Get Up and Go!

Tasked with selecting a behavior to modify, and applying persuasive design techniques to impact a change, I chose myself as a test case. I first had to figure out why my morning were slow, and what kind of “nudges” might actually make a difference. After tracking my behavior for a week, I realized that the biggest portion of time wasn’t my shower, food prep, or dressing, but was actually “missing minutes” — time I couldn’t account for.

So, I figured, I needed to follow a desecrate order of tasks, and minimize distractions. I divided my morning into nine essential steps:

Make the bed
Get dressed
Shower
Cook breakfast (if time)
eat breakfast (if time)
Do dishes (if tasks 4 and 5 took place)
Pack my bag
Check stove, lights, faucet
Get out the door!

On the backend, the app keeps track of how much time you’re taking on a particular task, and adjusts the time it allots you for subsequent tasks depending on how you’re doing. This is big: rather than micromanaging your time on individual tasks, the app takes into account the big picture, and adjusts the time it allots to each remaining tasks on the fly.

Did it work? You bet it did. From a morning average of about 1:15, to a frantically tracked average of 49 minutes (with some tasks skipped), the app allows me to get out the door having fully showered, cooked food, dressed and eaten breakfast, in a relaxed 39 minutes.

The app doesn’t let you forget about dishes, either. Tsk, tsk. (Actually, there’s no scolding: the general approach is that everything is fun, and you never have to rush).

There are a few more app smarts in play. If you’re cooking breakfast, and by the time you’re done the app calculates that you won’t have time to sit down and eat, it will direct you to put your food in tupperware instead.

Similarly, if you’ve finished a long shower and are about to start cooking but won’t have time, it will have you skip both tasks, with a playful, visual suggestion to grab coffee on the run.

Coming soon to the Android App Store.

Get up and go!