A web app that makes taking breaks restful again
COVID-19 has severely altered the way employees and students work. In particular, working from home seems to be the new norm. Although this style of working has its benefits, there are a few downsides to this such as burnout, lack of community, and lack of motivation. A problem we have seen is the lack of breaks people take during their work day and the feeling of exhaustion afterwards.
This could be partly due to the fact that working in an office creates a separation between your personal life and work life. Also, there are usually established parameters for break times. However, at home, the lines between your work and personal life get blurred. We suspected that people are not taking enough breaks at home, or their “breaks” are not very restful.
While conducting our own user research, we found that more than 60% of people working from home struggled with time management - they find that they are “rushing” to get back to work while on breaks, and thus don’t take restful breaks. Not having “breakful” breaks can result in numerous problems such as burnout, declines in mental health and physical health, and decreased productivity.
The problem now is that there is not an effective solution that promotes taking breaks while taking into account people’s work schedule. This is a problem because people feel rushed during their breaks, unsure of when their next meeting is or if they have unfinished work.
Our solution to the problem is a website where users can schedule breaks into their google calendar. The three main features in our product are:
Tech Stack Used
Technical Tradeoffs
For the sake of some components implementation and time, we decided to switch Breakful Breaks to a website instead of building a Chrome extension as planned originally.
Our time at Co.Lab has been such a unique experience. We were able to foster new connections with each other, learn new skills on developing products, and refining skills necessary to thrive in our careers. We will not be continuing this project but we hope to take what we’ve learned in this program and apply it to our future careers!
As a team, we recognized the importance of working together. This includes empathy, radical transparency and communication. Going into the program, we all came from different backgrounds and this program put us to the test on whether four very different individuals could work effectively together and create a product - as a team. At the end of Co.Lab, the skill of being able to communicate and work cohesively will be an important skill for all of us to continue developing.