For the students, by a student.
Read till the end for links to download and more resources!
As a senior nearly done with high school, I can say all 4 years were an absolute rollercoaster with ecstatic highs and painful lows. On that note, most seniors will also attest that they could have significantly improved their current academic or social-emotional life if they made a small change in mindset, took a risk, or stepped out of their comfort zone in their early years of high school.
In my case, among many things I could have made a difference in, I feel that improving organization, prioritization, focus; basically, anything under that umbrella could have made the most impact on my academics and stress through high school. I know that I am not alone in this vein; many fellow peers have also remarked satirical, self-deprecating humor, as in bragging about how little they slept at night, or how little they studied for a quiz, or how low their assignment was scored. Moreover, a survey conducted by Greenfield Online found that around 54 percent felt they would get better grades if they “got organized and stayed organized.” The truth is, much of the cause of this is the lack of self-control and the willpower to continue change. Sometimes the little jump of self-motivation to commit to using an organization tool every day is not enough.
Being a high schooler who has dealt with these issues for the past 3 years, I wanted to create a task organizer geared specifically towards high schoolers. The goal of this project was to make the task organizer so easy to use that the bar to entry of getting organized was low enough for students to quickly start getting organized.
I first had to assess some of the pitfalls of currently popular methods of task organization. Among those who maintain a sort of organizational system at my school commonly vouch for Google Sheets or Google Calendar. Others prefer using a handwritten planner. These are excellent forms of task organization, no doubt about it. However, for the inexperienced organizer, the little things like reopening the sheet or calendar every time you need to add a task, or how messy they can be to assess the state of tasks (to do, in-progress, completed) may make it hard to maintain this system for a long time.
I wanted to make an application in which users can start organizing with a single click. I found that Chrome Extensions are a vast source of untapped potential, with a level of customization that is unfathomable. Using my experience with web development using HTML/CSS/Javascript, I set to work making a task organizing add-on that I dubbed, “Synchro”.
Addressing the little issues first, early versions of Synchro opened a small modal when tapped, but does not open a whole new tab or application window, as to not be obtrusive. I also embraced a Kanban Styled manager, which involves 3 columns; To-do, In-progress, Completed; where created tasks could be dragged between. A demo can be found here:
The user will have to enter the task name, and when it is due or to be completed. Ever since I published this simple extension and garnered some schoolwide attention, I began introducing more unique features that cannot be found from other task organization platforms, based on peer feedback. For example, a user wanted to be able to gauge the status of their tasks at a quick glance, so I created color coding based on how close the task is to the deadline.
As a task in the To-Do or In-Progress tab (no need to remind about completed tasks) changes from green to yellow or yellow to red, a notification is sent to the user reminding them of pending tasks. This active, not passive way to remind of tasks keeps users engaged with the application, and thus further organized.
To gear this application even further towards high schoolers, I took on developing an incredibly ambitious feature: using the Canvas LMS API to scrape upcoming assignments from all courses in Canvas’s calendar — directly into Synchro.
This unseen feature massively changes the way schools and students who use Canvas would stay updated on tasks. It integrates school assignments with manual extracurricular tasks seamlessly and autonomously, without the need of manually inputting assignments. These tasks perform exactly like manual tasks, but are created automatically.
Since Canvas holds the plurality in high school LMS’s, and even in colleges like in the UC system, this feature revolutionizes task management in higher education.
Currently, this Canvas API feature is the most advanced feature of the app, but I am still looking towards adding as many features as possible without altering my goal of simplicity and lowering the bar to get organized for high schoolers.
Here is the link to download, I appreciate any feedback!
