We Built a Preparation Section — and Now There Are Too Many Sections

Why we needed a preparation section

Write a task, get it done. That’s the core of Fecit.

But some tasks need preparation before you can start. Cooking needs ingredients. Moving needs boxes and tape. Studying for a certification exam means buying textbooks and checking where the test center is.

Keep these things only in your head, and you’ll miss them right when you start. “Oh — I never bought that.” So tasks needed a place to write down what has to be ready.

Five categories

The preparation section splits into five categories.

• Materials — things that get consumed. Flour, screws, paper.
• Tools — things you use. A mixer, a screwdriver, a laptop.
• Venue — where it happens. The kitchen, a meeting room, the library.
• People — who you need. A designer, a plumber, a friend.
• Qualifications — what must be in place. A license, a permit, a prerequisite task done.

You add items to each category and check them off. Ready things get checked, the rest stay visible. Each item can carry a description and an external link, so a purchase link or reference material is one tap away.

Then a problem appeared

Once the preparation section was in, opening a single task showed five sections.

1. Schedule — start date, due date, duration, location
2. Analysis — target, expectation, obstacle
3. Preparation — materials, tools, venue, people, qualifications
4. Retrospect — satisfaction, looking back
5. Attachments — links, photos

Each one earns its place. None is easy to cut.

But stack five collapsible section bars, and even a simple task looks complicated when you open it. Does “grocery run” really need analysis and retrospect sections staring back at you?

The real test of Minimal to Maximal

Fecit’s core philosophy is “start light, expand deep.” Begin with just a title, add depth only as needed.

With five sections, “start light” was starting to wobble. We had more features — and less simplicity.

This isn’t a feature problem. It’s a presentation problem.

The direction we’re considering

What if only sections with content were visible? Empty sections stay hidden, and an “add” button brings them out when needed.

Open “grocery run” and you see just the title and description. Want to jot down what to buy? Press add and pull out the preparation section. Open “prepare for a job change” and analysis, preparation, and schedule are already filled in — so those three show.

Content visible, emptiness hidden. A simple rule, but it turns five sections from a burden into a choice.

No answer yet

As of this writing, we haven’t built it. The direction is set; the details need more thought.

• Should the schedule section always show, or can it hide too?
• Won’t a freshly created task feel too bare with no sections at all?
• Should a task created from a template follow the template’s section setup?

Adding the features wasn’t the hard part. The hard part is showing what we added without it weighing anything down.

All five sections are necessary. But all five don’t need to be visible all the time. Only what’s needed, only when it’s needed — folding that principle into the UI is the next assignment.