From blackboard markers to KeyPlan

KeyPlan did not start as a product roadmap. It started on a blackboard in my office, with a handful of dry-erase markers and the growing suspicion that most planning tools were helping me look organized without helping me choose.

The books and the spreadsheets

Like a lot of people trying to get serious about focus, I had read Cal Newport's Deep Work. The idea that mattered most was not a hack; it was a constraint: you cannot do deep work on everything at once. At some point you have to name what is actually active and protect it from the rest.

Before the blackboard, I tried other systems—calculators and scratch models for estimating time, notebooks, status reports, and the usual parade of apps that promise clarity if you just configure them enough. They were useful in pieces, but they all let the active list grow without friction. Nothing forced the question: is this really what I am working on right now?

Two lanes on the wall

The blackboard was simpler. I split it the same way KeyPlan is split today:

• Left lane — projects. Long-running outcomes, ideas, and subtasks that might matter later. A place for possibility without pretending it is all urgent.
• Right lane — active work. What I had deliberately chosen to move now. Not a backlog. A small, visible commitment.

That layout matched how my head worked. Projects could sit for months. Focus happened in short, honest bursts on the right side. The wall made the distinction physical.

The problem with markers

The blackboard was honest, but it was also high-friction. Moving a project into active work meant writing it again. Finishing something meant erasing it. Changing my mind mid-week meant smudging marker dust and rewriting titles while the ghost of the old text still showed through.

I erased and rewrote constantly—promoting tasks, demoting them, squeezing another “quick” item into active work until the right lane stopped meaning anything. The tool was teaching the right philosophy and punishing me for living in the real world, where priorities shift and you need history that does not disappear with a paper towel.

That friction is why a digital version had to exist. Not to add more features for their own sake, but to keep the shape of the blackboard while making the everyday interactions lighter: drag instead of rewrite, timers instead of guessing, a default limit on active items so the right lane stays meaningful.

What KeyPlan keeps from the wall

KeyPlan is the blackboard workflow without the smudges. Two lanes. A strict active-work limit (three by default). Time tracking tied to what is actually active, not everything you might someday do. Anonymous links and sync for people who plan the same way in teams, but the core is personal: see everything you might commit to, choose little, finish visibly.

If you have ever stood in front of a board with a marker and felt clarity for ten minutes—then lost it because updating the board was too annoying—you already understand the inspiration. KeyPlan is for that moment, made easier to live with every day.

— The KeyPlan team