Advertise to Yourself puts your own deadlines in Chrome’s new-tab page
The free open-source project gives you up to three goals at a time, while Chrome source installs and Arc require different setup.
The advertiser knows your priorities because you typed them in. Advertise to Yourself uses the blank moment after opening a tab to put your own deadline back in front of you.
The README describes “at most 3” goals, nearest deadline first. Each has a date to start appearing and a due date; it disappears the day after the latter. This account follows the project’s own documentation. It establishes what the interface does, without proving that another glimpse of a deadline will make anyone meet it.
The display rules keep the list smaller than a conventional task manager. A line shows the days remaining beside its goal, and the nearest deadline gets slightly brighter text. A goal can wait for its shows-from date before appearing. There is no requirement to stare at next summer’s project every time you open a tab in November.
Chrome’s setup preserves the normal opening gesture. After the unpacked extension replaces the new-tab page, both the plus button and Cmd+T show the goals, with the address bar ready for typing. Chrome uses one new-tab extension at a time, so installing this also means choosing it over the dashboard or start page already occupying the slot.
Arc needs a more conspicuous accommodation. The Hammerspoon script takes over Cmd+T while Arc is frontmost and opens the goal page as a regular tab. The plus button continues to open Arc’s command bar, and Cmd+L is the route to entering an address. Someone who lives by keyboard shortcuts gets a different workflow from someone who always clicks the plus button, even though both are using the same project.
Editing brings another distinction. In the source setup, the in-page editor writes the goals file through a local server supplied by the Hammerspoon module. Without that helper, the README directs users to edit the file by hand and reload the Chrome extension if necessary. The store-build configuration instead saves through Chrome’s sync storage and dispenses with that helper. The repository documents both; loading the source doesn’t automatically give it the store build’s storage behavior.
The goal limit is the appealing experiment here. Three visible deadlines leave room for choosing what deserves the reminder. They also leave unfinished work elsewhere, which is probably healthier than making every new tab a complete inventory of everything you haven’t done.
The maker promises “no streaks to break,” which neatly avoids adding an attendance score to a list of unfinished work. Chrome users can load the extension source unpacked; Arc’s shortcut opens the page as an ordinary tab, and its plus button still opens the command bar.
The next question is how long that self-bought ad space keeps earning your attention before the goals need rewriting.