Being uncomfortable with discomfort

I am currently building my own productivity tool using Lovable and one of the main features I wanted was a gate, a password feature, that blocked access to my tasks and projects tracker. While it might look like mundane tasks, there could be some sensitive information incorporated and so the gate was crucial.

However, one of the key downsides of having a gate is having to login constantly, and that typically involves entering the password each time I access the site. While the entering of password took less than a minute each time, doing it repeatedly via mobile was quite irritating and frustrating, as it increased the time to access, and there was a risk of entering the wrong password due to fat fingers.

Am I able to live with entering the password each time? Possibly. Could I have lived with it and found compromises like saving the password then opening the list and clicking through to Face ID? Maybe — I did at first but it was still too cumbersome overall. And so I got Lovable to recode the login segment again, and add automatic login via Face ID. Now, when I login, I only need to click to scan Face ID, and the login would just happen. Friction reduced by 2 steps, with added time savings of a few seconds each time, and the most substantial difference, being able to login immediately and log my work without having to wait and hold my thoughts.

Applying this to different areas of life and work, I think we can afford to spend some time to improve or to change things that are stuck or not really working for us, but we sometimes get so frustrated with the fact things don’t work, but we just complain and then live with it.

One of the biggest issues at work is that there are many tracking lists, and they are done in Excel for simplicity and convenience. All information is manually maintained, possibly duplicated from yet another list, then reminders and prompts are manually added to do the work. This is a huge pain point, as Excel has data risks issues where data can be deleted or manipulated by others, whether accidentally or intentionally while inadvertently just browsing through or checking the tracking list.

It’s a problem we’ve lived with for years, and yet no one bothers to change it for the better. The feeling is resigning to fate rather than fixing the system. I’m always an advocate for using systems and processes more effectively and efficiently, as opposed to manual methods. It is not so much about the time saving only, but more critically, reducing errors and mistakes from having a huge vulnerability from Excel.

While I don’t blame anyone necessarily for using Excel, as it’s supposedly the most common spreadsheet tool available to everyone, I do blame the mentality that we just have to use it as is, and not explore alternatives. I have emphasised many times that a tracker should have information automatically populated from other lists to have one source only, and the data has to be both rigid and flexible enough for different purposes. Rather than wait and see, I have used vibe coding to create an app that incorporates that and am road testing it now so it can reduce the error and time spent on my end.

It feels like an uphill battle to get the people to change, despite there being a top-down direction that change is coming quickly, and we have to adapt or be disqualified. Unfortunately, I do feel that the mentality of waiting and watching to see how change will affect them instead of proactively trying to make life better and easier. I’m not sure how to proceed to be the catalyst for change, but I will continue to be uncomfortable with the discomfort and push forward with change. If they don’t want to change, I’ll still change and move forward as I do not want to live with that discomfort anymore, and have to reduce the friction before it escalates into an issue or problem, which will take more work to settle.