Whenever I am being bombarded with a number of tasks, I go confused and end up failing to complete even one of them. Does it happen with you too? It happens with me most of the time. Have you ever wondered if there would be simple place where you can jot down your tasks, prioritize them and then strike it off once the task is completed? Won't things be much simpler? Well, I believe that!!

Sandglaz is one such solution to get rid of those sticky notes and other cumbersome to-do tools. I am using Sandglaz tool too and believe me, it helps! The biggest advantage is the flexibility it provides and the grid system where you can pinpoint your tasks.

Nada Aldahleh is one of the founders of Sandglaz. Let's learn more about Sandglaz from Nada herself in the interview below:


Nada, please introduce yourself to E-junkies.

I am a 27 year old programmer and entrepreneur living in Toronto, Canada. I am co-founder of Sandglaz, a task management application designed to effortlessly fit into people’s natural workflow.





























Tell us about 'Sandglaz' and the fascinating concept it uses.

Sandglaz helps people manage their time simply, happily and effectively. We recognize that most people (like us) don’t manage their time down to the minute, to the hour or even to the day.

On the contrary, most of us know to some degree what we want to do this week, and to a much lesser degree what we want to do in a month or a year. Of course we all have appointments and meetings with specific times, but most of our work does not obey a strict schedule.

Sandglaz is designed to offer this kind of flexibility in managing your time. It offers you a way to prioritize your tasks in time blocks, yet still allowing you to give them specific due dates if needed. It works by visualizing your priorities within the big picture, so you can quickly identify what tasks to focus on without losing track of your long term goals.





Why is it named 'Sandglaz'? 

Sandglaz” comes from “Sandglass” (hourglass) a simple yet powerful pre-14th century invention used to measure time periods by the flow of sand.

The time periods measured by a sandglass is analogous to the time periods represented by the columns in a Sandglaz grid. It is also a good reminder that the best inventions will always be the ones that are simple and powerful. At the end of the day, if something is too cumbersome to use then we won’t use it, and if it’s not powerful enough then it’s not all that useful.





























There are many other To-do tools available. What makes 'Sandglaz' stand out?

Before starting Sandglaz, we looked for an application that we can use to easily manage our home to-dos while scaling and being powerful enough to manage our work tasks. We found that most solutions fall into one of two categories: too simple or too cumbersome (sometimes both at the same time). As to-do lists get longer it becomes difficult to find out what tasks we need to focus on next, but at the same time we don’t want a solution that forces us to put too much information for each new task or shoehorn them into boxes they don’t fit in. 

We decided to build Sandglaz to bridge the gap between these two categories. The result is a solution that is powerful and incredibly easy to use. It visually presents what tasks you should focus on while allowing you to see the big picture. At the same time task entry is as simple as pointing the mouse and typing.

If you were to list its top three features/advantages, what they would be?

• Freestyle typing and drag & drop interface: being able to add and edit tasks as easily as you would do in a text editor and have everything save on the fly, and being able to drag & drop tasks without the extra ‘enable/disable drag’ buttons you see in other applications. Details like these are quite important; the user experience can make or break a product.

• The grid structure used for prioritization: being able to see the big picture of your project while easily pinpointing what tasks to focus on.

• Flexibility. Different people and different projects require different needs, and since we have a wide range of customers the ability to remain flexible and customizable is quite important. Sandglaz is customizable in different ways; the grids can be re-sized to suit the project, the cells can be relabeled to be used to remember things besides tasks, and grids can be shared independently with different users.

You guys are in your initial stage. What kind of response Sandglaz has received so far?

We are thrilled with the response we have received so far. Both the user feedback and reviews have been quite positive. Our users love the usability above all. It reinforces our vision and keeps us motivated.


Tell us about the inception of 'Sandglaz'. How did the idea of starting it strike to you?

The idea didn’t come to us in a eureka moment, it was built over time and refined as we put the pieces together. My co-founder Zaid came up with the idea of the urgent-important matrix many years ago when he was an undergraduate student, but it developed into Sandglaz over the years and mostly from personal need. 

Before Sandglaz, Zaid was a risk analyst manager at a bank and was looking for an application to manage the work of his team and their growing project list. Even though, the task management field is a crowded field he still couldn’t find something that meets his needs. Meanwhile I was using a text editor to keep track of my to-dos. A text editor is featureless; you can’t access it online from anywhere nor does it have email reminders or any of the features available in many to-do list apps. It was still my choice because it is freestyle typing; this was my first clue-in that a better solution can be achieved.

Combining our needs and our vision for a better product, we came up with Sandglaz.


What was the major difficulty during the pre-launch phase of Sandglaz?

Working all the time. In addition to Sandglaz, we both had part-time jobs until April. We’ve been (and still are) working long hours including weekends. On the flip side, it’s work we love doing.


Share the best incident that you encountered on this journey from conceiving the idea till present.

Reading a positive review, tweet or feedback. Reaching and helping many people through our product is very rewarding.

What methods you mostly rely on, for promoting your product?

So far we have relied on bloggers, review sites and word of mouth.


What is your vision for 'Sandglaz' as a whole?

I can’t give too much details just yet. All I can say is we plan to grow it towards collaboration and long term projects, while maintaining its simplicity and usability for personal tasks.


Since you've recently started up your venture, one can look up to you for the best advice. What message do you have for them?

Some advice can be good, other advice (even if its well-meant) can be damaging. So listen to others but only do what makes sense to you. Stay true to yourself, but don’t let others bring you down.

Release early and often. It’s the only way to get feedback. Respond quickly to feedback, but remember they don’t know your business nor your long term vision. Don’t lose track of your vision, but update it if necessary.

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