TL;DR - Strategr has made a shockingly big, shockingly fast difference for both my productivity and my mental rehabilitation. I want you to know that. Please make a linux version. That will let me use my all my top-choice software for every part of my workflow. Whether you make it or not, I want you to know that I'm incredibly thankful for Strategr. For anyone struggling to become productive again after a long period of total inactivity for any reason, you can see the workflow that finally worked for me (in the story below).
Here is a story that shows exactly where and how Strategr fits into my workflow and drastically changed my life for the better. I'm not a novelist, but I'll do my best to at least make it tolerable.
Alright then, let's hear it.
I had a pretty severe medical emergency that required years of treatment before I could even begin to get back to normal. My family and I knew that rehabilitating my atrophied muscles would be a hard obstacle that would take a lot of work. What we all underestimated was the atrophy of my mental stamina, focus, work habits, etc. It's been rough, to say the least.
Oh boy, here we go.
I've been using the pomodoro technique for a while. At first it was hard to complete even a single "pomo" (a 25-minute unit of work). Over the course of a year and a half, I've gotten it so that I can get up to 4 on a good day. I think I got 5 a couple times, but 2 completed pomos per workday was most common. I've also managed to get from trying to work once a day to being able to work 4-5 days per week.
It's a major improvement, yes, but still far from the 16 pomos of an 8-hour workday. And again, it took a year and a half to get this far.
The first time I used Strategr... well, actually, it didn't do much for me. I played with it, but it didn't really seem to offer anything that other programs didn't. It seemed like making and maintaining Strategr routines was just another thing do. So, after a day or two, I stopped using it.
Uhhh ...
Months passed, during which I tried and failed to implement different workflows and use different tools. I recently discovered a workflow (the Zettelkasten method, if you're curious) that seems to be perfect for some of the biggest problems in my work. Strategr doesn't actually have anything to do with how the Zettelkasten method works, at least not in any obvious way. But a few paragraphs in the book I've been reading to teach myself the method (How to Take Smart Notes, by S. Ahrens) caught my eye. The gist of it is that in addition to reading with a pen in hand, it's good to have a to-do list in front of me so that I can stay on track with just a glance instead of having to stop what I'm doing, switch activities and mental modes, and switch back. I remembered Strategr's interface design and realized it might be well-suited to that kind of just-a-glance usage.
I got 10 pomos done the first day I used Strategr that way and I took two walks that day and I got some chores done and I didn't feel exhausted at the end of the day. I felt like my old self again! From then on, 6 pomos was the new low-end when I used Strategr. My rehabilitation was catapulted forward.
Holy moly! Do you really think Strategr gets credit for that?
I didn't attribute this incredible overnight improvement to Strategr at first. I happened to switch to non-reducing polyphasic sleep schedule at the same time, which is a much bigger and more dramatic life change than quiet little Strategr on the side of my screen. There's a tendency to assume that big effects must be produced by big actions, you know?
Not yet realizing the critical role that Strategr had played, I made some other adjustments to make myself more comfortable throughout my longer workday. I became ill right before doing my master's thesis, so "picking up where I left off in life" for me means trying to tackle this big, important paper that has been hanging over my head for all these years. But anyway, what that means is lots of reading and writing. Doing those things for such a longer period made me want to find a way to make it easier on my eyes since they felt strained by the end of the day.
Wow, I'm glad it had such a positive impact for you! But, well, umm ... why are you asking for a linux version of Strategr?
Being the geek I am, I built my computer. I triple-boot Windows, macOS, and Linux.
I ran out of disk space, and money was particularly tight at that moment. So, because I needed macOS for some design apps and wanted to keep Windows to preserve the possibility of playing games with friends, I wiped the linux drive despite containing being my favorite operating system. Necessity beat preference. From then on, macOS became my daily driver.
Then coronavirus came along. I remembered Folding@Home, so I installed that to help in the only way I could. But alas, the macOS version can't take advantage of Nvidia graphics cards (which I suppose is somewhat understandable given that the only mac users with Nvidia cards are a subset of Hackintosh builders). Fortunately, the apps I needed for my thesis work (Kindle App for ebooks, Zotero for reference management, Obsidian for note-taking, and Scrivener for writing the paper) were available for Windows. Ethics beat preference. So, Windows became my daily driver.
I eventually had the pivotal day I talked about earlier. As you'll recall, that meant suddenly being able to work much longer, which in turn meant strained eyes. "No big deal," I thought to myself. "I'll just find an ebook reader that'll let me fine tune how the text is displayed. And hey, I'm a designer, so I actually know enough about typography to know exactly how to help myself!" But to my surprise, there weren't many options. The few ebook readers I found were either some deal-breaker (e.g. Calibre is immensely useful for managing all my ebooks, but the built-in reader doesn't support annotation/highlighting) or were painfully ugly (I won't name names).
I looked at what was available for macOS and found even fewer options. The ebook reader that comes with macOS was nice enough, but I felt guilty about Folding@Home.
