Llama Life, issue #18
Hey friends đ
Welcome back to Llama Life, a roughly once-a-month newsletter where I share whatâs been happening with âLlamaâ, and the occasional productivity tip!
Letâs get to it!
Itâs been a whileâŠ
Itâs been a month since the last newsletter. That wentâŠquickly? I didnât think I had a lot of news to warrant an update, but as I started to look through my list of âcompleted tasksâ, I surprised myself.
Also, weâre 14% though this year. What?
So, whatâs new with Llama?
â° Added 3 new alarm settings
Visual Alarm - when the timer is up, the Llama window will flash red. So if you need an extra nudge, or would prefer to use Llama with the sound off, now you can.
Continuous Alarm - when the timer is up, the alarm will ring continuously until you dismiss it.
Nag Alarm - when the timer is up, the alarm will ring every minute to remind you that it is indeed up đ (probably my favorite, as I tend to dismiss alarms and then forget they had gone off).
Image: the Visual Alarm flashing red, when the timer hits 00:00
đ§č Added a âClear Allâ button to quickly remove all tasks from your list, giving you a clean slate
Itâs a tiny button, but has made a big difference to how Iâm using Llama - didnât think Iâd be clicking it that much đ. Thanks to @HomesickMac for the suggestion.
đ©đ»âđ» Re-vamped the Llama Life landing page
This was a great learning experience. Having worked previously in branding and advertising, I thought I was fairly good (?) at writing website copy. But then I worked with Mariann who does copywriting for a living and now I have a much greater appreciation for the process.
If anyone is looking for copywriting services, definitely reach out to Mariann (or reply to this newsletter and Iâm happy to make an intro). We met randomly over Twitter and it was a great fun working together.
Hereâs a pic of the new website:
In the process I also gathered a bunch of testimonials from customers, and it felt so good to know Llama had made (even just a small difference) in peopleâs lives.
đ Behind-the-scenes optimization
I wonât bore you with this, but have been taking steps to improve how quickly the website loads, as well as automating welcome & thank you emails to new customers.
What is coming up?
Iâve had few requests for adding:
đ Subtasks - ability to add these to a single task
đ Daily Report Card - to get a view on how productive your day was
So they are the two features Iâm working on now.
Subtasks are interesting - itâs been challenging to figure out how to include these, without cluttering the main UI. One thing which is hugely important to me is to keep things simple. As soon as things become cluttered that takes away from the âfeelingâ of the application, so weâll see how that goesâŠ
A highlight!
Was absolutely blown away and humbled by this Llama Life illustration by @visualashish that popped up on Twitter. Itâs simple, minimalist, yet captures the sentiment completely.
If you have a moment check out the rest of their artwork. Thereâs a whole visual movement I wasnât aware of, where talented people create and share 1 simple visual image a day. Pretty amazing.
Lastly, a few productivity tips for LlamaâŠ
Did you know there are keyboard shortcuts built in? (I probably need to do a better job communicating these).
When hovering over a single taskâŠ
Hit F to add 5 min to that task
Hit S to subtract 5 minutes from that task
Hit T to move that task to the top of the list
AlsoâŠ
Hit A to add a task
Hit SPACE to start/stop the timer
Ok, see you in about a months time đ
(or on Twitter, Iâm at @threehourcoffee)
All the best,
Marie đ©đ»âđ»
PS - feel free to reply to this email and share what youâve been working on. I love checking out new apps and products and always willing to give feedback.
PPS - if you know anyone who would benefit from Llama, please share it. It would really help me out. Thanks :)