How First Things First works

A day contains roughly a hundred small pivots — open this or that, text back now or later, walk with the kid or scroll for ten minutes. The direction of a life is set by which side of those small pivots you land on, over and over. First Things First is a small tool that tries to nudge you toward the side you actually meant.

It does not try to plan your year, block sites, or gamify your attention. It names the handful of things you said matter, notices when they've drifted, and, at the doorway of your reflex sites, asks you to pay a small toll — your own reason for going in.

Goals

The shape of the life you're actually trying to build. Not this quarter's tasks — the enduring aims that would still matter a decade out. Three to five. Plain language is fine.

Big Rocks

The tangible thing you'd do this week that would visibly move a Goal. One to three per Goal. If someone watched your week, they'd see the Rock happen. Rocks are the unit the Hub tracks against.

Relationships

People whose absence you'd regret. Each has a target contact cadence in days (7 = weekly, 14 = fortnightly, 30 = monthly, 90 = quarterly). The Hub's Tending panel sorts by who's most overdue.

Gated Links

The reflex sites you want a moment of friction before opening. Launching one from the Hub interposes a brief prompt where you name your reason. Not a blocker — just a small toll booth at the door.

Today's quote

A rotating quote on smallness, hinges, or perseverance — one per login or refresh. Not decoration; a re-framing before you look at the list.

Three small things

One tiny move each for a Big Rock, a Relationship, and a Wildcard domain (reflection, health, learning, household). The point is the size — small enough that "no time" isn't an alibi.

Current friction (amber)

Only appears when your recent obstacles cluster into a pattern. Shows the obstacle plus the mitigation you named. Ignore it and it comes back.

Stalled Rocks

Big Rocks that haven't moved in a while. Each carries the parent Goal for context and any obstacles you've logged. A stall is data, not a verdict.

You are tending

Relationships sorted by who's overdue against their cadence. Log a contact (text, call, in-person) to reset the clock.

Goals

Each Goal expands to its Rocks and logged obstacles. Pause the whole app, rock, or goal from settings if you want a reset without deleting.

Gated launches

The toll booth for your reflex sites. Tapping one asks you to name a reason; the app records the moment (or the bypass) so patterns become visible over time.

The premise: you already know which sites you're not proud of opening on autopilot. Blocking them provokes workarounds; leaving them alone changes nothing. A named-reason moment sits in between — not a wall, just a beat.

Over days and weeks, the reasons themselves become the useful data. "Because I'm bored" recurring at 11pm tells you something the app cannot invent.

Each Goal has an optional pre-mortem: "if I fail at this, why?" Naming the predictable failure modes ahead of time turns generic obstacles into concrete ones you can plan against. The Hub's Current friction panel comes from these logged obstacles as they start firing.

The header shows how many of the last 30 days you actually opened the Hub — the coarsest possible signal that the practice is alive. Pausing the app stops the streak from counting (grace) so a rough week isn't a stain.

Wildcard domains (reflection, health, learning, household) let the "Three small things" generator reach outside your named Goals when everything else is fresh — the parts of life you didn't turn into Goals still deserve a nudge sometimes.

It is not a calendar. It is not a project tracker. It is not a screen-time app.

If your Goals get to fifteen, or your Rocks bloat into weekly plans, or you find yourself editing the app instead of using it — the app is losing to itself. Delete the excess.