The good news is that I’ve crossed the summer hole! The bad news is that I’m staring down the deadline of a prototype by mid-September. That’s where the title comes from: the German word for the panic felt because of a deadline.
It’s 3 words: Tor (gate), Schluss (closure), and Panik (panic). The history is that, back in the day, the city gates would close at a certain time to keep out barbarians, wild animals, and that one wolf who’s dressed up as your grandmother. Its contemporary usage is more about telling yourself and your friends that you’ll have a basic product by a certain date, but you’re worried that you’re going to be left outside with the barbarians and wolf.
So what do we do? A few things, actually. First, we set up systems of accountability, like the friends who we’ve told about our self-imposed deadlines, or our blog reader (hi Mom!). Second, we rely on smaller deadlines. As Douglas Adams famously said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
Finally, we celebrate the steps we take. And with that, I present the screenshot that accompanies this post! It will still take some cleaning up (like adding a logo), but the major parts all seem to be there. By the end of the week, I hope to have the framework complete, and then I can focus on what matters: breaking my brain over creating exercises that somehow are realistic but also repeatable.
Wish me luck, and if you see me in public before mid September, feel free to feed me coffee. I probably need it.