Getting Crap Done checklist:

• iCalendar feed? Check.
• Email reminders? Check.
• Basic mobile support? Check.

I have a couple more little things I'd like to add and some UI changes I'll no doubt make, but I'd call the quick development of GCD a success. Which is good, since the idea is to get me to do stuff, and quickly.

So what's next?

The big thing is to get Raidomatic, my new guild forums and raid composition tool, released and into use. It's mostly there, but there are little problems to take care of and a couple small features I should add before release. The vital thing will be to get it out there - I can add any other big features (like sorting loot rollers by how proper the item is for their spec) in later revisions.

After that, I want to make a Mac client for GCD. It's not like the site is screaming out for native clients, but I want to learn Cocoa programming and nothing helps learning a new environment more than having a very explicit and attainable goal to reach.

In addition, I've got a family-company web site to work on. Between that and the other couple things I have to do, I should be able to keep myself pretty busy for a while.

Well, Project One is down: I set up a first draft of my new Getting Crap Done database. I did indeed set it up on Domino, so I didn't have to worry about user authentication, and that helped quite a bit. It's very quick and dirty, using some basic controls and a certain old style I had sitting around:

It really does just what I need: keeps tracks of item names, the date or range (now, short, medium, long), and allows for repeating items, plug a big ol' rich text field for generic notes:

Since it's Domino, multi-user functions were a cinch and it was easy to add in some items for making items available for viewing or editing by others, and those fields also handled showing only your items with no chance of stumbling across anyone else's illicitly.

I also added a feed to my home page to keep it in my face at all times. In later phases, I'll add in stuff like RSS feeds and email reminders. More importantly, though, this should help me hold my own feet to the fire on on the other things I need to get done.

So I think my first project should be a quick little app to keep track of the things I need to do. This is well-trodden ground and I could easily just pick up a free app to do it, but it should provide a good exercise, and I'll get to do it like I want.

Basically, the way I want to do it is pretty similar to the project-tracking database I wrote for work, or at least the sidebar view I made for it. The basic UI is just a list of things to do with short summaries, categorized by their due date, and icon- and color-coded for status and rushness. In a non-work setting, The former could translate to vague timeframes of "now", "soon", "long-term", etc. and the latter could translate to "importance". I'll also have to work in some support for recurring events, like "pay the non-automatic bills." I don't think I'd need all the categorization I have at work - my personal projects are much looser than the client-driven work ones, so maybe just a tag or two would do the job.

Really, the goal is to just get a list of things that I have to do in my face at all times (or, at least, in a place I will actually check regularly, so maybe I'll have it send me email). I've historically had a nasty tendency to let things drift out of mind, but I'm putting an end to it, and I'll make this app reflect that. I'll use my natural aversion to red "past due" text to keep me going.

I'll have to pick a medium. My default lately is XPages, which is my work development environment, but I'm always itching to try something else. Nonetheless, XPages may win out - if nothing else, I don't want to bother writing a user authentication and DB access system or any of the other "structural" elements that would stand in between me and getting it started. The whole point is to make sure I actually get crap done, after all, not spin my wheels with abandoned drafts.