But now, I was in a position to get another drive and once again use linux. My graphics card could continue to crank out calculations for Folding@Home, and there are plenty of highly configurable ebook readers that have the features I need. Ultimately, I picked Foliate and use it in conjunction with Calibre. My workflow was a hair short of perfect synergy because Scrivener isn't officially made for linux, but I saw that plenty of people got it working and the instructions looked easy. So, everything was great --
I'm happy for that, but aren't you forgetting something?
-- Or so I thought. I was back to 2-4 pomos per day. At first I attributed this to the third and least pleasant stage of adapting to my new sleep schedule, but my pomos just didn't improve. It didn't add up.
THAT is when I realized that Strategr was the variable that'd changed.
THAT is when I realized that Strategr was essential to all that improvement I experienced.
THAT is when I realized that Strategr doesn't have a linux version.
And, finally, THAT is why I am requesting a linux version.
That's quite a story. Not to prick your windbag, but couldn't you have just stopped at requesting the linux version?
Sure, if asking for a linux version was all I wanted to do.
I'm writing all this because I want to let you know about the very personal and enormous impact Strategr has had on at least one user: me.
Additionally, I hope that anyone else struggling with anything even remotely similar to what I'm going through might be able to find their way here via google search. I've given enough specific details for them to implement a close approximation of my workflow, perhaps sparing them from needing to do as much trial and error as I did.
Ahh. So, that's everything then?
Yep! Did you get all of that?
Yeah, but it's a lot to keep in my head at once. A sequential list of the essential bits would be useful.
- Pretext: Thriving grad student; all classes completed and all that's left is the thesis; medical emergency; years of treatment and doing nothing all day; finally recover from original problem; succeed at physical rehabilitation; start working on thesis again...
- Start working again: 1 workday per week (workday goal: 5) × 1 pomo per workday (pomo goal: 16) = total of 1 (total goal: 80).
- Pomos are units of 25 consecutive minutes of focused work
- See that I needed to redevelop every mental capability and behavioral habit related to being productive.
- Push to improve that bit by bit; try different workflows, techniques, and tools -- including Strategr, but "incorrectly."
- After 1.5 years of improvement: 3.5/5 workdays per week × 3/16 pomos per workday = total of 10.5/80.
- Ranges: 4 to 5 workdays, 2 to 5 pomos
- Distribution: positively skewed
- One night, switch to unconventional sleep schedule.
- Next morning, start using Strategr again but in a different way.
- That day: 10 pomos!
- That day and the next 10 or 11 days: 6/5 workdays (extrapolated) × 8/16 pomos = total of 48/80.
- Ranges: 4 to 10 pomos
- Distribution: negatively skewed
- Think, "It must have been the sleep schedule!"
- Switch to linux, stop using Strategr: back to 3.5.5 workdays per week × 3/16 pomos per workday = total of 10.5/80
- Think, "Wait, what about that Strategr program? I guess it was essential!"
- Realize it isn't available on linux.
- Start writing a simple, ordinary request for a linux version.
- Realize the personal significance and end up writing all of this so you can know how much of a difference Strategr made for me.
How's that?
My eyes glazed over, tbh.
- Thriving.
- Suddenly disabled by medical catastrophe for years.
- Start working again but it's very, very hard after doing nothing all day everyday for so long.
- Productivity inching back to normal at snail's pace; after a year and half, only about 13% back to pre-catastrophe abilities.
- Strategr comes along and overnight launches my rehabilitation to 60%; the maximum I could do on my best days was suddenly the minimum I was doing on my worst.
- Switch to linux for reasons, realize that there is no linux version of Strategr.
- Write all this to ask for a linux version and thank you whether that's possible or not..
Ahh! Lists are great.
Thank you for reading this very longwinded, unconventional GitHub issue. Even more so, thank you for Strategr.
TL;DR - Strategr has made a shockingly big, shockingly fast difference for both my productivity and my mental rehabilitation. I want you to know that. Please make a linux version. That will let me use my all my top-choice software for every part of my workflow. Whether you make it or not, I want you to know that I'm incredibly thankful for Strategr. For anyone struggling to become productive again after a long period of total inactivity for any reason, you can see the workflow that finally worked for me (in the story below).
Here is a story that shows exactly where and how Strategr fits into my workflow and drastically changed my life for the better. I'm not a novelist, but I'll do my best to at least make it tolerable.
Alright then, let's hear it.
I had a pretty severe medical emergency that required years of treatment before I could even begin to get back to normal. My family and I knew that rehabilitating my atrophied muscles would be a hard obstacle that would take a lot of work. What we all underestimated was the atrophy of my mental stamina, focus, work habits, etc. It's been rough, to say the least.
Oh boy, here we go.
I've been using the pomodoro technique for a while. At first it was hard to complete even a single "pomo" (a 25-minute unit of work). Over the course of a year and a half, I've gotten it so that I can get up to 4 on a good day. I think I got 5 a couple times, but 2 completed pomos per workday was most common. I've also managed to get from trying to work once a day to being able to work 4-5 days per week.
It's a major improvement, yes, but still far from the 16 pomos of an 8-hour workday. And again, it took a year and a half to get this far.
The first time I used Strategr... well, actually, it didn't do much for me. I played with it, but it didn't really seem to offer anything that other programs didn't. It seemed like making and maintaining Strategr routines was just another thing do. So, after a day or two, I stopped using it.
