Chron

- origin: Greek “time”

Ability

- origin: Latin “natural or acquired power or skill”

They say “time is money,” but is that true? Indeed, our days are like a checking account filled with minutes that, if we invest wisely, can yield satisfaction, success, and happiness.

But there is a key difference between a checking account filled with dollars and one filled with minutes. We can save money by leaving our bank account untouched, but we don’t have that luxury with time. Every minute that passes is gone forever, irretrievable whether it was invested in something meaningful or absent-mindedly idled away.

Chronability transforms users’ perspectives on time by borrowing a page from the financial world. Everyone knows that money-savvy individuals make the most out of their dollars by budgeting, which entails allocating money to specific bank accounts in anticipation of any necessary spending in the future. The amount left in the checking account then becomes their discretionary spending, a number that helps answer the question “can I make this purchase without coming up short at the end of the day?”

Chronability is an iPhone and Apple Watch app that was built from the ground up to address time management in precisely this budgeted fashion.

Accelerating improvements in communication and internet technology have dramatically lowered the barriers for access to our attention, causing an epidemic of distraction and a widespread sense of overwhelm. Accordingly, the demand for productivity tools, books and coaches continues to increase rapidly. In 2015, the gross revenue of the mobile apps market exceeded $41 billion, of which productivity apps were the third fastest growing category.

Given all of this demand, one might guess that the time management industry would be burgeoning with innovation. Surprisingly, this is not the case, which creates a valuable market opportunity. Most productivity software currently available is some variation of an electronic to-do list or calendar. Like the word processor did to the typewriter, these technologies have supplanted their analogue counterparts to the extent that they provided speed, ease of use, convenience, and improved collaboration. But at their essence, they still serve the same purpose as their analogue counterparts and carry it about in the same way. In that sense, no real transformations in time management occurred.

Most current productivity software is designed to organize lists of tasks. Calendar apps statically assign tasks to specific times, but make no room for unscheduled tasks, and are ill-equipped to handle dynamic workflow of a busy day in which things do not always go according to plan. What has been needed is the ability to manage and gain control of our most valuable resource: time.

Chronability offers users a simple, visual way to use a budgeting system of time management to do three main things: see how much free time they have in their day, allocate it to their tasks, and take action to stay on schedule. It seamlessly accommodates unstructured tasks and scheduled calendar events into its free time calculation. It is useful for all individuals with a shortage of time, but will be particularly useful to students, busy professionals, and productivity aficionados.

Chronability’s defining feature is its ability to calculate and visualize a user’s free time. This gamifies productivity by rewarding users with reclaimed free time when they are efficient. In addition, crowd-sourcing of time and location data can be used to dynamically optimize users’ days using a machine learning algorithm.

Chronability’s marketing and growth strategy centers on direct interaction with its community of users. College students interested in improving their productivity and organization are recruited to trial the app. Feedback is elicited via focus groups to identify opportunities to improve the app’s usability, effectiveness, and user retention. Power users are recruited as brand ambassadors for on-the ground campus promotional campaigns. This student focused strategy is used to gain market share by proceeding to neighboring college campuses. Press releases to technology and productivity blogs targeting early adopters and productivity aficionados may augment market share. A mailing list and online community ensures continued interactions with the user base, whose feedback guides the creation of new products and future iterations of the software.

Chronability’s proof of concept is available on the Apple Store as a free download for the iPhone and Apple Watch. It boasts an extensive set of advanced features and a gorgeous user interface. These are categorized and listed below:

Task creation and organization

• Animated task creation screen, colored task categories, and a unique interface for quickly assigning a time to each task
• Both numerical and circular free time indicators that change dynamically
• A list of previous tasks for quickly adding frequently used tasks
• The ability to reorder tasks and plan tasks for five future days
• Adjustable day start and end times to accommodate all work schedules, including night shifts
• Calendar integration
• A dashboard that shows the average time available per task and the bonus time gained by being efficient, and a graph of the free time available for each of the upcoming 5 days

Task Actions

• A timer for each task that can be started, paused, completed and uncompleted
• Buttons to quickly add and subtract time to each task
• Interactive notifications for both the iPhone and Apple Watch that allow users to pause, complete, or add time to a task without leaving their current app

Full Apple Watch integration with the ability to start, stop, and complete tasks as well as add and subtract time.

A settings screen with the ability to set default day start and end times, adjust calendar integration, access a welcome guide, input e-mail address, access the website, and leave a review.

Learn more about Chronability at www.chronability.com.