

Ask HN: Startup idea for an already (over)crowded market - bsmith

Lately I have been toying with an idea for a(nother) productivity/time-managment application, and I want to know what you think:<p>I began building an app for myself that tells me what to work on and for how long each day, while providing an interface that tells my colleagues (and bosses) how busy I am on any given work day so I don't get overbooked with too much work. Furthermore, it allows me track the amount of time I've actually spent on all my tasks/projects, so I can tell my project managers how many hours to bill for.<p>The essence of this glorified todo list is that each todo is paired with:<p>1. a time estimate (how many total hours will the task take to complete)<p>2. time spent (how many hours of work have already been spent on the task)<p>3. a due date (on what day and at what time must the task be complete)<p>Then, given a calendar which tells the app which days are work days, and how many hours of work can be done on each of those work days, it automatically populates each day with tasks based on some algorithm—ideally user-customizable—based on the urgency of the tasks and the number of hours needed to complete them. Thus, urgent tasks that will take longer to complete are automatically scheduled before less-urgent ones that can be done quickly, and I am immediately aware of 'overbooking'—if there aren't enough available work hours before the due date for a task, I receive a warning notifying me of the time conflict. A time-tracker manages completed hours versus outstanding hours on each task (it could even have a nifty 'x percent complete' bar).<p>Thus, the addition of news tasks or revision of hours/due dates causes scheduling of tasks to update automatically according to the algorithm, so I always know what I should be working on and if I have enough time to take on more work.<p>This seems extravagantly naive, I know, but I would like your feedback anyway. Would you consider using it?
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AznHisoka
Assume it's already built, now what would you do? how would you market it?

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bsmith
The first thing I would do is use it/test it within my current workplace. I am
scratching my own itch (and an itch my colleagues have, as well) so if we
didn't find it useful, it would be time to reconsider things.

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revorad
If you can predict time taken to complete tasks, that would be awesome.

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bsmith
I had thought of maybe running reports to show the user if she consistently
over- or underestimated the amount of time needed for tasks, but I have no
idea how I could predict these time estimates.

Any ideas?

I any case—I agree. It would be awesome.

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revorad
This might be helpful - <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html>

