What’s in a Name?
When it came to naming the time management app, I had a few ideas:
- Quotidian
- Chores & Devotions
- The Time of Your Life
- Now & When
- [TimeBox]
I’m fond of the “something & else” construction — it became my intention to name every app I produced in this form — and I was partial to Chores & Devotions. But when I put the question on Facebook, no one else cared for it: a stunning four people opted for “Now & When”, one for “The Time of Your Life”. THE BASTARDS.
So I named it “Now & When”, and continued to work on it, occasionally singing1 to myself as I plodded along.
In early April, I was taking a shower, mulling over whether I should release the app, or just move on to the next project. It’s a debate that I’ve been struggling with for several months. I didn’t know how I was going to sell it. (I still don’t.) It’s so niche. I thought, maybe, I could target Trello users, or people who use some Kanban system. Kan-something. Kan-do. I kan-do that.
Kan-do?
I was giddy.
I liked the pun on “can-do”, a nice positive association, and the mashing together of Kanban and to-do. Further research revealed that kando is Swahili for “next”, as in “being closer in location than the other objects” — there’s an aspect of that in my app. And finally, the Japanese meaning, via Yamaha:
Kando is a Japanese word for the simultaneous feelings of deep satisfaction and intense excitement that we experience when we encounter something of exceptional value.
May Kan-do bring you kando.