A focus companion for your terminal

Pick fewer things.
Purrsist.

Your focus companion for actually sticking with what you started.

Choose up to three priorities, focus for a session, record what you did, and come back tomorrow.

purrsist — ~/focus
PURRSIST

Today's priorities

  • AWS SAA-C034h 20m
  • Purrsist CLI2h 45m
  • Technical article1h 10m

8 day consistency streak

1Focus2Goals3Today4Stats5IdeasqQuit

What are we working on?

Your problem probably isn't motivation.

Constantly changing direction is the real cost. Every switch resets your progress, so skills never get the chance to compound. It feels productive to start something new — but starting over isn't the same as moving forward.

The loop you're in
  1. New idea
  2. Research
  3. Tutorial
  4. Excitement
  5. New shiny thing
  6. Switch
  7. Start over

Endless motion, no accumulation.

The loop that compounds
  1. Choose
  2. Focus
  3. Record
  4. Return
  5. Compound

Same effort, pointed in one direction.

Three things. That's it.

Purrsist is built around one framework: Learn, Build, Ship. You can hold up to three active priorities at once — no more. The limit isn't a restriction, it's the point. Fewer directions means your effort actually adds up.

Learn

Build knowledge deliberately.

example: AWS SAA-C03

Build

Turn what you're learning into something real.

example: Purrsist CLI

Ship

Put something into the world.

example: Article, video, project, contribution

Work in small, repeatable chunks.

Start a focused session, attach it to one of your priorities, and go. When the timer ends, Purrsist asks a single question: what did you accomplish?

The goal isn't a perfect, uninterrupted day of deep work. The goal is returning to the same thing often enough that it starts to stick.

purrsist — focus
Purrsist

AWS SAA-C03

18:42

Stay with it.

purrsist — session complete

Session complete.

What did you accomplish?

> Finished IAM practice questions.

25 minutes done. Nice.

shiny object parking lot

Curiosity doesn't have to derail you.

When a new idea grabs you — Rust, Kubernetes, some clever agent framework — you don't have to drop everything to chase it. Park it. It'll be there when you're ready.

purrsist — shiny

$ shiny

What's the new idea?

> Learn Rust

Why?

> It looks interesting.

Added to parking lot.

Current priorities remain:

  • AWS SAA-C03
  • Purrsist
  • Technical article

Rust looks interesting. I've put it in the parking lot. Now back to AWS.

Shiny object parking lot

  • Rust
  • Kubernetes
  • React
  • Build an AI agent
  • Learn Go

Capture the idea. Don't chase it.

You don't have to stop being curious. You just don't have to change direction every time you're curious.

Leave evidence that you showed up.

At the end of the day, Purrsist shows you what actually happened — which priorities got time, how many sessions you ran, and the notes you left along the way.

It records the work itself, not a vague feeling of being busy. On the days you doubt yourself, the log is proof.

purrsist — today

Thursday, August 13

  • FocusCat2 sessions50 min
  • AWS SAA-C031 session25 min

Notes:

  • Implemented task creation command
  • Finished IAM practice questions
  • Fixed timer bug

Streaks for showing up, not being perfect.

A streak in Purrsist means one thing: you came back. It doesn't care whether the day was flawless or whether you hit some arbitrary target. Consistency beats intensity, and a chain of ordinary days is what compounds.

No badges to grind, no guilt when you miss. Just a quiet record of the days you turned up.

8 days

Today

  • 25 min AWS
  • 25 min Purrsist

You showed up. That's what matters.

You don't need another tutorial.
You need to keep going.

Purrsist is built around a simple experiment:

  1. Choose fewer things.
  2. Work on them.
  3. Record the work.
  4. Come back tomorrow.

Built by learning through building.

Purrsist is being built in the open as a real Python CLI, using the same modern engineering practices it's meant to support — tested, typed, and linted. It practices what it preaches: one tool, built consistently, over time.

  • Python
  • Typer
  • Rich
  • SQLite
  • pytest
  • Ruff
  • mypy
  • GitHub Actions

Ready to purrsist?

Pick one thing worth sticking with.