Introducing: Done – Chrome extension for iDoneThis

iDoneThis is a unique productivity tool that begins where normal productivity tools finish – after you complete a todo/task. The core idea is very simple – log your completed tasks in (as you go, or once daily), and then track, search, tag, discuss, share them as you want.

To log a task you can either email a specified email address with completed tasks (better: just reply to their daily emails), or go the iDoneThis website to log the tasks.

Users can be part of (and post dones to) multiple teams, say one for each project or department. Completed tasks can be #tagged for easy organisation, and team members can comment on and/or *like* each completed task.

Productivity hack: Close your email client!

The log-by-email option used to work for me till, as a productivity hack, I decided to keep my email client and Gmail tabs in a default closed state *all the time*.

The hack’s worked brilliantly! There’s no notifications, and no more quick-check-if-there’s-any-important-new-email only to spend 15 mins going through unimportant, but interesting ones. I open the email client now only when I want to send an email, or am taking a break so I have time to spare. No more interruptions!

The downside to this successful hack is that now I don’t want to open the email client, more recently the Inbox tab, or the iDoneThis website just to send a one line completed task email. And so, slowly, I stopped logging any dones at all.

The real deal: Done!

This new extension, Done!, is my solution to this problem – a way to quickly log completed tasks to iDoneThis without sending an email, or opening the website. Quick, simple, single-purposed.

Here’s the full, really small, feature set:

1. Log completed tasks to your iDoneThis account from popup
   • You can choose to specify default/different teams in your account to post to
   • You can also choose to specify a date other than today
2. See a quick preview list of tasks completed today, in the popup
3. Log completed tasks from Chrome’s location bar/omnibox
4. Log tasks when offline, to be synced later
5. Get a daily reminder to log your tasks (similar to iDoneThis’ daily reminder emails)
   • Clicking on the notification opens a popup to post tasks from

The extension is now feature-complete – as the small, quick-add extension I had planned when I started. However, I do welcome any inputs or feature suggestions.

• Get the extension here.
• Get a free iDoneThis account here.

Quick preview of the two main use cases

Logging a done from popup (keyboard shortcut: ‘Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z‘):

Logging a done from omnibox (keyword: ‘done‘)

About iDoneThis

Here’s a brief description of iDoneThis from the team’s own pages:

iDoneThis is the place for everything you and your team gets done — to track, discuss and sync up on progress.

Write down, track, and reflect on what you & team get done every day

• No more digging around through calendar, email, task managers, to-do lists, etc. to figure out what you got done — it’s in iDoneThis
• Status reports are a cinch to fill out
• Know everything that’s happening on your team without having to ask and micromanage, and be able to jump in and help

Remember your accomplishments

• It’s psychologically invaluable for individuals and teams to celebrate small wins
• It’s other side of the project management and to-do list: the done list. It’s vital to step back and reflect on what you actually got done and whether it’s the right stuff
• You may learn that you actually got done more than you would’ve otherwise given yourself credit for, and that’s an awesome feeling

Uber productive people like Dan Pink (bestselling author), Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos), and Naveen Selvadurai (founder of Foursquare) use iDoneThis to keep a record of their accomplishments. Companies like Zappos, Reddit, Uber, Shopify, Heroku, and Survey Monkey use iDoneThis to keep everyone in sync on progress

Finally, a big thanks to Leif from iDoneThis team for helping out with the API.