Like 94% of busy professionals, you spend 50+ hours per week on work. And since the pandemic transformed so many companies, most, if not all, of that time is spent working online. At the end of the week, you're exhausted and feel like you did a bunch of stuff, but for what?
Just between us, ask yourself if you’re happy with the answers to these questions: How much time did you spend in meetings? How much on completing important tasks? And how much was wasted on busy work and distractions?
If these questions make you uncomfortable, stay with us. We're all grappling with an increasing number of tools and habits that need to adapt to the changing nature of work. If this next bit sounds familiar, Sticky could be your solution.
A Day In The Life Of A Busy Professional
You start your day with caffeine and a glance at your calendar. Like most days, you have a bunch of back-to-back meetings with only a few gaps to get “real” work done. Otherwise, your work will spill over into your evening. Again.
9 AM meeting
You start the first meeting and realize you're not ready for the next two. A hint of dread washes over you, but you focus on listening and taking notes. You're using a paper notebook because it's an old habit, which means you'll have to copy the tasks to your to-do list later and hopefully remember where to find the meeting notes when you need them.
10 AM meeting
A notification on your computer reminds you that the next meeting is about to start. You join the Zoom but haven't prepared for it, so you waste 10 minutes reading a document you should've read in advance while also trying to remember what was discussed and decided at the last meeting.
You search Google docs to find where you took notes last time. When you find the right doc, it turns out that a couple of tasks you committed to last week fell through the cracks. Doh! You chastise yourself for not transferring the tasks from the doc to your to-do list, and you promise the team you'll follow through on them this week.
11 AM meeting
While copying your action items from your last meeting into your to do list, you lose track of time. You're 8 minutes late when you join your 11 o’clock. You glance at the agenda, note who’s attending, and realize you could have just sent your input ahead of time, read the notes afterward, and skipped this meeting. Oh well – now you’re stuck.
12 PM productivity block (formerly known as lunch)
You check your calendar and decide to use the hour gap between meetings to catch up on email. One message from your manager is a request you can knock out in the next 15 minutes. It’s not a high priority, but you can get it done before your next meeting, so you do it. Why? Because rather than face your growing list of unprioritized tasks, you’d prefer to feel…"productive."
Facing an afternoon loaded with more meetings, it looks like you'll spend another evening catching up on the important tasks you really have to get done.
Sound familiar?
How Sticky Came To Be
Busy professionals have struggled with variations of what we just described for a long time. Energy-wasting and time-consuming activities have been fueling rising rates of employee burnout while businesses have been grappling with ways to operate more efficiently. The pains from information overload and a growing number of digital tools existed well before, but the pandemic amplified them overnight.
Sticky came to be as three significant themes emerged.
You’re dying a slow death from back-to-back meetings
Yes, it would be nicer if you had fewer, more efficient meetings, but you don't run every meeting or completely control your calendar. Plus, meetings are where you collect and share information and decide how to move things forward. Sticky helps you make the most of them.
You're scattering info across dozens of apps, docs, and paper
Yes, it would be easier if you could just remember everything you need to know and do, and ensure nothing would fall through the cracks, ever. Unfortunately, the human brain is not a very good place to store everything you need to do your work, while information that gets added to docs and notebooks tends to remain there. Sticky helps you capture what matters and recall it when, and where, you need it.
You’re staying busy instead of getting the important things done
Yes, it would be better if you had more uninterrupted time to sit down and organize your work. But Slack notifications aren't going away, your boss isn't going to stop emailing you, and that colleague isn't going to stop asking you things they could've just Googled. Sigh. Sticky helps you prioritize tasks and decide where to focus your time to get the most important things done.
Who Is Building Sticky
Sticky's founding team came together in 2021, united by a shared realization of the challenges laid out here. Each of the three founders has been an early employee at seed-stage companies and brings highly relevant industry experience to the development of Sticky.
Design
Andrew Lassetter is co-founder and CDO of Sticky. With consumer design expertise, he draws from his prior experience leading product design at Handle, a personal productivity startup that combines your tasks, email, and calendar.
When asked about the origin of Sticky, Andrew said, "It started with this desire to help people reclaim their time. The waste of people's time and energy wasn't sitting well with me. And that was a space I was already familiar with, so it became a mission to build a tool that helps you do the things that are meaningful to you." You can read more from his interview here.
Technology
Tamzin Selvi is co-founder and CTO of Sticky. They bring their deep expertise in web-scale software development, integrations, and AI, as well as experience as one of the early software leaders at Clockwise, an intelligent calendar and scheduling assistant.
When considering the opportunity to join Sticky, Tamzin saw the opening and wanted to jump in and build it. They said, "Even though we have many ways to take notes and manage tasks, we're still unable to capture important information and then get back to that context easily. I saw a massive gap in the market, and no one's been able to create that context in a tool and tie it all together in a useful way." You can read more from their interview here.
Business
David Williams is co-founder and CEO of Sticky. With expertise in product-led growth and enterprise SaaS apps, he leverages prior experience leading teams building award-winning CRM products at Zendesk, a platform designed for customer support agents.
David was recently asked about the changing nature of work since the pandemic. He said, "The way we work has changed -- forever. We've been thrust into a 100% digital workplace with too many separate tools that we juggle constantly to get things done. For all the benefits they offer, the gaps between them absorb energy and generate stress. I'm extremely excited about redefining the workflow of productivity tools in this new context. This is a generational opportunity to shape how we'll work for the next 10-20 years." You can read more from his interview here.
Sign up for a free beta account. Google users get access today!
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What Is Sticky & What It Helps You Do
With a clear vision, Sticky's co-founders have channeled our pains and frustrations to build a new tool to streamline your personal workflow, eliminating a bunch of busy work and ensure the information you need is at your fingertips.
Here's what you can do today with Sticky.
Master your meetings
Sticky makes preparing for meetings, engaging in them, and following through on action items a breeze.
Create 1-click meeting notes with details captured from your Google Calendar
Review past notes and action items in Sticky to show up fully prepared
Capture highlights and new action items from all your meetings, in one place
Remember what matters
Sticky keeps all of your notes and all of your tasks in one place.
Save things you need to remember from meetings, conversations and more
Use a beautiful, fast editor to capture ideas at the speed of thought
Capture tasks within notes to have the context needed to get them done
Get the right stuff done
Sticky helps you kill busy work and focus your attention on what matters most.
Find meeting notes linked to your calendar and grouped for recurring meetings
Gather and prioritize your tasks, schedule when to get the important ones done
Organize notes and tasks into “views” you create for projects, people, or topics
Give Sticky A Try
Navigate your day with more focus and clarity. Stop wasting time on busy work and end the madness keeping you from working on what matters most!
Sign up for a free beta account. Google users get access today!
(Not a Google user? Join our waitlist)