Alright, let me tell you about this little project I got myself into recently, something I started calling my ‘vision of confluence’. Sounds fancy, maybe, but really it was just about trying to get my own head straight.
See, I felt like my digital life, my actual doing stuff, was scattered all over the place. Got notes here, tasks there, some tracking data from my watch somewhere else entirely. It was driving me a bit nuts, honestly. Just felt messy. So, I got this idea, this ‘vision’, to try and pull the important bits together into one simple spot. Not some crazy complex dashboard, just something basic I could glance at.
Getting Started – The Idea
First thing, I had to figure out what ‘important bits’ even meant. I wasn’t trying to build a command center for NASA here. I settled on a few things:
- My main to-do list items for the day.
- Maybe the top couple of calendar events coming up.
- Some basic fitness stuff, like step count, just ’cause I track it anyway.
- And maybe, just maybe, a spot for a quick daily note or reflection.
Simple, right? That’s what I thought too. Famous last words.
The Actual Trying Bit
So, I started poking around. How do you even get this stuff from different places? My calendar’s in one app, my tasks in another, fitness data synced to its own cloud thingy. Getting them to talk to each other, that was the real job.
I first looked at some ready-made dashboard tools. Some looked promising, but they either cost money, or were way too complicated for what I wanted. I’m talking needing developer skills just to connect simple things. No thanks. I wanted something I could tinker with myself, you know? Keep it personal.
Then I thought, maybe I can just use some simple scripts. I messed around with trying to pull calendar data first. That wasn’t too bad, found some ways to export it or hook into it minimally. Okay, one piece down. Felt good.
But the task list… that was trickier. The app I use is pretty locked down. Couldn’t easily get the data out in a way I could use automatically. Hit a wall there for a bit. Had to rethink. Maybe I needed to switch task apps? Nah, too much hassle. I ended up finding a clumsy workaround, basically exporting it manually each morning. Not ideal, not the grand ‘vision’, but hey, it was something.
Fitness data was surprisingly okay. The service I use had a way to access the data, took some fiddling, but I got it pulling my step count eventually. Felt like a small victory, gotta say.
Sticking It Together (Sort Of)
Now I had these bits of data, mostly. How to display them? I didn’t want another app or website to check. I ended up using a really simple, customizable start page thingy in my browser. You know, those ones you can add widgets to?
I managed to find or build some super basic widgets. One showed the calendar events I pulled. Another showed the steps. The tasks… well, that ended up just being a text widget I manually pasted the exported list into each day. Yeah, told you it wasn’t perfect. The daily note thing was just another text box I typed into.
So, what I ended up with wasn’t quite the automated, seamless ‘confluence’ I first pictured. It was more like… a slightly organized collection point. A bit manual, a bit clunky.
Was It Worth It?
Honestly? Yeah, kinda. It’s not the slick, self-updating dashboard of my dreams. But the process itself, figuring out how to get the data, hitting walls, finding workarounds… that was interesting. It forced me to really think about what info I actually cared about seeing regularly.
And the result, even being manual in parts, does give me that simple glanceable view I wanted. It sits there as my browser start page. I open my browser, I see my main tasks (that I pasted in!), my next meeting, and if I need to walk more. It’s… okay. It works for now.
It’s definitely not a finished thing. Maybe I’ll revisit it, try to automate the task list part properly someday. But for now, this little cobbled-together ‘vision’ serves its purpose. Sometimes the messy process is more valuable than a perfect outcome, you know?