Uhhh ...
Months passed, during which I tried and failed to implement different workflows and use different tools. I recently discovered a workflow (the Zettelkasten method, if you're curious) that seems to be perfect for some of the biggest problems in my work. Strategr doesn't actually have anything to do with how the Zettelkasten method works, at least not in any obvious way. But a few paragraphs in the book I've been reading to teach myself the method (How to Take Smart Notes, by S. Ahrens) caught my eye. The gist of it is that in addition to reading with a pen in hand, it's good to have a to-do list in front of me so that I can stay on track with just a glance instead of having to stop what I'm doing, switch activities and mental modes, and switch back. I remembered Strategr's interface design and realized it might be well-suited to that kind of just-a-glance usage.
I got 10 pomos done the first day I used Strategr that way and I took two walks that day and I got some chores done and I didn't feel exhausted at the end of the day. I felt like my old self again! From then on, 6 pomos was the new low-end when I used Strategr. My rehabilitation was catapulted forward.
Holy moly! Do you really think Strategr gets credit for that?
I didn't attribute this incredible overnight improvement to Strategr at first. I happened to switch to non-reducing polyphasic sleep schedule at the same time, which is a much bigger and more dramatic life change than quiet little Strategr on the side of my screen. There's a tendency to assume that big effects must be produced by big actions, you know?
Not yet realizing the critical role that Strategr had played, I made some other adjustments to make myself more comfortable throughout my longer workday. I became ill right before doing my master's thesis, so "picking up where I left off in life" for me means trying to tackle this big, important paper that has been hanging over my head for all these years. But anyway, what that means is lots of reading and writing. Doing those things for such a longer period made me want to find a way to make it easier on my eyes since they felt strained by the end of the day.
Wow, I'm glad it had such a positive impact for you! But, well, umm ... why are you asking for a linux version of Strategr?
Being the geek I am, I built my computer. I triple-boot Windows, macOS, and Linux.
I ran out of disk space, and money was particularly tight at that moment. So, because I needed macOS for some design apps and wanted to keep Windows to preserve the possibility of playing games with friends, I wiped the linux drive despite containing being my favorite operating system. Necessity beat preference. From then on, macOS became my daily driver.
Then coronavirus came along. I remembered Folding@Home, so I installed that to help in the only way I could. But alas, the macOS version can't take advantage of Nvidia graphics cards (which I suppose is somewhat understandable given that the only mac users with Nvidia cards are a subset of Hackintosh builders). Fortunately, the apps I needed for my thesis work (Kindle App for ebooks, Zotero for reference management, Obsidian for note-taking, and Scrivener for writing the paper) were available for Windows. Ethics beat preference. So, Windows became my daily driver.
I eventually had the pivotal day I talked about earlier. As you'll recall, that meant suddenly being able to work much longer, which in turn meant strained eyes. "No big deal," I thought to myself. "I'll just find an ebook reader that'll let me fine tune how the text is displayed. And hey, I'm a designer, so I actually know enough about typography to know exactly how to help myself!" But to my surprise, there weren't many options. The few ebook readers I found were either some deal-breaker (e.g. Calibre is immensely useful for managing all my ebooks, but the built-in reader doesn't support annotation/highlighting) or were painfully ugly (I won't name names).
I looked at what was available for macOS and found even fewer options. The ebook reader that comes with macOS was nice enough, but I felt guilty about Folding@Home.
But now, I was in a position to get another drive and once again use linux. My graphics card could continue to crank out calculations for Folding@Home, and there are plenty of highly configurable ebook readers that have the features I need. Ultimately, I picked Foliate and use it in conjunction with Calibre. My workflow was a hair short of perfect synergy because Scrivener isn't officially made for linux, but I saw that plenty of people got it working and the instructions looked easy. So, everything was great --
I'm happy for that, but aren't you forgetting something?
-- Or so I thought. I was back to 2-4 pomos per day. At first I attributed this to the third and least pleasant stage of adapting to my new sleep schedule, but my pomos just didn't improve. It didn't add up.
THAT is when I realized that Strategr was the variable that'd changed.
THAT is when I realized that Strategr was essential to all that improvement I experienced.
THAT is when I realized that Strategr doesn't have a linux version.
And, finally, THAT is why I am requesting a linux version.
That's quite a story. Not to prick your windbag, but couldn't you have just stopped at requesting the linux version?
Sure, if asking for a linux version was all I wanted to do.
I'm writing all this because I want to let you know about the very personal and enormous impact Strategr has had on at least one user: me.
Additionally, I hope that anyone else struggling with anything even remotely similar to what I'm going through might be able to find their way here via google search. I've given enough specific details for them to implement a close approximation of my workflow, perhaps sparing them from needing to do as much trial and error as I did.
Ahh. So, that's everything then?
Yep! Did you get all of that?
Yeah, but it's a lot to keep in my head at once. A sequential list of the essential bits would be useful.
How's that?
My eyes glazed over, tbh.
Ahh! Lists are great.
Thank you for reading this very longwinded, unconventional GitHub issue. Even more so, thank you for Strategr.