02
Daila
Some things need to happen today. Not necessarily at a set time.
- Product Design
- Mobile
- PWA
El problema
Reminder apps assume everything has an exact time
If you set a reminder for 7pm and you can't deal with it at 7pm, you dismiss it. If you dismiss it enough times, you stop trusting the system. And when the system isn't reliable, you fall back on loose notes or nothing at all. The problem isn't the task — it's that apps are built for things with times, and most pending things don't have one.
Daila came from a specific need: a single place to see what I have to do today, without having to assign an exact time to any of it. And every night, a reminder of what I still haven't done — at a moment when there's still time to do it.
El proceso
- 01Personal needPattern identification: tasks without a time that kept getting lost between apps or ignored
- 02ConceptModel definition: task for a specific day, routine for what repeats, backlog for what has no date — the system infers which is which
- 03ArchitectureThe three entry types, their conversion rules, and how the Today screen filters them
- 04UINatural language ("Today", "Tomorrow"), routine progress, peripheral priority, category filters
- 05PWAReal push notifications on iOS and Android, home screen installation, permission onboarding at the right moment
La solución
Day tasks without a set time
Everything that needs to happen today appears on the Today screen. No alarms, no interruptions. At the time you set, a notification shows what you still haven't done.
Routines that accompany, not pressure
A routine shows up on the days it's due and can be marked as done at any point. The daily reminder gives you one last chance before closing the day.
Backlog that doesn't pollute the day
Everything without a date lives separately. Captured and organised, but off the Today screen until you decide to assign it a day.
Type is inferred, not chosen
When creating an entry, the system works out whether it's a task, routine or backlog item from what you fill in. No manual categories, no extra questions.
Tecnología
- Next.js 14App Router + API routes
- SupabaseDatabase and authentication
- Web Push + pg_cronReal push notifications on iOS
- VercelServerless deployment
Reflexión
Starting from a real need changes how you design.
Daila didn't start with a concept — it started with a frustration. I needed a system that would remind me what I had pending today, without asking me to assign times to things that don't have them. From there, everything else took shape: routines with the same philosophy, the backlog so nothing without a date gets lost, the evening notification as a moment of review.
Designing an app for your own use has a trap: you tend to assume instead of question. The hardest part was separating "what I need" from "what any user might need". The answer was making the system absorb the complexity — so the user only has to think about what, not when or how to categorise it.