Google Makes A Timeful Purchase

Google is always trying to make the lives of their users easier – whether it be through Gmail, Calendar, Inbox, or everything else in their suite that they have to offer. That’s why it comes as no surprise that Google recently acquired an awesome company called Timeful. Timeful is an app that learns the daily routines of its users, and then sprinkles in push notifications reminding them to get things done. In other words, if you tell the app that you need to schedule a dentist appointment before next Wednesday, it’ll remind you to do so.

The company was founded in March 2014 by Dan Ariely, Yoav Shoham, and Jacob Bank. All three were interested in figuring out how to eliminate procrastination and help people accomplish tasks. Ariely began by running real-world research into how his test subjects used their time. Meanwhile, Shoham was focused on how to depict people’s time on the computer screen, as Jacob Bank – the machine learner – worked on how to encourage people to get tasks the put on the timeful app done. While the three founders were conducting studies, they learned that 80% of people used the first two hours of their working day to check emails and Facebook – funny enough, it’s been proven that these hours can be the most productive part of a person’s day.

As Dan Ariely (one of the app founders), puts it: ?We moved from an initial step of academic testing to a more specific testing of how people use their day in very minute detail? How they use their calendars, what they represent and don?t represent. We have all these tests which are running within the app all the time. They way to think about our app is that it’s not static but dynamic.?

Google, like Timeful, loves using data-driven research to enhance their lineup of awesome tools – so this purchase seems to be the perfect fit. What remains to be seen is how Timeful’s technology will be used to enhance Google apps. Check out a couple screenshots from the Timeful app below 🙂

A couple screenshots from the Timeful app