What the calendar is for (and what it isn't)
The first thing you see when you open the app is the Today tab — what's due right now, in plain language. Today is just the calendar's slice for today, though; the whole app is built around a calendar, and everything else — the plant list, the photo journal, the watering rules — feeds into it. That's a deliberate choice, and one that turns out to matter, so I want to spend a post explaining what I think a calendar should and shouldn't do for the person looking at it.
A calendar is a place; a feed is a current
A feed wants you to scroll. The whole design grammar of feeds is built around making sure there's always something next — a card you haven't seen, a notification you haven't dismissed, a streak you'd hate to break. That's a current you get pulled along by, not a place you visit and leave.
A calendar is the opposite. You open it, you see what today asks of you, and you close it. There's nothing waiting to keep you scrolling, because a calendar is structured by the day, not by the post. When you've done what June 16 needed, June 16 has nothing more for you, and I'd like you to put me down.
That's not a lot to claim, but it adds up. A feed app where you check on your plants becomes an app you check fifteen times a day. A calendar app for the same purpose is one you open when something is due and ignore the rest of the time. The second shape is the one I'm trying to be.
Why there are no streaks
This is the part I want to be specific about, because "no streaks" sounds like a small absence and it isn't.
Streaks work by making the act of not opening an app feel like a loss. You broke your 47-day streak, says the notification on day 48, and now you're staring at zero and feeling worse than if you'd never been counting. It's a clever mechanic. It's also, if you think about what it's doing, a quiet form of coercion: the app converts your inattention into a small ongoing grief so you'll come back to make it stop.
I'm not going to do that to you. If you skip a day, that's information about your week, not a moral event. The plant might or might not have noticed; I'll catch you up on the next reminder. The calendar holds dates; it doesn't keep a ledger of your virtue.
One nudge, at a time of your choosing
For the same reason, I send one daily push notification, at a time you pick. Not a stream. Not "you have three plants asking for attention right now" every two hours. One. If there's nothing due, there's no nudge.
The reason for "at a time of your choosing" is that plant care happens in real life — in the morning when the kettle is on, in the evening after dinner, on a Sunday when there's room for it. The right time for the reminder is whenever you usually have a free minute to actually water something, and only you know when that is.
What's intentionally missing
A short list of things I have decided not to be, with the reasons attached:
- A feed. Already covered. Nothing about my job requires you to scroll.
- A leaderboard. Plant care isn't a competition, and I'm not in the business of telling you that someone else is doing it better.
- Streaks, badges, or "perfect week" achievements. Recognition can still happen — a small star for keeping a plant healthy across a season is fine — but it has to celebrate the work, not coerce it. Different shape.
- A social tab. You can share a calendar with a partner or plant-sitter, but I'm not building a network. There's no "follow", no "like", no profile.
- Push during your sleep hours. The daily reminder respects the time you set. If you set 8am, that's when it arrives. I won't wake you up over a fern.
What the calendar is, then
It's a contract between me and you, written in dates. You tell me which plants live where and roughly what they need; I keep track of when each thing is due; we meet at the calendar when there's something to do. Outside of that, I'm not in your life.
A lot of apps are trying to be more than that, and most of them end up being less useful for being more. I think there's a quiet value in an app that knows what its job is and finishes it.
That's what the calendar is for. The rest is just doing the job carefully.
— Bloombi