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What if our planners understood when we were most energized and adapted accordingly?

Wellness

2025

UX Designer

Mobile App

YEAR

ROLE

TYPE

INDUSTRY

The Dynamic Scheduling

Situation

Action

Result

Users over-schedule during low-energy periods. No tool asks how you actually feel.

Designed FlexPlan, a scheduler that adapts to your energy, not just your time.

A living schedule that flexes with your rhythm. Focus when sharp. Rest when depleted.

Users over-schedule during natural low-energy dips, post-lunch, late evening.

Task priority and personal readiness are treated as completely unrelated.

Rigid frameworks leave zero room for the unpredictability of real life.

01 Problem

01

02

03

Every task app I've used suffers from the same flaw. Yesterday's unfinished items bleed into today. The list grows. The dread grows with it. You open the app not to plan your day, but to be confronted by everything you haven't done yet.

This isn't a motivation problem. It's a design problem. The app is working exactly as intended, it's just optimising for completeness over clarity.

The guilt cycle nobody talks about

Participants logged energy and planning decisions 3× daily using a Notion template.

4 participants · 3 days · Morning / afternoon / evening

Diary study

Attitudinal questions about tools used, satisfaction, and planning pain points.

18 respondents · 8 questions · Google Forms

Survey

Semi-structured, 30–45 min each. Daily planning habits, frustrations, workarounds

5 participants · Remote · Recorded with consent

User Interviews

02 Research

I interviewed peers, ran a 3-day diary study, and surveyed 18 people about their planning habits. The goal wasn't to validate assumption, it was to find the real problem. Every design decision in FlexPlan traces back to something someone said in these sessions.

Following the signs of focus

Survey · 18 respondents

Tap any row to explore

Q1Feel genuinely productive at the end of the day28%›

28%

Most people end the day feeling behind

Only 1 in 4 respondents felt they had a productive day. Not because they did not work but because the work did not feel right.

I work all day and still feel like I achieved nothing.

Q2Regularly over-schedule their day78%›

78%

Over-scheduling is the norm, not the exception

78% admit to scheduling more than they can realistically complete. This directly causes the guilt cycle FlexPlan was designed to break.

I write 10 things down every morning and get through 3.

Q3Feel guilty about unfinished tasks83%›

83%

Guilt is baked into most planning tools

The rollover of unfinished tasks is a design choice most apps make without realising the emotional cost. 83% of users feel it every day.

Every undone task is a reminder of failure.

Q4Wish their planner knew when they had energy89%›

89%

Energy awareness is the missing feature

89% is the clearest signal in the data. This is the unmet need FlexPlan was built to solve directly.

I just want my calendar to ask me how I am feeling today. Karan, 24

Q5Have tried 3 or more productivity tools in the last year61%›

61%

People are not lazy. The tools are wrong.

61% of respondents have actively searched for a better solution. The problem is not motivation. It is that no existing tool addresses energy.

I have tried everything. Nothing sticks. Sara, 26

Click any question to see what it means for FlexPlan

18 people answered 5 questions about their planning habits. The responses were more consistent than expected and more frustrating.

Survey Findings

03 Design Goal

Create a system that adapts a user's schedule based on their energy, focus, and task complexity, while remaining simple and intuitive enough to actually use every day.

Inputs

Biometrics

Phone + smartwatch data

Fixed tasks

Set once, repeat weekly

Self check-ins

Optional mood prompts

Engine

Energy engine

Learns patterns
Estimates mental load

Output

Adaptive schedule

Peak → deep work
Moderate → meetings
Rest → recovery

The more you use it, the more precisely it adapts to you

Wireframing

Mapped the core scheduling surface, energy input flows, and task management patterns. Focused on reducing cognitive load at every step.

Prototyping

Built interactive prototypes testing energy zone visualisation, task colour-coding, and the manual override mechanism.

User Testing

Three clear friction points emerged, unclear colour coding, lack of control, and missed break nudges. Each became a direct design improvement.

04 Design Process

From sketch to living system

05 Iterations

What testing taught me

Unclear task colour coding, users couldn't understand what the colours meant at a glance.

Before

Users felt locked in, no way to adjust when the schedule didn't feel right.

Before

Break nudges were subtle and consistently overlooked by users in flow states.

Before

Added colour-coded energy zones with a persistent legend always visible on screen.

After

Introduced manual override and drag-and-drop task adjustments for full user control.

After

Added the prominent "Time to take a break" banner with one-tap acknowledgment.

After

Calm

Focus-first

Adaptive Logic

Mental wellness

Visual Clarity

Real-world

clarity

Interactive — tap a time to explore

Monday, April 2511am

Energy level82%

Physics Class

Presentation, Discussion · Peak

Case Study Write-up

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM · Peak

⏱

You've been in peak focus for 2hrs

Take a short break to maintain performance

Take break

Peak — deep focus

Moderate — meetings

Rest — recovery

06 The Highlight

What Shipped

A working mobile prototype, onboarding flow, energy tracking via phone or smartwatch, adaptive calendar, break nudges, and a rescheduling system. All designed and prototyped in Figma.

Validation approach

The core assumption, that mental clarity beats task history would be validated by tracking daily return rate over a week. A high DAU signals the fresh-start mechanic is keeping users motivated rather than anxious.

Biggest risk taken

Deliberately removing task history entirely. No archive. No overdue labels. No record of what you didn't finish. This was the sharpest design decision and the one with the most to prove.

07 Achievement

Just a thought

Good design solves real problems. FlexPlan turns static calendars into living systems that flex with your energy and your life.