Why We Rebuilt Todait

I watched an app that millions of people around the world relied on die.

It didn’t blow up overnight. It sank slowly. Logins stopped working, payments kept going through, and the support inbox filled with emails no one answered. At the time I was reeling from the failure of my first company, just trying to get through each day on other work. And still, right to the end, people kept asking us to please bring it back. I read one of those emails and quietly closed the window. I read those messages and did nothing.

Why I built it in the first place

Fifteen years ago, when I was just starting out as a software developer, I was buried under how much there was to learn. I could barely keep up with the work itself, and my studying was all over the place, never adding up to anything. So I needed a plan. To pick up a new technology, to learn a language, I’d set one: watch at least one video a day and take notes, read a fixed number of pages and write them up.

The result? There was almost no day it actually went the way I planned.

The biggest problem was that I never knew exactly how far I was supposed to get that day. Miss one day and the backlog piled up like a mountain, and then I just didn’t want to touch any of it. Even on the days I kept the plan, I didn’t feel at ease. After watching an overambitious plan fall apart a few times, I already knew the whole thing was off track, so finishing the day’s work meant nothing. I’d finish today’s portion and try to rest, but rest never came. It was never going to work out anyway, so hitting today’s target meant nothing to me. So all I did was fail, over and over. The failing days kept repeating until I was depressed, and because I hated that feeling, I stopped making plans at all.

A year went by like that.

Back then I figured there were plenty of smart people and plenty of apps, so surely someone had built a planner that just told you “this much, today.” A year later, it still didn’t exist. So I spent three weeks building it myself and shipped it to the store. For my own use. That’s how Todait started.

The concept is the same now as it was then. Give it a window and an amount, and today’s portion is always redistributed to the right size, whether you did less yesterday or more.

Just do the portion you’re given today. Do that, and rest easy.

How it died

The app kept chasing other features instead of the one thing at its core, the planning. Along the way, our team made decisions we couldn’t take back. Eventually it reached a state we could no longer maintain. I threw myself at reviving it more than once, but each time it lost out to other priorities.

The reason people kept using Todait, and kept coming back, was simple. For as long as they used it, they didn’t stop. They kept their plan moving. Even as the app grew heavier and its flaws piled up, people missed it right to the end, this app that nobody was maintaining anymore.

One user who’d left five stars wrote, “The features are so good, please come back.” There were people waiting for us like that.

The guilt of not answering in time stayed with me for a long time. From then on, Todait became unfinished business for Ellie and me. It was only after a long while that we could finally come back to it.

Three years on, people were still looking for it

Todait is my life. It carried the first half of my career, and I grew up building it. I still believe in the idea behind it.

There’s far more AI now, and far more polished productivity apps, than back then. And still, nothing lets you focus on the one thing that matters today: the studying in front of you. We know exactly where people running a long study plan break down.

There were the old reviews, and the users who sent me thank-you notes even while I was deep in other work. A user who studied for a national exam while raising a child, and finally became a teacher. A user who failed an exam year after year, then spent one last year with Todait and passed.

One message in particular, sent to me privately on LinkedIn, still stays with me. It was from a student who wanted the same software career I once chased. The connection request came with this:

I never thought I’d meet the person who made an app I used back in middle and high school, here on LinkedIn. As someone who dreams of becoming a developer, my dream is to make something as useful as what Tony made. Cheering for you always. Thank you :)

A year after sending that message, he joined LinkedIn itself, of all places, as an intern developer, and worked there as a software engineer until 2025.

Why we decided to rebuild Todait isn’t some grand story. It’s that we’ve seen it happen, through Todait: you can reach the goal you want without handing today over to anxiety and pressure, and still keep the day yours.

That’s what Today Do It, Todait means. When you give yourself fully to each day like that, the work stops being something you dread and becomes good on its own. And the days add up, until one day you feel it for yourself: the goal you were after, and past that, how much you’ve grown.

This time, differently

Next to the old version, Todait is bare. It might feel inconvenient, and you might wonder whether it changes much at all. But if it made your day even a little more meaningful, if it got you one step closer to your goal, tell us what you need. Your requests, your complaints, your feedback, anytime.

We’ll never build a feature that doesn’t solve your problem.

Not piling on flashy features, but helping you spend your day well. That’s the only thing we care about.

Before you go

If you’ve got a long exam ahead of you, or you’re about to start learning something new for the first time, give the app a shot, even if it feels like a gamble. Todait will be a good running mate. A steady partner you can lean on, one that keeps you moving instead of frozen by your own anxiety.

Whether you’re in school, grinding through a graduate program, or stretched thin by a part-time job, your goals and your dreams take learning somewhere along the way. If that vague dread is making you put your dream off again today, add the book you need to read to Todait right now and read ten pages. Just ten.

Take one step, and before long you’re walking. Keep walking, and before long you’re running.

From your very first step to the moment you arrive, Todait will be right there at your back, the whole way.

Today Do It, Todait.