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2 comments

I posted this to /r/GetMotivated, but I didn't get very many users from it. Hopefully some people will try it out here. My story for why I created Syrio:

As a high school student, I share similar vices with other students, mainly intense procrastination (Facebook/Reddit/HN). I would always want to improve my programming skills, but right before I would start, my browser would find itself on some time-wasting site. Stuff like StayFocusd never worked - instead of going to Facebook, I would start doodling.

I tried other anti-procrastinating apps, but they never seemed to focus on the right thing. I was having trouble finding the motivation to extend my abilities. Learning a new programming technique amounted to a study of inefficiency. I would constantly put it off, because learning new things is hard and scary. Other apps focused more on mundane issues (i.e. throw out the trash), but I needed help with deliberately practicing.

If you don't know, deliberate practice is intensely focusing on skills that are beyond your current skillset. Popularized by Malcolm Gladwell (author of Outliers), deliberate practice is required in order to become an expert in your field. Just regular practice won't cut it -- you need to be constantly expanding your skillset. Frustrated by the lack of tools helping with this, I figured I could try and create an app myself. I started learning the necessary technologies to create the app (the learning was unfortunately impaired by procrastination). I finished the initial prototype, and then started using.

I found that it was pretty dang effective (of course, take this with a grain of salt -- after all, the app is my creation). By tracking and charting my progress over time, I found myself deliberately practicing more and more. Not only was I improving my skills, but I was also feeling more content with myself. Before using Syrio, I was somewhat hated myself due to all the procrastination, but now, I don't have to beat myself over wasted time.

Obviously, Syrio is far from perfect, and so I would love for some of you guys and gals to try it out. I want to improve the product so it works for a large majority of people. If you have feedback, please PM me or send an email to syrioapp AT gmail.com

Thanks for your time.

kiskis13 lat temu

Your tagline is quite a paradox. Making deliberate practice simple is just the opposite what is deliberate practice. Which is difficult and hard.

My issue is that this is a generic tool. I also think you get the feedback theory wrong. Paying $7 for measuring myself againt some arbitrary concentration level is a joke. And also that function times out for me.

But the main question, why does this help me to do deliberate practice? I don't see any feature you have that would help:

- a list to remember for myself what areas to practice, schedule that and did I do that? but that is nothing more than a todo list

- I think the feedback concept is wrong. I understand you want to capture that somehow, but eg. for a tennis player or musician, in a session there are feedback every second, what you observe an correct in the minute. It's not a 1-5 scale for the whole session and not something you measure this way.

- go to calnewport.com , he has some good stuff on this

In my opinion the biggest problem with deliberate practice is to find out what to practice and with what framework. A gut feeling, but from a business perspective I don't see a business here. How many ppl did you interview?