Quick Break

Quick break is a simple way to get an idea on how to spend your time during a short work break.

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Inspiration

I work from home most days, and I find that when I do, I don't take enough breaks throughout the day. So this skill was an attempt to motivate me to take small, active, breaks throughout the day.

What it does

Quick break is a simple way to get an idea on how to spend your time during a short work break.

Ideas will be unique on each of your requests until it has suggested everything it can think of within a given category, and I try to think of new things to add to the categories all the time!

You can let the system randomly pick an idea from all our categories or you can specify a specific category you want an idea from.

The categories are currently exercise, chore, communication, entertainment, and treat.

How I built it

I built it using the jovo framework.

Challenges I ran into

I wanted the skill to be very quick and easy to use, but also be like having a real conversation with someone who is giving you an idea or suggestion on what to do during your break.

So it required finding the right balance between quick and easy, and truly conversational. It could probably still use some tweaks, but I'm happy with where it is for a version one.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I was able to come up with over a 100 simple things to do, across four different categories, on a short break. This allows you to use the skill a large number of times without it feeling too repetitive.

What I learned

Working with the Jovo framework is clean and simple.

What's next for Quick Break

Users can already ask the skill to repeat the suggestion or make another suggestion within a given interaction. Next I would like to add the ability to save or favorite the suggestions you like the most (and then have a way for you to get a suggestion from your favorites).

I may eventually build a companion website that let's people make suggestions to add to the system (which will need either voted on by the crowd and/or some other type of human approval before officially being added to the skill).

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