Case study · Mobile app
Calm productivity that grows with you.
A wellness-first planner for students. Set gentle daily goals, focus in quiet work blocks, and watch a tree (and a whole forest) fill in as you go.
Overview
PowerPlan(t) reframes productivity as growth. Instead of nagging streaks, every finished goal earns points that grow your tree and plant new ones in your forest. Rest is a first-class feature: breathing, journaling and a diary next to your goals.
Quiet work blocks with planned breaks in between.
Points become trees. Keep showing up and your forest slowly fills in.
Breathing, journaling and meditation.
Signature feature
The heart of the app is a windowsill. Outside, a hand-built pixel landscape (mountains, hills, a drifting sun) shifts with the real time of day on your phone. Every fully grown tree gets planted outside, so your progress becomes a place you actually want to visit.
Inside the app
Home · Vandaag
A warm “Goedenavond, Erben” and a short list of doable, fully customizable goals: move a little, study one block, take some rest, drink water. Your growth ring fills as you check them off, and your tree reacts.
Focus · Werkblok
Work blocks run on a calm timer (“25:00, tikt rustig”). After each block, a short break begins. You choose how many rounds make up a session, so your focus holds the whole way through.
Rest · Rust
When it gets too much, the Rust tab guides you to slow down with breathing exercises and meditation, all with Sprout along for company.
Journal · Dagboek
A two-tap mood check (Moe, Onrustig, Rustig, Blij, Dankbaar) and a small journal that nobody else reads. Gentle prompts are there for the days when words don’t come easily.
Under the hood
Originally a school project under the team name “photosyntax error”, but I designed and built the whole app end to end myself. The custom pixel-art window, the time-of-day sky and the calm motion were the most rewarding parts to get right: small touches that make the app feel alive and kind.