Thoftly is a start page.

“Still thoughts. Start softly.”

That’s where the name came from.

I’ve done a lot of different things — studied yoga, built things, taught, started and ran a licensed daycare, started and ran an ice cream shop.

In 11 months, the shop hit profitability. That same month, the pandemic shut everything down.

So I adapted. I kept investing. I built out a small frozen processing setup so I could package and sell ice cream. From early 2020 to mid-2022, I kept putting money and energy back into it.

And then I burned out.

So I closed it.

Burnout… what’s that?

Apparently it means your next move is emergency work. I did that for about a year. Now I’m in a regular office job.

I’m tired. I deal with chronic pain. My energy isn’t what it used to be. I don’t want to build something that depends on me constantly pushing, managing, or being “on.”

But the part of me that wants to build is still there.

I thought about selling tutorials. How to start a daycare. How to start a business. Ice cream recipes, videos, all of that.

It would probably work.

But it didn’t feel right. It felt like locking myself into something I’m not actually passionate about anymore.

I wanted to share this for free. I believe in open source, in things being available to people who need them.
But I also want to make a profit. Both can be true?
So this is the best of both worlds maybe, I think. The tool is free. One start list, all the widgets, save your edits, free, forever. If you want a second list, or unlimited lists, that’s a subscription. Three dollars a month, to support my little start page.
No lie though, AI is free. You don’t actually need to pay $3 a month for this. You could use any ol' AI and ask them to make you a checklist. But if you like Thoftly, if it works for your brain to have a a 2nd or unlimited lists and a little starting point, and you want to keep up with my AI journey, that’s what the paid subscription is for.

I’ve always been somewhere in between with tech. Around it, but not fully in it. I messed around with Flash and HTML when I was younger, played with Python and automation tools. I like systems. I like figuring things out.

But I love AI. Like, seriously love it. And I can’t wait to learn more.

Apocalypse or optimist? I’m squarely on the optimist side. I think overall this will make humanity better.

So I started thinking: what can I build with AI? What actually helps me? What do I keep coming back to?

And I kept landing on this:

yogash chittam vritti nirodaha — yoga is control of the thought waves in your mind.

Too many ideas. Too many tabs open. No clear place to start. That’s where I kept finding myself.

And that’s the actual problem. Not a lack of ideas.

I reminded myself how I started before. I asked, “what’s getting in my way?” And then I just started. 1, 2, 3, go.

That’s what Thoftly is for.

You open it, type what you want to start, and it helps you turn that into something real — a checklist, a path, something you can actually follow.

If it’s too much, you make it smaller. If you need more, you expand it.

No pressure. No big system. Just: what do you want to start?

That’s the why.. Thoftly.com