It started with five minutes.

The deal was simple.

I would set aside five minutes a day to write. Some days I only did five. Other days I did fifteen. Some days I would end up writing for an hour.

But five minutes was all I had agreed to. Once I’d done that, I could put it aside and say, “Yeah, it’s a bad day.” At least I’d given this one thing a try.

Eventually, that rolled into a few more habits:

• 5 minutesWriting.
• 5 minutesMeditation.
• 5 minutesWorking out. Literally pushups, squats, situps—whatever I could do for five minutes.

Fifteen minutes for those three things. Then I would X out the day on my calendar.

Sometimes I couldn’t even do that.

It really started with five minutes of writing, and sometimes I couldn’t bring myself to do even those five minutes.

The calendar would sit on the wall. I might ignore it for two weeks, three weeks, a month. I wouldn’t do any of my healthy habits.

I don’t know what the fuck I was doing. A month, sometimes two, would just go by.

Then, eventually, I’d see the calendar on the wall.

“Okay. All right. I’ll start this again.”

And I would.

The calendar stayed.

That’s the part I keep coming back to. Even when I wasn’t doing the habits, the calendar was still there. I could ignore it for a while, but eventually I’d notice it again.

Slowly, over time, coming back became a habit of its own.

I think there’s a lot of power in having something physical on the wall, quietly reminding you of the person you want to be. You walk past it. You see it. And one day you think, “All right. Five minutes.”

Five minutes started opening doors.

Eventually, I started using the same approach for bigger goals. I wanted to become a software developer. I wanted to work remotely. So I gave learning software five minutes a day.

Over time, I found a school and a community that helped me learn. I became a developer, got a job I enjoyed, and started working remotely. Then I was able to travel.

Now I live in Mexico. I work remotely. And I love my life.

When I look back, I trace so much of that to those small commitments and the calendar on my wall. Five minutes gave me a place to start. The school, the community, and the work helped me keep going.

That’s why this means so much to me. It helped me turn the person I wanted to be into the life I’m actually living.

That’s where Stickto comes from.

A calendar on the wall. Something small you can actually do. A mark that says you gave it a try.

Stickto grew out of that experience: a physical habit calendar with colorful stickers, and a companion app being developed to support it. The calendar works on its own, including on the days when all you need is a reminder to begin again.

I still believe in those five minutes. And I believe in leaving the calendar up, even when you’re having a hard time coming back to it.