Introduction
Students and workers worldwide are faced with poor time management, which leads to problems in their institutions, possible conflicts with others, and missed deadlines. In addition, people with poor time management are at greater risk of mental distress from low self-esteem, self-doubt, and high anxiety. From unsuccessful time management, thus, both the internal resources a person and external opportunities suffer. Modern business and information technologies aim to create various applications that will help people establish time management, regardless of their profession, age, and lifestyle. Such applications are suitable for high school and college students and workers in any field: education, art, business, or trade. Developing budgets for such applications depends on integration, design, functionality, and other aspects. It should be remembered that adding the application’s functionality will make it more expensive and more difficult for users to work with it. It will demotivate them to download since, with such an application, they will spend time studying only the interface. Therefore, it is considered optimal to create an application with an ascetic design and interface for time management, which will be based on one approach to saving time.
To create an adequate application for time management, developers do not need to try to solve the whole problem of planning in humans. The planning process of different people is based on temperament, upbringing, habits, and culture (Wolters et al., 2017). The most successful applications are those based on one specific approach to help. These applications can be reports of completed tasks, to-do lists, voice or text reminders, and charts and graphs that display completed tasks and tasks in progress.
Such an application should be straightforward; as a rule, people seeking help from time management applications are already exhausted with their schedules and nervous. Difficulties setting up or registering an account frustrate them more and demotivate them to use a particular application. It is assumed that authorization options will be available through a phone number, social networks, and email, depending on the user’s wishes. The application will not use complex calculations, although many developers prefer to include them and transform them into colorful diagrams (Grigsby-Toussaint et al., 2017). Integration with third-party services will be configured, and the complexity of the application’s structure is rated as medium.
However, developing a user-friendly and simple design is often not cheap either. The expected cost of the application is $20.000-$30.000, with the possibility for further development. With additional action, such an application can become not only an auxiliary but one of the leading applications for maintaining mental health. In addition to comfortable design, registration, and integration, push notifications can be configured in this application. This application will stand out from others due to the coming weekly lectures on psychology and motivation. Such a video could be, for example, How to build your confidence — and spark it in Others | Brittany Packnett Cunningham, which will become psychological support for users. Another example is motivational videos on specific burnout topics: How to stop burnout before it starts | Jacqueline Kerr | TEDxMcMasterU. Possibly, some of the names in the push notification will interest the user. Such development requires integration with third-party resources, which raises the application cost to above $25,000 and possibly up to $35,000.
When posting videos in push notifications, developers need to be aware of the possible costs associated with copyright. Legal costs in noncompliance with the law can cost as much as the application or the entire application. Legal fees can cost developers an additional $5,000 or $10,000. However, short text messages sent to users every day are much safer. They can be a squeeze of psychological and philosophical ideas, as well as advice from experts on how to avoid burnout and maintain a good attitude towards oneself.
The opportunity for users to fill out a psychological questionnaire during registration should be assessed, revealing what they encountered. Some users experience burnout and demotivation, some with irritability and aggression, and some with anxiety (TEDx Talks, 2022). After filling out such a questionnaire during registration, push notifications will be relayed to the user’s results, making the service more unique. In this case, the added value to the development will be more than $10,000 and require the involvement of several psychologists and psychotherapists. It should be noted that the mismatch of deadlines and wasting time can be a symptom of depression in some situations (TEDx Talks, 2019). The application will not be able to diagnose this, but it will be able to warn the patient and recommend possibly going to the doctor. A questionnaire will increase the estimated development time by about a month.
Loud and silent alarms are a core part of the app, as they will be funded for short breaks. Thus, a person maintains concentration while resting and managing to complete the work on time. This application is ideal for writing long scientific papers if the user is a student. If the user is already working and not studying, it is suitable for compiling meaningful reports. The intensity can be adjusted: from 20 to 40 minutes, depending on individual abilities. In addition, the application will certainly allow the user to explain his daily routine during registration. These features are core to the app; therefore, they will be included in the originally planned $20,000 budget. This app is inspired by the Pomodoro Technique and has an estimated development time of three months with extensive testing capabilities of up to four months.
The comfortable, austere design is expected to be one of the cheapest investments in development. The design should not be complicated in any way, and the interface’s colors should be bright to attract the user’s attention (Cirillo, 2018). While the alarm clock is playing, the interface can be highlighted in red, yellow, orange, or pink. The user can configure the ability to implement interface color optimization, and it will not be more than $3,000-5,000.
Conclusion
To create a popular application that can help different people to establish time management, it is important to remember the ease of design and focus on only one approach when solving problems. Usually, people cannot control their time for various reasons, and sometimes simple discipline is not enough and medication is needed in situations such as depression. Because of this, it is considered irrational to load one application with several approaches at once. The proposed application will be developed for approximately three months, excluding a month-long rollout. Initially, estimated costs are roughly $30,000 but may increase by $15,000-25,000. The application will consist of a simple and quick registration with several methods to choose from and may also include a psychological interview to make push notifications more relevant. The application’s design will be ascetic so as not to distract users prone to this. Loud and quiet alarms enable users to work intensively in short bursts.
References
Cirillo, F. (2018). The Pomodoro technique: The life-changing time-management system. Random House.
Grigsby-Toussaint, D. S., Shin, J. C., Reeves, D. M., Beattie, A., Auguste, E., & Jean-Louis, G. (2017). Sleep apps and behavioral constructs: A content analysis.Preventive Medicine Reports, 6, 126–129.
TEDx Talks. (2019). How to build your confidence — and spark it in others | Brittany Packnett Cunningham[Video]. YouTube.
TEDx Talks. (2022). How to stop burnout before it starts | Jacqueline Kerr | TEDxMcMasterU [Video]. YouTube.
Wolters, C. A., Won, S., & Hussain, M. (2017). Examining the relations of time management and procrastination within a model of self-regulated learning.Metacognition and Learning, 12(3), 381–399.