What we've learned recently from talking to you

We recently spoke to a selection of the Daybridge community, to learn how they manage their time, which tools they currently use, and where things could be improved. We initially sent out a survey to everyone in the Community forum asking some basic questions, then selected a group of 10 people across a mixture of locations, genders, ages, and occupations.

Here's some of the main things we learned from a collection of 30 minute chats, and how they have informed what we're doing next. The general points might seem quite obvious, but it always helps to check assumptions, put faces to the feedback, and learn the nuanced details beneath the main conclusions.

It's easy to get overwhelmed, but categorisation helps

When you have a full plate, it can be quite stressful to look at your calendar, and hard to understand your plans at a glance. Quite a few people we spoke to use colour-coding to help them avoid overwhelm, and to see what they have planned without needing to dig into the details.

Current tools don't really support categorising events natively, so people create their own workarounds; either manually colour coding each entry, or by creating 10 or so calendars in order to automatically colour code events in a series.

The current Daybridge alpha already automatically categorises entries and colour codes them, just type the name of your entry, and we'll suggest the categories that look relevant. We're starting with a basic list of categories, but will likely expand the options here over time as we learn what people need, and where there are gaps.

It's hard to plan your personal life without understanding your work schedule

One theme was clear in almost all of our interviews - it's currently a nightmare to truly understand your schedule, because work calendars are often separate from personal ones. Some people use their work calendar for everything, but that means there's no escape from work on evenings and weekends. Others hopped between multiple apps, often forgetting things and double-booking themselves.

Whilst we aren't aiming to make a full replacement for your work calendar, we do think Daybridge needs to understand it. We're going to make sure you can connect your work calendar, view it alongside your personal events - but also find ways to easily 'tune out' from work when you're not working.

Finding time with friends and family is messy

Everyone we spoke to finds time with friends and family the same way, a long back-and-forth group chat, with people making suggestions, and others saying they can't make that date. Over and over.

This is made harder when schedules are split across multiple calendars, making it tricky for everyone to know when they're free. There are some great tools to help people book meetings with each other, but they're very work-oriented - and sometimes feel weird to send to friends. This was even true for those with meticulous and automated calendar setups, nothing seems to cater to easily organising casual time with friends.

Imagine setting up a Daybridge Group as easily as starting a group chat, and Daybridge suggesting the best times for everyone all at once - using its understanding of everyone's availability. We think there's something exciting here to explore.

We're going to build Daybridge with these points in mind, and aim to test initial solutions for each as early as possible. If you have any ideas, get in touch in the Community Slack or on Twitter.