New Year, New HEY Calendar ??

Hey there!

One of the things I love most about a new year is the chance to start fresh. Clear the old stuff out of the inbox. Turn a literal and figurative new page on the calendar.?

At 37signals, we have a brand new "What Works" project for the year, where we keep our Cycle calendar, Kickoffs, Heartbeats and Automatic Check-ins .

And, we've just started to roll out the new HEY Calendar to beta testers. It's been the top request since we launched HEY.com . ? This week, we released the most comprehensive preview yet, in this video walk-through with Jason Fried.

In addition to having all the event scheduling functions you'd expect, HEY Calendar takes inspiration from the world of paper calendars; name days and fill them in with a special image, circle important events, and "pencil-in" things you might do with the Maybe calendar. You'll also find digital features, like a habit tracker and time tracking.

And, unique to HEY, you'll see a list of "sometime this week" things you'd like to get done, but don't have scheduled. And yes, you can share calendars with other HEY users.?

Stay tuned for more updates and the official launch date.

Finally, January feels like an especially good time to ask: Are there are other things you'd like to see in this newsletter? Questions you have for us? Just drop me a line: [email protected] .

In the meantime, here are a few other things you may have missed...

Thoughts We've Shared

Cars and business

Through the car experience lens, I’ve come to see businesses as either analog or digital . I’m not describing their product or what they make. I’m talking about how they’re structured, how they run. An analog business is direct. It’s clear what does what, and how it does it. When something changes, you typically know what changed. A digital business is indirect and abstracted.? — Jason Fried

The Big Cloud Exit FAQ

The cloud exit is done, but the questions keep coming. Oh do they keep coming. So rather than answer the same points over and over (and OVER!), I thought I’d compile a good old-fashioned list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) — David Heinemeier Hansson

Commit to competence this year

It’s that time of year when people start thinking about new year’s resolutions. The trouble with a lot of these aspirations is that they require the formation of new habits and carving out new chunks of time in an already busy day. That’s not impossible, of course, but it’s hard. But for most people, a significant portion of the day is already allocated to work. That’s a solid eight hours for the majority of people with a regular job. Forty hours a week. About two thousand hours a year. Imagine if you dedicated just 10% of that to getting better at what you do. — David Heinemeier Hansson

Things We’re Excited About

Workflows vs. Workarounds

We all get trained to take extra, time-consuming steps to make up for things that software should do, but doesn't. No more! Check out these workflows that replace the Gmail or Outlook workarounds you've been using. And watch these new videos for even more tips on how to make the most of HEY.

Live Review Series

We often get questions about how we make decisions or evaluate work in progress. If you've wondered that as well, get a behind-the-scenes look at how we've designed features and our feedback process, in this playlist of Live Reviews .?

Until next time,

Elaine, COO, 37signals

LinkedIn | X (Twitter) | Youtube | Podcast

P.S. If you found this newsletter interesting, and think someone else might too, please forward it along. Or, if you received this newsletter from a friend, and want to get it delivered direct to your inbox, sign up here !