Solving Procrastination with Workplay
A mac application for balancing work and play
We love to challenge the status quo at 3drops. When we stumble upon an interesting idea we sometimes spend around one week on articulating and prototyping our vision.
Distractions are everywhere. If you use your computer for work, chances are you spend a big chunk of your time in tabs and apps that don’t help you get your work done. What if we could build fun a tool that helps you stay focused?
The Problem
Access to immediate distractions since the advent of the internet has made it more difficult than ever for people to stay focused and entertainment is always available just one click away. With so much choice and variety, even non-procrastinators have begun straying to the dark side. According to experts, technology has grown so fast that it challenges our cognitive control system at its very core.
Procrastination plagues most people at some point in life and as many as 20% of people are chronic procrastinators. This inability to effectively manage time has a negative impact on our lives and a common denominator is our need for instant gratification coupled with aversion of difficult tasks. Essentially, we prefer to spend our time on Facebook and Youtube watching cat pictures because it makes us happy, even though forgoing to complete the overdue TPS reports and answering those important emails will make us more stressed in the long run.
The unwanted side effects of procrastination is stress that spills over into our free time. The less we achieve in a work day, the more we worry about it while not working. As work piles on and our task lists grow, the likelihood of delaying work grows even larger and the negative feedback loop is set in motion. Can it be fixed?
Workplay
Saying “just do it” to a procrastinator is like saying “cheer up” to a depressed person. In order to put an end to procrastination, we need to understand where and how we spend our time while working. Are we really as efficient (or inefficient) as we think and which apps and websites are the biggest offenders?
Workplay is designed to to help people:
- Understand how and where they spend their time while working
- Identify which apps and websites distract them the most
- Break bad habits by limiting access to those distractions
- Regain focus on what they want to accomplish during work hours
- Improve their well being and reach Zen
Onboarding
We designed the onboarding process to be as simple and painless as possible. Questions are asked one at a time along with fun animations that hint at the nature of the questions. We created a playful experience while getting all the necessary information to demonstrate the value of the app to the user, without relying on long, boring and overwhelming forms. Efficiency 1, Procrastination Monster 0.
Maintaining a healthy balance between work and play involves limiting the amount of hours worked per day. Users therefore begin by setting up their work day length. Since users probably have an idea of which apps and websites they should spend less time in, they have the option to limit their access right from the onboarding screen.
Once Workplay has been configured it goes out of the way and lives in the menu bar. Users can easily switch between Work mode and Play mode and the app keeps track of the time left in a work day to encourage users to complete their goals every day. Time spent in apps can be monitored in real time and limits can be adjusted accordingly.
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