Design and Development of an Application to Decrease Procrastination and Enhance Productivity in the Workplace

Martín Rodríguez Barroso. (2024). Design and Development of an Application to Decrease Procrastination and Enhance Productivity in the Workplace. Final Career Project (TFG). Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, ETSI Telecomunicación.

Abstract:
Procrastination is defined as the tendency to postpone or delay important or urgent tasks, often in favor of less important or more enjoyable activities. This is a fairly common problem that both students and many people in the workplace face. The habit of procrastinating on important tasks and activities can lead to delays in projects, a buildup of workload, and an increase in stress and anxiety for workers. It is usually accompanied by a lack of motivation in workers, and a lack of a clear working-plan or any kind of sense of urgency. But without a doubt, it always ends up negatively affecting worker's job performance and personal satisfaction. Efficient and cost-effective computer-based therapeutic approaches have been developed to address this problem. However, computer-based therapy has several limitations, such as limited accessibility and its dependence on both time and location. In contrast, mental health applications for smartphones have certain advantages, such as constant availability, common ownership, user interaction and ease of use. Therefore, in this project we aim to contribute in the decrease of procrastination with the development of a mobile application that combines different techniques and tools to help users to effectively manage their workload. Among some of these are: The Pomodoro method, ask prioritization, ask partitioning and gamification. The goal of this project is to develop an application intended to increase work performance by reducing procrastination. To achieve this, the application will also allow the analysis of performance parameters, through which the users will be able to organise their workload more appropriate and efficiently to their needs. Firstly, a study and compilation of effective techniques related to efficient time management and workload management will be carried out. Once the selection of the methodologies to be used has been made, a first mock-up of the application will be made using the online tool FlutterFlow. With this first UI design, we will start looking for the integration of the different techniques in the application itself, which will be entirely developed in Flutter. Finally, the application will be deployed and tested.