EmpowerEase

Inspiration

Our inspiration for creating this app was deeply influenced by Cal Newport’s book called “Deep Work”, which underscores the importance of undistracted work for productivity and overall satisfaction. It fueled our commitment to addressing the pervasive challenges individuals encounter in managing daily tasks, stemming from a genuine concern for mental health.

As observers of the prevalent stress of overwhelming schedules on mental well-being, our group embarked on a mission to provide a tangible and practical solution. Informed by Newport's principles, we set out to create an application that not only streamlines task management but also integrates the transformative power of undistracted, focused work.

We envisioned an automated scheduling app that not only efficiently divides tasks based on deadlines and time constraints but also proactively incorporates designated break times. The goal was clear: to alleviate the burden on users, allowing them to focus on their goals while promoting a healthier and more balanced lifestyle. By streamlining the scheduling process, our app empowers individuals to navigate their responsibilities with reduced stress and anxiety, fostering a positive impact on their overall mental health and well-being.

What it does

EmpowerEase integrates intelligent task scheduling with a focus on well-being, automatically allocating breaks for users to foster a healthier work-life balance. What sets EmpowerEase apart is its integration with the user's Google Calendar. The app ensures tasks it schedules do not overlap with existing calendar events and, conversely, adds scheduled tasks and breaks into the Google Calendar. This integration provides users with the option to view their schedule not only on our app but also on their Google Calendar.

Beyond traditional scheduling, EmpowerEase offers a comprehensive task management experience. Users can track their task statistics, distinguishing between easy, medium, and hard tasks. The app provides a clear overview of the remaining tasks for the day, empowering users to gauge their progress. Moreover, EmpowerEase includes a dynamic goals list, serving as a visual representation of outstanding tasks. This feature not only keeps users informed but also serves as a motivational tool, encouraging them to stay organized and focused on their objectives.

In essence, EmpowerEase actively contributes to users' mental health by promoting structured productivity alongside essential moments of self-care. It's a holistic solution that adapts to individual preferences and priorities, fostering a balanced and fulfilling lifestyle.

How we built it

We built the app using a tech stack that leverages Next.js for the front end, Node.js for backend API calls and integration, Prisma for the database schema, and MongoDB for data storage. Our front end features Tailwind CSS, Material UI, Daisy-UI, and FullCalendar for styling and components. Additionally, we utilize the Google Calendar API on the Google Cloud Platform to seamlessly access and integrate users' calendars into our application.

Challenges we ran into

For most of the team members, this project was our first experience using Next.js. While we successfully navigated the creation of frontend components, integrating data from the Google Calendar API and our Node.js files posed a significant challenge. Additionally, structuring the database schema using Prisma presented hurdles as we were initially uncertain about data organization.

Despite these challenges, we ultimately determined the optimal schemas and, with mentor guidance, successfully implemented Next.js to build our application and connected the Google Calendar and Node.js API files. This collaborative effort allowed us to overcome obstacles and produce our web application.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One accomplishment we were proud of is being able to automate the process of populating the user's most important goals for the day to the Google Calendar API. We used a brute force algorithm to find an optimal schedule that was also feasible and worked around the time slots occupied in the Google Calendar of that user. We also ensured to spread the time worked on towards each goal throughout the timeframe given before the deadline and gave users allotted break times to ensure users don’t get overwhelmed. Overall, we were proud of ourselves for being able to implement the Google Calendar API and the algorithm. Finally, we are extremely proud of ourselves for being able to learn a brand new JavaScript framework and implement that framework into the development of our application.

What we learned

Most of the stuff we learned from building this application revolved around Next.js. As previously mentioned, Next.js was a new framework for most members of our team and although we had experience with other JavaScript frameworks, learning Next.js proved to be a little challenging. However, we successfully learned how to use the framework to develop and build our application.

What's next for EmpowerEase

In the future, we aim to delve deeper into personalization features that utilize machine learning to better understand user behaviour and preferences. This will analyze tailored scheduling recommendations by using a user's past work habits to generate a better schedule specific for each user.