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GoneFishing · Vacation management
When I switched from a full-time employee to a contractor, I lost access to Workday and the company's holiday planning tools. Instead of tracking my PTO in spreadsheets, I built a small app that does it for me.
TL;DR
I didn't miss Workday. I missed knowing how many vacation days I actually had.
So I built GoneFishing: a lightweight PTO tracker that automatically accrues vacation days every month, keeps a complete history of every balance change, and visualizes time off in a quarterly calendar that's easy to share with my manager. It turned an annoying administrative task into something I actually enjoy using.
Problem
Contractors don't usually get employee tooling.
After moving to a contractor agreement, I no longer had access to vacation tracking, holiday calendars, or PTO requests. Every month I had to remember to add my newly earned vacation days manually and calculate my remaining balance myself.
It wasn't difficult. It was just the kind of task that slowly steals attention.
Process
I designed around one principle:
Never make me do the math.
Automatically accrue vacation days.
Show the balance at a glance.
Keep every change transparent.
Solution
Instead of recreating Workday, I built the smallest product that solved my problem.
The homepage shows my current balance and automatically adds two vacation days after every completed month.
The quarterly calendar became the centerpiece of the experience. Rather than navigating month by month, it focuses on the current fiscal quarter, making it easy for both me and my manager to see upcoming PTO, public holidays, weekends, and pending requests in a single view.
To make the balance trustworthy, every change is recorded in a transaction history. Whether vacation was approved or new days were accrued automatically, I can always see exactly why the balance changed.
Impact
No more spreadsheets. No more counting days.
GoneFishing became the single place where I manage my vacation allowance, plan future PTO, and keep a transparent history of every change.
More importantly, it reminded me why I enjoy building products. Sometimes the best projects aren't born from a product roadmap. They're born from a small daily frustration that deserves a better solution.
Try it yourself
Play with the interactive demo, submit PTO requests, approve them, and explore the transaction history in the sandbox environment.