dontkillmog.com

how mog works

A guide for people who've just been handed an egg.

mog is a focus timer with a pulse. You name something you've been putting off, you sit down with it for a bit, and a small creature grows because you did. Stop showing up and he doesn't. That's the whole idea.

It isn't a to-do list and it doesn't do productivity theatre. There's one button, one creature, and one thing you said you'd do.

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getting in

Log in. The email is there so mog survives a cleared cache, follows you between devices, and has somewhere to reach you when you go quiet. In the app you're just an anonymous handle like Drafter_398, nobody ever sees your address.

naming the thing

The first thing mog asks is what you're going to do. Name something you've actually been avoiding, not something aspirational. You can crack on with the first chapter of your novel, but dishes or folding clothes are a good start. 

You can have up to three things on your list. One is what you're working on right now; the rest are waiting. Every nudge, warning and email is about the current one; it's a shortlist and not a backlog.

• add another — capture a second or third thing without starting a session.
• mark it done — closes it, and the next one steps up.
• Finishing your first thing leads straight into naming the next. You can also go back and sit with nothing named.

the loop

Press sit with him for a bit. That's a 24-minute session focusing on the thing you picked. Finish it and mog grows one evolution, twelve in total, egg to elder. He hatches on your very first completed session.

If you have more than one thing on the list, you choose which one this session is for before the timer starts.

choosing how long

From evolution 4 you can pick your session length: 15, 24, 40 or 60 minutes. Before that it's fixed at 24 on purpose — the habit comes first, and the length shouldn't be something you negotiate with yourself before you've done it once.

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what happens if you disappear

mog reacts to silence. Time is measured from your last completed session.

Repeatedly bailing counts too, even if you've been around: 3 sessions cut short in a row holds him at anxious, 5 at gremlin. Finishing one clears it.

making it right

When he goes gremlin, the normal screen is replaced by three small steps, in this order:

1. own it — one line about what happened. No explaining required.
2. sit 5 min — a short sit. Use it for a tiny real task: reply to that email, do the dishes, start picking up the toys.
3. finish something — tell us what you actually finished. It gets logged.

All three settles him back to normal and clears any bailed-timer streak. It does not grow him — recovering from neglect isn't the same as doing the work.

if he dies

At seven days of silence he's gone, and that's permanent. You keep your handle, your history and your record of finished things, and you're given a fresh egg. The small counter above his shoulder tracks both: how many things you've done, and how many mogs you've killed.

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your buddy

You're automatically matched with another person. Two things worth being clear about:

• Your mog is yours. Only your own sessions feed him. Nothing your buddy does or doesn't do affects your creature.
• You can see how they're doing — their creature, what they committed to, and whether they've gone quiet.

When their mog starts slipping, their card turns red and you can send them a message. Free text, one direction, no reply thread. They see it as a note held up by mog rather than a chat.

Messages arrive on your home screen — and during restitution too, which is exactly when someone's most likely to have written.

being nudged

• Email. When mog starts to slip you get a message, and so does your buddy: yours names the thing you committed to and asks you to sit; theirs is a heads-up plus a prompt to say something. One email per stage, not a drip.
• Browser notifications. Optional — turn on nudges on the home screen. These only fire while the app is open in a tab, which is why email exists.

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small things

• The dots at the top right are your streak: consecutive days you showed up.
• feedback, bottom-left on every screen, goes straight to us. Broken things, confusing bits, ideas — a real person reads them.
• sign out sits next to your handle.