Target User Group
For our target user group, we’re choosing to go with undergraduate students who want to avoid delaying social micro-responsibilities (emails, texts, follow-ups, RSVPs etc). These are usually tasks that can be done in under 5 minutes and putting them off for later just piles up more work. This has also been noted as a productivity tactic in studies, that if a task takes under 5 minutes to complete, it’s better to do it immediately to prevent list buildup and mental clutter. This reduces procrastination by lowering the barrier to start.
Screener Filters
We have developed a screener (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf0mj0biZPD3n1HXdcA2ZiWHxT4cC_ByWBeGIEBZIf0mwggoA/viewform) to filter participants to ensure they are an active undergraduate student at Stanford, if they tend to leave 5-minute tasks for later and if so, how often they do that, if they’re willing to take 5-10 minutes each day to track these behaviors for a 5-day study (From Monday the 19th to Friday the 23rd), and if they feel like they are already really productive to filter out participants who we feel like might not best represent the behaviors of our target audience.
Diary Study Details
We have created a google sheet to help users track these behaviors. We’re going to be collecting both logistical data and content data. For logistical data, participants will be asked to log the number of micro-responsibilities they put off for later that day, and how many of those they actually ended up doing that day. For content data, we’re asking participants to explain in a paragraph or two, why they avoided or put off the responsibilities they did, and if possible, why they avoided each micro-responsibility they did.
We wanted to ensure we were getting deep insights without asking participants to put in too much effort, so we steered away from mandating it that they log each micro-responsibility they avoided and why (to make it more practical for them to just collectively log all of them once a day instead of logging each at different points in the day). Instead we kept it general so they could answer it collectively for each day, and left it to them to give us more details if it was possible for them.
From Jan 19th to Jan 23rd participants will be logging this data in their respective spreadsheets at the end of each day. Participants will be explained the logging process and other details.
Study Materials:
Introduction document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-jNb7RBofyIrzEHRhNGS0CXvlF1WdFXrq56K4KZ9iGg/edit?usp=sharing
Discussion Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sw1xwrHpzOvwyOwq2Xx4LMGz2SR7F4Ro83FnA0okokM/edit?usp=sharing
Introductory & Closing Emails:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WSRFFy8EEWjMhELnxglHJ9RGJaySKHJNJEene32E8Rs/edit?usp=sharing
