Introducing Flight,
The Personal Organization Tool
February 24, 2020
If you’re an organized person, chances are you spend a lot of time wrestling with your information. And no wonder – whether it’s planning a trip, keeping family members on the same page, or researching a new hobby, almost every project or topic in our lives requires managing a range of information scattered across multiple tools. Notes here, files there, links hiding in a growing pile of browser tabs, tasks sitting in yet another app… It’s a lot to manage in and of itself, but worse still, our lives simply aren’t organized around these app silos. We don’t have “notes projects”, or “files projects”, we just have projects.
This fundamental disconnect between the way our lives and our apps are organized forces us down a precarious path. We have to keep tabs on what information lives where, create and upkeep duplicate project structures, and routinely shuffle content between tools – just to name a few of our many workarounds. Further, with the ever-increasing number of tools and volume of information we have to contend with, the price we pay for staying organized gets higher with each passing year.
For many of us, the cost is now so high that we’ve either given up entirely on staying organized, or we’re paying dearly and still aren’t as organized as we’d like to be. This is a shame, because being organized and in control of our information is critically important. It’s key to living with focus, clarity and, ultimately, purpose. After all, how are we supposed to go places if we can’t even see what’s in front of us?
So, two-and-a-half years ago, we founded Flight with the goal of making it radically simple to stay organized and on top of our lives. We’re now ready to share what we’ve been up to.
A Place For Everything
From the very start, we knew Flight would need to create a single place to organize everything we need to track in our lives. The tricky part, of course, is how to go about this. It could have been tempting to follow what many have done in the team space (including my previous startup Spaces) and create another “all-in-one” document. When it comes to organizing our personal information, however, we believe that simply wouldn’t be enough.
For one, documents are only native to one type of content: text. That means other content types have to be shoehorned in awkwardly. Take files, for example. While being able to attach files to a document is useful, no one would consider moving all their files into a document editor. Folders are still a far better home for them. So that’s where they remain – in a separate place – and we aren’t much better off than we were.
Further, maintaining structured documents takes a lot of work; work we often don’t have the time and attention for. So, instead of staying clear and orderly, they can end up looking more like junk drawers. And still, our organizational problem remains.
With Flight, we set out to resolve these issues by creating a wholly new kind of information container – one that can act as a native home to all our important stuff, and also help us stay organized with minimal fuss. We call these containers “boards”. They bring the best parts of documents, folders, and task managers together in one place, creating a flexible yet radically simple way to organize information.
The Right Structure
While boards are core to Flight, they’re not the whole story. Equally important was putting a structure in place that allows information to flow into, within, and out of Flight in the most natural way possible. Countless details ultimately contribute to this, but here are some of the key pieces involved:
Inbox – The Inbox is a dedicated chronological space for storing shorter bits of information that you want to revisit later. This keeps you from having to create an endless stream of boards, and lets your most important ones, i.e. the stuff that actually moves you forward, stay front-and-center.
Quick Add – Whether it’s a brilliant idea or just a picture of something interesting you spot while walking down the street, Quick Add lets you capture it in an instant. From there, send it to the Inbox or a board of your choosing.
Groups – Groups in Flight are like folders for your boards. You can create and nest as many as you need, giving you complete control in mapping Flight to your life.
Sharing – Our personal lives don’t exist in isolation and neither does Flight. That’s why we make it easy to collaborate on boards with your friends and family or, if a wider audience is desired, to publish them on the web for others to follow.
Built for Speed – Flight is available for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, with lightning-fast syncing between devices. And, as is rarely seen these days, Flight is written in 100% native code, which means it launches in an instant and runs as smooth as can be.
Our Mission
Modern life demands a lot from us, with our focus and attention under assault like never before. With Flight, we’re on a mission to tilt the scales back in our favor and put us firmly in control of our information again. And in doing so, help us see clearer, think better, and make the most out of life.
Flight beta launches in the next few weeks and you can join the waitlist today at flight.app. As a small token of gratitude for our early supporters, everyone who signs up for the beta will get access to a specially-designed app icon and a few other goodies we have planned. We can’t wait to share Flight with you, and hope you will find it as transformative as we have.
Talk soon,
Simon and the Flight team