There’s a particular satisfaction in building a tool that only you will ever use. No user research needed. No edge cases to consider beyond your own habits. No roadmap — just a single person’s evolving needs.
The bespoke approach
I’ve been building small, personal tools for years. A CLI for managing my reading notes. A tiny web app that tracks my running mileage. A script that generates my weekly review template.
None of these would survive contact with a real user base. They’re held together with assumptions and shortcuts that only make sense to me. And that’s exactly what makes them good.
Why personal tools matter
Personal tools are a form of self-knowledge. The act of building them forces you to articulate your workflows — to make explicit what was previously intuitive.