Don’t

Don’t is a companion product to Do. While Do focuses on those things that people want to, well, do, Don’t focuses on those things that people want to not do. These types of “tasks” don’t fit well into Do, because they’re quantified differently. Specifically, tasks in Do are quantified by doing them, but tasks in Don’t are quantified by not doing them.

Don’t provides a similar UX to Do, but instead of entering tasks that you want to do, you enter tasks that you want to not do. Don’t remembers everything you input, but forces you to choose one task to focus on. Every hour, Don’t asks you (via a notification) whether you’ve done the task that you’re trying to not do. Don’t tracks these responses, and displays them back to you in a line graph.

In this way, Don’t establishes a baseline for the activity that you wish to inhibit. The line graph also acts as feedback, which is a form of motivation. By quantifying and visualizing this activity, Don’t hopes to help motivate people to stop doing it.

Eventually, when the activity has reached acceptable levels of inaction, Don’t switches that activity into passive mode, and switches another activity into active mode. While in passive mode, Don’t no longer asks you to whether or not you’ve done the task, but relies on you to self-report doing the activity.

Don’t is a useful complement for Do because it provides the necessary structure for tasks that are quantified by their lack of doing. More importantly, Do is a useful complement for Don’t because it provides a list of tasks to do instead of doing the activities that you are trying to not do. Together, these products are two halves of a useful whole.