Improve Work-Life Balance with Enhanced Project Differentiation in Planka

[digitalethics]

TLDR; Enhancing Planka's usability by introducing clearer separation between personal and work-related projects to promote better work-life balance. Suggestions include implementing customizable project contexts or introducing hierarchical workspaces for easier project organization.

Problem: Currently, Planka offers users a comprehensive dashboard displaying all available projects upon startup. While this provides an excellent overview, it lacks the ability to clearly distinguish between personal and work-related projects. This lack of differentiation can lead to productivity challenges and hinder work-life balance.

Usability Perspective: It is important to effectively organize tasks to optimize productivity. However, Planka's current setup does not sufficiently cater to users' need for distinct separation between personal and work-related projects. Users may find it disruptive to encounter personal tasks while focusing on professional work, or vice versa.

Potential Solutions: To address this issue, I propose the following solutions:

• Contextual Toggle Button: Introduce a toggle button enabling users to switch between personal and work contexts effortlessly. While this solution offers simplicity, it may limit users with diverse project categories beyond "personal" and "work."

• Hierarchical Workspaces: Implement hierarchical workspaces labeled as "Workspaces," allowing users to categorize projects based on context (e.g., day job, startup, personal, family). Users would select a workspace upon startup, mirroring the process of choosing a physical workspace. While this solution provides flexibility, it may introduce complexity for some users.

• Project Context Marking: Enable users to assign contextual tags to projects, indicating their relevance to different aspects of life (e.g., work, personal, family). At the dashboard level, provide a selector allowing users to filter projects based on their designated contexts. Ensure that these contextual tags are distinct from existing labeling systems to avoid confusion and conflicts. This approach offers customizable differentiation without compromising simplicity.

Conclusion: Enhancing project differentiation in Planka is vital for fostering better work-life balance and enhancing user satisfaction. By incorporating features such as contextual toggles, hierarchical workspaces, or project context marking, Planka can accommodate users' diverse needs while maintaining usability and efficiency, while also ensuring clarity and coherence with existing labeling systems.

[nickbe]

Part of this is already planned. But thanks for the suggestion anyway.