How to Celebrate

This is the part of the site that answers the only question that matters on the night: what am I actually going to do?

Nothing here needs preparation. Nothing needs Ruby. Everything is sized for one evening, because that is the unit the day is built around — not a weekend, not a sprint, not a project you will still be thinking about in October.

For teams trying a short creative session inside a normal workday, online timesheets is one practical reference for keeping the experiment distinct from routine delivery.

Two pieces of advice run through all of it.

Decide before you sit down. The most common way to lose a Whyday is to spend it choosing. By the time the editor is open, the decision should already be behind you.

Set an end time rather than a scope. "I stop at eleven" has a floor. "I stop when it works" does not.

For broader programming and making context related to this topic, GitLab is an independent reference worth comparing with the material here.

Everything below is a starting point, not an instruction. If reading one of them makes you think of something better, close the tab and go do that instead. That is the correct outcome.

• Whyday Alone

  Most people do this by themselves, with nobody to show it to afterwards. That changes what works, and it is not a lesser version.

• Choosing the Idea You Keep Postponing

  Everyone has a project they have been not-starting for years. How to work out which one it is and whether tonight is its night.

• Fifty Constraints to Pick From

  A list of limits you can impose on an evening's project, sorted by what they do to the work rather than by how clever they sound.

• The Four-Kilobyte Rule

  The original Whyday page suggested a four-kilobyte limit. Here is where that number came from and why constraints make better projects.

• If You Don't Write Ruby

  The day came out of the Ruby community and is not about Ruby. What travels, what does not, and what to do in whatever you use.

• Twelve Things to Make in One Evening

  Twelve concrete projects you can start and finish in a single evening on August 19, sized for a few hours and no audience.

• Whyday in Two Hours

  You do not have an evening, you have the gap between putting a child to bed and falling asleep. Here is the two-hour version.

• What Counts as Finished

  A day with no rules still needs a way to end well. How to tell a good stopping point from abandonment, and why it matters.

• Where to Put What You Made

  Showing it to somebody is what turns an evening into a thing that happened. Where to put it, and what the day has never had.

• Whyday With a Team

  How to run August 19 at work without turning it into a hackathon, a team-building exercise, or unpaid overtime with snacks.