The Brief

This is a personal project of mine - and one very close to my heart! As a longstanding digital nomad myself, I understand firsthand the uncapped freedom of not just mobility but creative expression that comes from turning your back on the conventional 9-5 to a life.

But I also innately understand and have experienced myself the downsides, the bits you don't know about when embarking on the journey, or are too excited to pay them much thought. I'm talking isolation, the constant niggling feeling of the deep unknown and loss of community, not to mention the struggle to find structure and framework in the hustle jungle.

So, could I find a solution that allows users to harness the good, minimize the bad, all the while finding that illusive balance between work/life? I set out to find out!

The Approach

Setting aside considerable efforts to undergo the entire end-to-end design thinking process, I invested in comprehensive user research to validate my decisions at each step in the process.

I quickly discovered that while digital nomads and other remote workers aren't short of tools to 'optimize' their work days and make themselves more productive, the market was in a state of overwhelm. With an app to do just about everything, including drafting your begrudged emails and reminding you when to standup, what was missing was a tool to bring it altogether. One that spotlighted (you guessed it) productivity but also integrated holistic well-being, reminding you that your best self was one that was nourished in all spheres of life.

It was important this tool integrated with popular tools in the market (I wasn't trying to replace Notion or Slack for example), and facilitated easy, informal community. Basically all the best bits of an in-person office without the forced water-cooler chats and obligatory pizza Fridays.

The Solution

The focus so far has been on arriving here, at a bare bones MVP I can further develop. As such, my core features are Well-Being Monitoring, Third-Party Integrations, Virtual Office framework, Find a Working Space and Community.

I also included business development opportunities including an internal Jobs Board that encourages inter-app collaboration, and the ability to sync your productivity with your well-being to develop personal literacy around work/life balance health. It's the beginning, but it's a bright one - I'm excited to share with you the next iterations!

Ps - if you're looking for the 'behind-the-scenes' that lead to this stage...

You can visit the full case study linked here.