Friday rundown: Mac app progress, slower on the rest

It's Friday again, and this week reminded me why planning and keeping a content buffer is just so freaking important.

This week was extremely slow for me in terms of recording English stories for any of my channels.

Where the week went

From Tuesday until yesterday, I got caught up in some personal matters and had to shift my focus there. That's done now, so I can go back to business as usual.

Four days is a lot when most of what I make depends on me sitting in front of a microphone. Nobody else records the stories. If I'm not there, the buffer just shrinks.

But on the flip side, there's progress on all fronts.

The Mac app is at 62%

The biggest win, of course, is the native Mac app build for TWO. So far, 110 of 178 features are built, tested, and verified. That's 62% of the total app.

That's more than I hoped for. In my last Monday prep, the goal was to finish at least half of the Mac app this week.

I passed it, in a week where I gave it less time than usual. It also tracks with my plan to launch the Mac app beta in the first week of November.

Of course, I'm being optimistic right now. We all know from past experience that when Claude says it's done, it means it needs 3,000 more checks and probably another week of debugging.

Read also: Claude said we fixed the SaaS MVP bugs, but I don't fucking know

The roadmap is publicly updated too, and we're past 50% there as well, which tracks.

Working around the limits

Because I was busier than usual outside of work, I had to think through how to get the most out of my weekly, daily and hourly limits on Claude.

It's noticeable that after the heavy lifting of the docs editor, I burn through my limits a lot slower. I can do more in a single 5-hour session.

That said, I'm only at 62% of my weekly limit right now. Same number as the app, funny enough. So I can be generous tomorrow with what I take on before it resets on Sunday.

Catching up on recordings

I do think I'll make up for the recordings this weekend.

I ran out of content for Study Brew, and tomorrow is the deadline to have one episode published. So I'll record at least three, which keeps me good for another week.

Story Brew is set until the end of October, and Story Valley until mid-November.

Story Valley keeps surprising me

Story Valley truly starts to surprise me. I'm on to something, but I still don't know how to interpret my stats.

In less than a month, it completely crushed Story Brew on both Spotify and Apple. And while Apple Podcasts seems to be where the gold is for Story Valley, I have no clue how to read those numbers properly yet.

On Apple, it has 29 followers and 130 listeners, and 64 of them are engaged listeners. That's almost half. These are early numbers, but they show this market is becoming incredibly valuable for me.

The good part is that compared to the stats I shared in my last Monday prep, it's just steadily climbing. I'm gaining a follower every few days.

A typhoon and a 50-dollar setup

The plan for the weekend is pretty clear. Keep it light with the Mac app and organize my notes, then go heavy again on Monday. That means recording 15 Story Valley stories and more Study Brew content.

On one condition: that the current typhoon passes. Yes, there's a small typhoon over Taiwan right now, and I'm not sure if my microphone setup picks up the wind noise or not.

I haven't upgraded my hardware stack so far. I already cut it down from 10K to 50 bucks. Tomorrow, if there's rain and storm outside, I'll do a test recording to see if it picks it up.

If it does, I might still have to buy a new microphone, or fuck around with the settings in GarageBand.

Read also: Full hardware upgrade: from $10K to 50 bucks

Everything else got pushed aside

During the week, I took some notes for the TWO marketing plan and jotted down a few thoughts for the Study Brew app.

But when I tried to adjust something in the Study Brew app, I noticed my brain was so locked on getting the Mac app done that I quickly set it aside. It can wait until the first native version of TWO is out.

I think my subconscious, or my drive, is focused on that alone. Everything else that popped into my head got set aside immediately. Which is healthy, because it means I've found focus on the most critical part of my flagship SaaS.

Final note

The weekend is here, and I feel satisfied with the progress, even though the week felt a lot slower than usual.

On paper, I did less. Four days went to something else entirely, the recordings stalled, and the Study Brew buffer ran dry. But the one thing that's important right now kept moving on schedule.

The Mac app is past halfway, and the November beta is still on the table.

A slow week shows me which parts of my setup run without me and which don't. Story Brew and Story Valley did, because the buffers were there. Study Brew didn't. And the Mac app kept going because that's where my head was anyway.

Next Friday, I'll know if the first week of November is still realistic. Or if Claude's "done" turns into another week of debugging.