, when they need someone to listen to them.

But ultimately - I'm really hopeful and optimistic about what's to come.

And how was your 2018? I'd love to hear about it in the comments section below. Also: if you made it all the way here: Happy New year! And I wish ya'll to accomplish what you want and overcome what you need to overcome.

Today marks the 1000th consecutive day of my daily writing practice (some people would call it 'journaling'). I haven't missed a single day (sometimes it was close, though).
I'm really excited that I've been able to reach this milestone. In this blog post, I'd like to share with you why this writing practice means so much to me, how I managed to actually stick with it daily, and how you can do the same (if you choose to do so).

In late 2014, Leo Babauta - the author of Zen Habits - announced Kickstarter for his new book, aptly captioned "A book about mastering the art of change". Since I've wanted to do some changes in my life for a long time, it was a no-brainer to chip in. I started reading the book around New Years, and I felt like it's truly opening my eyes. He laid out a clear system how to make a habit, any habit, stick.

Fast forward to February 9, 2015. With all the learnings from the book and with my determination, I decided to give the daily writing practice (which is something I'd wanted to do for a long time) a go. I thought I'll do it for a week to see how it goes and if it's worth continuing with. I remember turning on the 5-minutes timer for the very first time and writing down a few (somewhat awkward) sentences. It was odd, but very exciting. The start of something new.

While it felt a bit weird for the first few days, it quickly grew on me. After a few weeks, I started realizing the huge positive effects of it and I got into my head that I want to keep doing this long-term. At 100 days, I thought it was a good opportunity to write a blog post about it. Didn't happen. I thought I'll do it at 500, that felt like a good milestone. Didn't happen either. But as the 1000 was approaching, I knew that's the time to write it. That's as good of a milestone as it gets.

What does it mean to 'write daily'?

My writing practice is very simple. It evolved over time, but at the essence, it's a 'stream of consciousness'. I literally write about what comes to my mind. The trick here is that by writing the thoughts down, putting them into words and sentences, it forces you to give them structure. By continually writing without long pauses, it also forces you to come up with thoughts that can be written down. And since you can write much slower than you can think, the resulting writing is more streamlined than thoughts in your mind, which can easily jump from one to another.

How the hell did I manage to stick with it for 1000 days?

I attribute it to two things: First, the tremendous book from Leo Babauta that I mentioned earlier. I'm absolutely positive that this wouldn't have happened without it. Seriously, if you want to do a change in your life and you're really serious about it, read his book.

Second, it's the strict following of a few simple but absolutely non-negotionable and crucial rules:

• each writing takes at least 10 minutes
• I write every day, with zero exceptions

That's it. Simple, right? I originally started with 5 minutes to make it easy on me, but I found that 10 minutes is the perfect minimal duration. As for the 'every day' rule - in theory, missing a day doesn't sound like that big of a deal. The problem is what happens then. From missing one day, it's very easy to miss two. Then three. And before you know it, you've stopped entirely. It certainly happened to me with many other things that I attempted to do daily.

These two rules combined with the determination were enough to make it work. Well, almost. Equally important is what you get when you inverse these rules - it's actually very loose and easy:

• you can write about anything that comes to your mind
• forget about quality of the writing, literally anything goes
• just sitting down and writing for 10 minutes doesn't take that much effort
• since it doesn't take that much effort, you don't need to be overcoming strong resistance to do it

For me, following these rules in practice means that most of these writings aren't that great. Often times, I talk about basic stuff which lacks any deeper meaning. And you know what? That's completely fine. Because then there are days when I get great ideas and it feels great to write them down.

Capturing ideas is just a small portion of it though, which brings me to the next section:

The benefits of writing every day

The goal isn't to write something deep, the goal is to write out what's on your mind and help you make sense of it. The goal is to connect more with yourself, with your thoughts and feelings.
For me personally, the benefits are that even when I'm feeling down, writing about it and sorting through it helps me find new perspective and feel better.

When I feel overwhelmed, writing helps me figure out what's actually important, what should I prioritize and what can be done later.

When I feel stressed, writing helps me really go through what's causing that, and coming up with rational reasons why it'll be ok helps me alleviate that stress.

When I feel inspired, I can investigate and go deep on those thoughts and ideas, and since it's in writing I can then return to the 'train of thought' later.

When I feel like not really writing that day and like I don't have anything to say, I force myself to do it and almost every time it turns out better than I expected.

More importantly, writing every day like this helps me feel better and keep my head above the water. Be more in sync with myself, because I'm not burying those thoughts, feelings and emotions. I am putting them out on paper. I'm investigating them and pondering about them. It's very therapeutical.

Ok, it's 11pm, I need to wrap this up. If I'm to be completely honest, I wasn't feeling that great today and I almost ended up not writing this article. It took a lot of forcing myself into it. Now, I'm glad I did it. As usual, the quality will be poor, but I'm still glad this article gets to exists.

To wrap it up, I'd like to say that I'm eternally grateful for this practice and for the profound positive impact that it had and keeps having on my life. I'd strongly recommend this to anyone who at least remotely enjoys writing. Cheers!