Devlog #2: Stop Managing Tasks. Start Owning the "Now."

ONYXIUM — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:16:00 +0000

Hey everyone, back again.

Sorry for the delay on this update—I was actually away on a trip for a bit, so I couldn't get to posting as quickly as I wanted to. But I'm back at my desk now and ready to share where things are at.

First off, a quick shoutout to the 3 viewers who checked out my previous blog post and special thanks to guima the founder of guima.ai who game some valuable tips for my development journey. Honestly, seeing even a few people take a look means a lot when you're just starting out.

Building a startup as a non-coder while pairing up with AI as my development partner has definitely been a wild, unpredictable ride, but we are slowly moving forward. Today, I wanted to quietly break down the core engine behind the app, because the name isn’t just a random set of letters.

NYN literally means "Now" in Greek . And that single word is the foundation for the entire philosophy of what I’m trying to build.

The Core Idea: Time Drives the Task

If you look at mainstream tools like Notion or Trello, they center around a massive, infinite to-do list. It just sits there on your screen, staring at you, and let’s be honest—it usually just causes anxiety. You look at 20 different tasks, get completely overwhelmed, and end up procrastinating on all of them.

NYN tries to flip this dynamic entirely. In NYN, time drives the task, not the other way around . Instead of staring down an endless list, you work within strict, hyper-focused time blocks. When a time block starts, that specific task is the only thing that's supposed to exist on your screen. For example, if your "Chemistry Revision" block is set from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM, the interface adapts to protect that flow state.

Once that hour is up? It's gone. You either consciously choose to shift the task or you end it completely. The goal is to stop letting uncompleted tasks mindlessly pile up to haunt you the next day. It's a small shift, but it forces you to respect your actual time.

Progress Update: Dashboard & Calendar Layouts Are Set 🚀

I've been quietly grinding away on the layout, and the Dashboard and Calendar features are now pretty much set in terms of core functionality. Here’s a quick look at how the dashboard is shaping up in the thumbail

I’m really trying to stick to a hyper-minimal, premium aesthetic. No clunky grids, no distracting databases, and no unnecessary visual noise. Just you, the active task, a clean visual focus timer, and space to think.

I also put together a clean, slide-out sidebar to handle the main navigation layout.

Moving forward, these two core structural pieces are locked in. Right now, I'm just working through some minor patches—mostly fixing up some text padding, alignment, and basic UI cleanup—to make sure the dark, glassmorphic look feels smooth and natural.

Keeping It "Minimalist FR"

A lot of great productivity tools eventually suffer from "feature creep"—they try to be everything for everyone until the app becomes a cluttered mess. I'm trying my best to actively resist that. Every single element on this dashboard has to earn its place. If it doesn't directly help you focus on what you're doing right now, it gets cut.

I do have a few bigger features cooking in the background regarding what happens after your last task of the day ends, as well as how NYN will interact deeper with your desktop environment... but I think I'll keep those under wraps for the next few devlogs to keep things simple for now. Thnx again if possible please share and if you are reading please please comment i really need that feedback

Devlog #1: Building NYN — A Productivity Tool That Does Less

ONYXIUM — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:34:29 +0000

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on Dev-Community and the start of a devlog for my first startup, NYN.

A little bit about me: I’m not an experienced founder, and I’m definitely still figuring things out as I go. NYN is my first serious attempt at building a product from scratch.

The idea actually came from my own frustration.

I used Notion for a long time and, like most people, I started using it because I wanted to be more productive. At first it worked great. I organized everything, created dashboards, and tracked my tasks and did all that productivity guru stuff.

But after a while I noticed something strange.

My to-do list kept growing faster than I could complete it.

Every day I would add more tasks, more pages, more databases, and more things to manage. Instead of feeling productive, I often felt overwhelmed. I was spending so much time maintaining my productivity system that I wasn’t always doing the actual work.

So I started reading articles, watching videos, and learning more about productivity. One thing kept showing up over and over again: people perform better when they have clarity and focus, not when they have endless options and endless lists.

That got me thinking.

What if a productivity tool focused less on giving users more features and more on helping them focus on what actually matters?

That’s where NYN started.

I’m not building NYN because I think productivity apps are bad. And yes, I’m building a business, so hopefully one day it makes money too. But I genuinely believe that a product can be profitable while still helping its users.

My goal is simple:

Build something that reduces clutter instead of adding more of it.

Right now I’m experimenting with ideas like:

Simpler interfaces
Better prioritization
Less visual noise
Helping users focus on high-impact work
Making productivity feel less overwhelming

I’m also building the project in a way that probably wasn’t possible a few years ago. I’m designing the product myself and using AI to help with development, "because i am not good at coding i tired to give a shot but quickly realized my skills in coding were not too great to be able to manage the code of a complex application" , and implementation. The AI isn’t building the vision for me, but it’s helping me move much faster than I could on my own so kudos to AI !

Over the next few weeks and months I’ll be sharing:

Design decisions
Progress updates
Mistakes I make
Things that don’t work
Things that do work
What it’s like building a startup as a beginner

The project is still in its early stages, but I’m excited to see where it goes.

By very early i mean i only built the log in page so yeah but still keep reading if you face the same problem and need a solution badly

If you’ve ever felt like your productivity tools were becoming another thing to manage, I’d love to hear your experience and yeah make sure to follow this blog posts for more updates.Its minimalist FR.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to the journey. Btw if you have come so far so please make sure to drop a review on the sign in page the ui so i could improve thnx again

DEV Community: ONYXIUM

Devlog #2: Stop Managing Tasks. Start Owning the "Now."

Devlog #1: Building NYN — A Productivity Tool That Does Less