Projects and apps I built for my own well-being

  1. a brief, and complicated history of carpentry in Galicia (not that one, the other one)
  2. a list of things I made to support my own well-being
  3. useless linguistic trivia

Galician Carpentry crash course

I grew up above a carpentry workshop. The past 4 generations of Pastuszaks were carpenters (with enough fingers for only 3 generations, but I digress.) The constant sound of the Cadillac-shaped woodworking machines hummed through the floor from below. It wasn't loud and I didn't mind. To this day this sound helps me fall asleep.

In fact my whole town was full of carpenters. And in a town full of carpenters everything, from tools and buildings, to the carved rays of light in the altar of the church, is made of wood. The place, somewhat ironically, is called Kamionna (Town of Stones). People in Kamionna preferred making their own things.

I broke the family tradition at the ripe age of 9 when I decided to keep all my fingers and I moved to "modern carpentry". I cobbled together my first computer program, some time around 1997, late at night, when my dad was asleep. I still kept the same approach to work/play: we had plenty of toys, but we still made our own from wood, or "3d print" replacement parts for whatever was broken.

Fast forward 2 decades. When I was writing Sit., I noticed a pattern: I had built some of my favourite and most useful projects while trying to solve a problem related to my own well-being, especially my mental health.

Examples of those problems include:

So here's a list of the things I've built for myself which eventually proved useful to others. I will follow up with longer descriptions of these projects in separate posts, so I'll keep these brief for now.

A non-exhaustive list of things I built for my own well-being

Ensō

Why:

So far:

I've been writing almost every single morning since it launched. 1 million (!) words later it's hard to imagine myself stopping. Bear in mind that, generally, I'm terrible when it comes to sticking with routines.

Ensō has a small but active user base. The free version is available and functionally almost identical to the web version, but people still pay me for it, even for the free Windows version.

Sit.

Why:

So far:

I use Sit. almost daily. I've made very few adjustments to it.

(working title) Goatspeed you! Black Phillip

It's a simple app reminding me to speak more slowly. I never published it, I just compile it locally. I'm lazy.

Why:

So far:

I use it occasionally. The real value I got from it were the calls with people who contacted me after seeing the tweet, saying that they'd like to use it or that they were working on something similar. Speaking of which, check out Unblah by Alexis Rondeau. He's a brilliant engineer/product person/maker.

Say Hi!

Why:

So far:

People are kind.

Since I started these calls, I've met 120+ people this way. I have 2-3 calls per month on average although they seem to cluster. Writing this I realised that the sheer diversity of people I met through it, the ideas they brought, visibly changed my life. If you're thinking of making something similar, just do it. Or come and Say Hi and let met explain how to do it (or wait for another article).

Fig

Fig is a drawing app that helps you focus on the process of drawing without obsessing with the end result. Read more about it here.

Sonnet.io

Why:

So far my voice is still there. It's a force multiplier for all of the other endeavours: People, who saw Sit. will go to my site, read a post about Ensō and try it out. People see something I made/wrote and give me a call to talk about their ideas.

This website

Why:

So far:

Still work in progress. I'm tired and the quality does vary, but it's a tonne of fun and people seem to find it useful. I don't have comments, but people send me messages via email. My favourite part is following the domains on their email addresses and seeing the stuff they made. I learned a lot about typewriters recently.

The promised useless linguistic trivia:

Polish speakers call Guinea Pigs, "experimental bunnies" (królik doświadczalny). I'm my own "experimental bunny" and my bunny cage is a foldable piece of aluminium that can do maths, and an Apple Pencil.

Whatever lab-related adjective + animal name you are, I'd love to hear about your work, come and say hi or leave a message here.

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a giant foot-shaped snail with a house on its back. the house is still in construction, with a big crane towering above it The image is a stylized black-and-white illustration. In the lower left corner, there is a small, cozy-looking house with smoke rising from its chimney. The smoke, however, does not dissipate into the air but instead forms a dark, looming cloud. Within the cloud, the silhouette of a large, menacing face is visible, with its eyes and nose peeking through the darkness. The creature, perhaps a cat, appears to be watching over the house ominously, creating a sense of foreboding or unease.