Desire & Problem
In order to find an effective solution, we set out to work with Psychologists & Philosophers, Professors and Coaches as well as pore over Literature. We quickly agreed that personal development is not a sprint, but a marathon, and therefore requires methods that are effective in the long term. We also agreed that we wanted to combine individual progress with a social impact.
The result is that effective habits are needed to achieve personal goals. Habits are so powerful because they are used frequently and become automatic after a while. Consciously planned, they represent the "stable good". (More here) We have built our app according to the following 6 principles for habit formation:
"Sunbeams do not burn until they are focused" (A. Bell). In times of social media and countless options, focusing on the essentials is crucial. With 21done, you focus on one topic for 21 days: your personal development goal.
The willpower to achieve a goal enables us to focus or "sacrifice" alternative options. It is our central driving force. Since willpower depends on the meaningfulness of a goal, we have only included meaningful topics in our app.
You become what you repeat. Your neurons are definitely educable. The more you do of one thing, the easier you can do the same and similar activities later. Repetitions do not have an instant effect, but an exponential one over time.
To form new habits, we need to be able to learn new things. We make this as easy as possible for you by bundling all the resources into fun formats in your 21-day plan. We've left possible bells and whistles aside.
To change behavior, we must first feel a trigger to do so. External stimuli and reminders are extremely important for this. Our coaches will set the right stimuli for you. You can also manage your habits with us and set reminders for them.
Since Pavlov's dog at the latest, we know that rewards reinforce behavior. But which reward should it be? Your growth or learning effect, of course. At 21done, we also want to reward your personal progress with a social impact.
For Principle 6 (Rewards), we thought about it for a particularly long time as there were countless ideas on how to reward and motivate you for successful repetitions (Principle 3). For you and us, the social impact is the right approach because many of us care deeply about our world. The more progress made in one's personal development, the greater the contribution to our community and environment which further encourages personal progress and reinforces the cycle. True to the motto: The "I" and "we" are inseparable, so let's make progress in our personal growth and benefit our world at the same time to find our balance.
We work with GlobalGiving to support social projects. Through GlobalGiving, we offer our users a variety of charitable projects to contribute to. For every service booked on 21done, 2% of the service price goes to the non-profit project selected by the user. Together, we create a sustainable future.
Who we are?
In his PhD, Thomas studied the psychology and behavior of consumers. As a professor, he coached students on their professional (and hopefully also personal) development. Now he's putting the professorship on hold for now to help people form new meaningful habits.
Feng Xia is the co-founder of 21done. She is now leading product development and CX. She started the ball rolling for 21done when she inspired Thomas with her idea of a holistic marketplace for pet services. The idea has since transformed into a holistic personal growth platform for individuals!
Prakash is the CTO of 21done and a strong enabler. He brings the IT power to the team. More than 10 years of experience with IT architectures and scalable applications help him to set the right technical course for 21done. In addition, he is a coach for holistic personal development!