Gratitude Log

Gratitude Log lets you focus on the blessings in your life. Log sets of three blessings, then ask to hear some at random whenever you want to recall those priceless people, experiences, & things!

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Inspiration

This Skill was first written in early April 2020 while I was practicing social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Developing It, helped to distract me from the distressing news at the time. Those circumstances inspired me to create it.

Since then, many would feel the news continues to be depressing and perhaps more so for the aging population. Now more than ever they need to be refreshed by remembering all the blessings they have rather than dwelling on the negatives in the world! Gratitude Log will help encourage them to reconnect with family and friends as they think of them within their list of blessings.

What it does

Gratitude Log enables the user to log their blessings in sets of three. After doing so, they can ask it to tell them three random blessings. It will also allow them to set up reminders to revisit it and refresh themselves in recalling all they have to be grateful for. The reminder functionality requires granting permissions on the Activity page of the Alexa App. That gets displayed when the user first tries to set up a reminder.

How I built it

I used JavaScript to enable it to access a MySQL database where the user’s blessings are stored. It also uses Alexa Presentation Language (APL) to support Echo display devices.

Challenges I ran into

This is a relatively simple Skill compared to some of the others I have already had certified by Amazon, so the only ones had to do with updating some of the latest APL functionalities and adapting the Reminder functionality.

Accomplishments that I’m proud of

Thinking of this concept which I believe can help all ages, but especially those over 55.

What I learned

How to update some APL functionalities and better edit the required presentation video. (LOL – Videography is definitely not my forte!)

What's next for Gratitude Log

Perhaps add some directive verbiage to encourage the user to do activities related to their specific blessings, like call an old friend/relative if specific people are in the blessing or go for a walk in the park if elements of nature are in the blessing.

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