Here When You ArePeople today. Brighter tomorrows.

A story · activities that take turns

I keep doing the same thing.

It's easy to get stuck practising only one thing — especially the one you love.

A before-and-after comic. Before: a boy picks piano every day from a list of six activities he chose himself, enjoys it, then notices he hasn't touched drawing, LEGO, coding, reading or jiu-jitsu in a while and can't work out how to balance them. After: the same six sit in a set marked Round 1 of 5; he finishes piano, drawing and LEGO, a gauge reads three of six completed, piano shows as locked with 'comes back in the next round', and he spends the rest of the round coding, reading and doing jiu-jitsu.

Before

I always choose the same activity, because it's my favourite.

  1. 1“I want to do piano again! I like this one!”

    Six activities on the board — piano, drawing, LEGO, coding, reading, jiu-jitsu — and he always chooses the same one, because it's his favourite.

  2. 2“Piano again today. This is fun.”

    And it genuinely is. Nothing is wrong with the choice. It's just the only one being made.

  3. 3“Hmm… I haven't practised my other activities in a while…”

    He notices it himself. The other five were his own idea, and they're going untouched.

  4. 4“Should I keep doing piano? But I also need to do the others… It's confusing.”

    Five question marks and no way to settle it. Keeping a good balance is a lot to ask of someone who is seven.

After

Activities rotate, so I try different things. Finish the whole set before one appears again.

  1. 1A set, not a list.

    “Now I have a set of activities to work on!” Round 1 of 5, six activities, and a line at the bottom: finish this set to start a new round.

  2. 2Work through them.

    Piano — done. Drawing — done. LEGO — done. Each one he finishes is progress on the set, not just a thing crossed off.

  3. 3See where the round is.

    3 of 6 completed, with the six listed and the finished ones ticked. Finish all six to start a new round.

  4. 4Piano comes back in the next round.

    Not “no”, and not a telling-off — a tile that says when. Meanwhile coding, reading and jiu-jitsu get their turn.

  5. 5Different skills, and a bit more of himself.

    He tries things he'd have skipped, finds ones he didn't know he liked, and comes out more well-rounded than a favourite on repeat would have left him.

Different activities. A more confident tomorrow.

In Here When You Are a group of activities takes turns: once one is done it waits until the rest of the set has had a go. A grown-up decides what's in the set; the app decides only what's next, which is the part that was hard to do fairly from inside a Tuesday. And nothing is ever refused — a favourite that has had its turn says when it comes back, not that it can't.

More storiesThe habits story
Your pace.
Your choices.
Your growth.