Unburn

Inspiration

At the end of the first semester of my junior year, I got burned out without even realizing it. I kept pushing myself because I thought being productive meant always working harder, and nobody really told me when to slow down. By the time finals came around, I was exhausted and my performance suffered because of it. Looking back, there were warning signs, but I never noticed them until it was too late. That experience made me wonder if there was a way to use the tools we already use every day to identify burnout before it becomes a serious problem. That's what inspired Unburn.

What it does

Unburn helps users identify burnout risks before they become serious problems. By analyzing workplace activity and calendar data, it detects patterns such as meeting overload, after-hours work, schedule density, and lack of recovery time. It then turns those patterns into personalized insights that help users build healthier and more sustainable work habits.

How we built it

I built Unburn as a web application using React and JavaScript. For the demo, it integrates with Google Calendar to analyze scheduling behavior and workload patterns. I developed a custom analytics engine that processes calendar activity, calculates burnout-related metrics, and generates insights through a simple and intuitive dashboard.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was accurately understanding what calendar events actually represented. During development, recurring availability blocks were being treated as meetings, which caused burnout metrics to become heavily inflated. I had to preserve additional Google Calendar metadata and create logic that could distinguish between actual meetings, focus time, out-of-office events, and availability blocks. Designing metrics that were both meaningful and easy to understand was also a challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As a solo developer, I'm proud of taking Unburn from a personal experience to a working product. I successfully built a Google Calendar integration, developed a custom burnout analytics engine, designed the user interface, and solved several difficult edge cases that improved the accuracy of the insights. Most importantly, I built something that addresses a problem I've personally faced.

What we learned

I learned that analytics are only as good as the quality and meaning of the underlying data. Small classification mistakes can completely change the results users see. I also gained valuable experience working with APIs, authentication, data processing, testing, and building a product around a real-world problem rather than just a technical challenge.

What's next for Unburn

I plan to expand Unburn beyond Google Calendar by integrating with additional workplace and productivity tools. Future versions will include more advanced burnout prediction models, personalized recommendations, long-term trend analysis, and richer insights that help users build healthier work habits before burnout becomes a serious issue.

Built With

• 2.0
• api
• calendar
• eslint
• git
• github
• google
• html/css
• javascript
• oauth
• postgresql
• react
• supabase
• vite
• vitest