My three day (and first-ever) Django project, Finisht.com

If you're like us, you finish tasks assigned to you from several sources – email, bug trackers, support tickets, face-to-face interactions, etc. It's often difficult to find a list of all the things you've done. Finisht.com attempts to solve this problem.

A few months ago, we were compiling monthly reports of what we had done over the course of the month. It's not only for accountability purposes, but it's also satisfying to see what you've done. Makes you feel productive, ya know?

Well, the process by which we found ourselves building those lists was quite manual and tedious. It involved a lot of copy and paste as well as running multiple separate reports from different tracking systems. All said, putting together a nicely formatted report took around a half hour, not to mention the productivity lost from stopping what you're doing to put together the report. Clearly we had an inefficiency in our workflow that could used to be patched.

So, about a month ago, we threw together a task completion app on our intranet – dubbed 'Finisht' – and started using it for tracking things as we finished them.

Suddenly, the monthly reporting consisted of a simple copy and paste into an email, rather than having to bounce around all of our different systems. Not to mention the many tasks that come up from word of mouth, with no paper trail.

We used the software for a few months, and found it fit nicely into our workflow. I figured perhaps someone else might enjoy the software, as well, so we planned to rewrite the application in Django as my segue into Django, and open it to anyone who feels they might like it.

A quick brainstorm session between Pete and I:

The final product, a stupid-simple app:

Finisht probably won't fit into many workflows, as it's just another (small) hoop you've got to jump through. For those that enjoy or are required to compile daily, weekly, or monthly reports of what they've done, though, Finisht may be the ticket.

If you enjoy Finisht, and would like to see further improvements, use the feedback form located on your Finisht dashboard once you're logged in.

Oh – and if you start spelling 'finished' like 'finisht', please don't hold me responsible :)

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