jasnoo was built to solve my problems. I was always doing a lot, but I haven't yet achieved what I want. I did decently when focusing on external goals, but I always struggled to prioritize my goals.
It's easy to say "I'm doing X", then a random Tuesday morning comes and there are 3 other things to do that seem equally important. I've tried many tools for personal productivity, but none helped me focus on what matters.
I've created over the years 4 different versions of jasnoo, but none of them addressed the issue either. So I never released them. The core problem was always the same. I needed a way to prioritize my goals, but I could never see the big picture. So I changed directions every 2 weeks.
In 2023 I completely gave up on digital tools, and used pen and paper while traveling. That is how the idea for the current version was born outside the confines of lists. The current version is my humble attempt at helping other people struggling with the same problem.
If I didn't have jasnoo, you wouldn't be reading this. I would still change directions every 2 weeks instead of releasing my projects.
Like it says on the home page - help people focus on what matters to them.
That's it.
There is no SaaS business model here, no plans to build a big company, no plans to add the latest AI trend to make you even more distracted, no arbitrage to grab your attention and your data, no plans for taking investors, no plans for making a big exit. jasnoo is built to last. It's just me doing the work, delivering simple software and tools that honestly want to provide value to people's lives.
Compared to a lot of other productivity applications, jasnoo is opinionated. jasnoo lacks a lot of popular features. You don't need notifications. You don't need collaboration. You don't need AI. You don't need any more tasks on your plate. All those things can be useful, but more often than not, they are simply distractions.
My firm belief is that the hardest thing when trying to be productive is to figure out what exactly should be done and what should not. Productivity tools should serve you, instead of being elaborate time wasters that make you feel like you are making progress when you are procrastinating. You could say that jasnoo wants to help people get out of their way.
In one of my earlier prototypes of jasnoo, there was a mobile app and full cloud support. But I've decided to remove it. I've worked on SaaS products and once you deploy them, there is no going back. Servers, someone to take care of the servers, customer service, development, and product management cost money. This means the app has to bring consistent revenue to justify all that effort. So you bring marketing and sales people to address that. And now they need money as well.
That brings a strong incentive for everyone involved to do more things to justify the costs. I'm sure you have seen the effect of this with some of your favorite software. After a lot of consideration, and yes, by breaking it down with jasnoo, it became clear to me that this isn't something I want to do. So I'm staying true to the mission - help people focus on what matters. That means releasing this as a desktop app for now, which sidesteps all those issues.
If jasnoo proves useful to people who aren't me, and the mobile version & sync contribute to focusing on what matters, it will be created. If you think I'm stupid for not doing it yet, please tell me all about it. In the end, what helps you focus will be implemented.
In theory, you could make your grand plans on the computer, and then use some software or physically written lists for your daily driving. For quickly capturing stuff to inbox, you can use some other software. Or you can skip using jasnoo altogether if it doesn't work for you. If you think I'm stupid writing the previous sentence tell me here.
I highly recommend everyone to try out Todoist and Obsidian. There is an ocean of software out there that can help you, and in my humble opinion, those two are the best. I use Obsidian daily for all of my writing, and I used Todoist before I created jasnoo.
jasnoo saves one file to your disk that you can backup easily. The easiest way is to install some backup cloud storage software. There are a bunch of them, so pick your favorite. It's a good idea to use encryption software before syncing anything to the cloud (wink wink).
jasnoo file is a regular file, only limitation is that you can't have the same file opened on multiple computers at the same time. That would cause syncing issues, the same issues that would happen if you edit the same picture on multiple computers.
jasnoo file is crossplatform, you can use it across all supported operating systems without a problem.
In Croatian jasno means clear, as in "Is that clear?". Extra o is there simply to differentiate it for SEO purposes. It is what it is. I like the simplicity of the name, as it explains perfectly what I want to help with - clarity. Clarity put in action is focus. I do hope it isn't a bad word in some language.
