92 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
92 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
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# Gemma
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Gemma is a simple application to track *recurring* tasks, named after Gemma
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Hartley who [wrote an article][] about task distribution issues in households.
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## Background
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(Skip this if you just want the technical bits)
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Gemma's article launched a discussion in my friend circle about what causes an
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uneven distribution of household workload. I theorised that this is not so much
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a gender issue, but mostly a discoverability issue.
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Usually one person in a household is aware of what needs to be done, but in many
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cases the "overhead" of delegating the tasks would actually take more time than
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simply doing the task.
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I theorise further that the person (or people) who do a smaller share of the
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household work would often do the work if they had a convenient way to become
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aware of what needs to be done. Many times the "household manager" has the
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function of tracking non-obvious tasks like when bedsheets were last changed -
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shouldn't it be possible to actually distribute this information somehow?
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## The Project
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This project is an initial attempt at sketching out a little application that
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aids with reminding users of recurring tasks. Some basic ideas:
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* The system should be blame-free.
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* There should be as little usage overhead as possible so that people actually
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do use it.
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* It should work mostly passively without much user interaction.
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I believe that the basic (*very* simple) idea behind Gemma solves these issues.
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Unfortunately my previous relationship fell apart before I actually got to test
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this out in a real-life situation involving multiple people, but feedback from
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other potential test subjects would be welcome! :)
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## Overview
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Gemma is a Common Lisp application in which a list of recurring tasks is
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declared, together with the *maximum interval* at which they should be completed
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(in days). Example:
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```lisp
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;; Bathroom tasks
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(deftask bathroom/wipe-mirror 7)
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(deftask bathroom/wipe-counter 7)
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;; Bedroom tasks
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(deftask bedroom/change-sheets 7)
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(deftask bedroom/vacuum 10)
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;; Kitchen tasks
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(deftask kitchen/trash 3)
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(deftask kitchen/wipe-counters 3)
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(deftask kitchen/vacuum 5 "Kitchen has more crumbs and such!")
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;; Entire place
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(deftask clean-windows 60)
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```
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These tasks are marked with their last completion time and tracked by Gemma. A
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simple Elm-based frontend application displays the tasks sorted by their
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"urgency" and features a button to mark a task as completed:
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Marking a task as completed resets its counter and moves it to the bottom of the
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task list.
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In theory this *should be it*, the frontend is made available to household
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members in some easily accessible place (e.g. an old phone glued to the fridge!)
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and people should attempt to develop a habit of checking what needs to be done
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occasionally.
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The "household manager" still exists as a role of the household because someone
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is entering the tasks into the application, but if my theory about people not
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actually being actively *unwilling* to do tasks is correct this could help a
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lot.
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## Usage
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(*Note*: Gemma is alpha software so the below is clearly not the final goal)
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Right now using this is non-trivial, but I'll eventually make a better
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distribution. Basically you need to know Common Lisp (in which case you'll know
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how to get the backend running) and have `elm-reactor` installed to run the
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development version of the frontend application.
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[wrote an article]: http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a12063822/emotional-labor-gender-equality/
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