F2F #86: The demo limbo

I have been building a tonne of things since Claude Code entered my life this past January.

The pattern is clear: I build things, they live in demo limbo, habit never forms, and the friction of recovery kills re-engagement, so I stop using them - or, at least, I don't use them as intended (ie: every day or week).

Off the top of my head, I have built a few projects I needed to get off my chest:

• A personal finance tracker.
• A personal dashboard to see progress in all my projects.
• My band's website.
• A website about Microplastics in Catalan.
• A page-to-page comparison tool for migration projects (needed it for work).
• A custom Ghost theme for the next iteration of this site.
• A memory system + reminders app (sort of an assistant).

Are these tools actually solving a daily need, or are they satisfying a builder itch? I don't know. I feel better about having created them than when I didn't have them, but they haven't solved the problem: I don't use them.

The process is the following: I create a thing, spending a few hours/days and use it for a couple of days while the local server is running. I move to the next thing, forget about the first and then on the other thing.

When I want to go back to thing #1, the server isn't on, the credentials aren't anywhere to be found and I probably messed up with the commits so I need a few steps to bring the project back to operational status. I can never form a habit like this. The recovery friction is a real habit killer: I won't form the habit of tracking my personal finance weekly if I don't use the freaking app I've created.

Even if it's something as simple as git pull && npm install && .env setup, it's just not top of the mind for me: it requires access to my laptop, I can't use it on the go and it doesn't work flawlessly when I needed, how I need it.

In other words: I have to get them out of the demo limbo. Move them to a VPS or something like that, create shortcuts and make them accessible multi-device with a simple tap, or they won't be used next Monday.

I usually share advice and opinions on these articles, but this week I am asking around: are you also stuck in the demo limbo? if so, how do you plan to get out of it? if not, how did you overcome this situation? asking for a friend, of course.