The Divorcing Dad

How TDD works.

How TDD works.

The idea

I built this for one man, which was me. It asks you once what you are like when a week gets hard. Then it holds you to it, every day. That is the whole thing.

There is no feed and no content to scroll. There is a morning, a mission, an evening, and a record that does not forget. The longer you use it the better it knows you, because you are the one telling it.

The first ten minutes

Before day one you write the baseline. Which of the seven standards are alive in you. The one most likely to slip. The pattern you fall into when it gets hard, in your own words. Only the app reads it, and everything you do after is read against it.

Day one opens the next morning at 06:00, your time. You get an email. That is all.

A day

06:00

The day opens. Three questions about how you are walking in. Two sentences back on what it sees. Then the mission: one thing to do before tonight, built from the standard you said would give way first.

13:00

The mission is either done or you are honest about why not.

20:00

You come back and close the day. Done, partial or missed. What stopped you, if something did. The app reads the day against the morning and you say whether it has you right.

21:00

If the day is still open, one email tells you. Close before midnight or tomorrow stays shut until you do.

What happens when you don't

Done moves your streak. Partial and missed set it to zero. A morning you do not open is a miss, and the app says so when you turn up that evening. Leave a day open and the next one does not start until you have closed it. Go missing for days and it tells you how many when you come back, and it tightens.

Tightening is a ladder with five steps. Each step down narrows the day. There is no excuse screen, because nobody is judging you. You set the standard. The app keeps you to it, and it does not get tired of you.

The way back up is the same every time. Open the day. Do the thing. Close it.

Monday

Every Monday at 06:00 you get the week back in three parts. What held. What gave way. What it says about the pattern you named on the first night.

The record is there any time you want it. Where you stand, the last fourteen days, last week's read, and what you wrote at the start.

The seven standards

Seven standards that cover a man's whole life: his head, his body, his children, the people he answers to. You pick the one you are weakest on and the app starts there.

  1. 1
    Regulate before reactingSettle first, then respond. The gap between the two is where you get to choose.
  2. 2
    Execute regardless of moodThe thing gets done whatever the mood. Mood is weather. Standards are geography.
  3. 3
    No seeking validationAct on your own judgement. What other people make of you is their business.
  4. 4
    Build forward not backwardLeave what is behind you where it is. The way out is forward.
  5. 5
    Present fatherWhen you are with your children, be all the way there, for however long you have them.
  6. 6
    Enforce boundariesHold your line even when it costs you. A line that only holds when it is free is decoration.
  7. 7
    Body under commandThe body does what the day requires. Tired, hungry, low, sore: none of it gets a vote.

Who it is for

A man somewhere between the separation and whatever comes after it. Capable, and running on nothing. Tired of being told to feel his feelings by people who have never met him.

If you want to be understood, this is the wrong place. If you want to behave differently by Friday, and be able to prove it, it is the right one.

Why it is free

Because I am still building it, and I am building it against the men who use it now. Every close you do shapes what it becomes. That is worth more to me than a subscription.

So it is free while I build it. And if you are inside now, it stays free for you when a price arrives for the men who come after. You will hear about that from me before it happens, not after.

Start the baseline

Free, and if you start now, free for good. No card. Nothing to cancel.