A chore & task tracker for children—built on Directual

Oh, children. You have to make sure they're doing their chores on time, but it's not that easy because...distractions, distractions, distractions. How about an app that helps children manage their time and get a little something in return?

This is the story of Anton Lozhkin, a no-code developer specializing in web and mobile development, and how he (and his wife!) built a day planner & tracker for children.

Client

Anton is a seasoned entrepreneur and developer. As of now, he's actively building no-code projects of varying caliber to meet the needs of his clients. Anton’s focus is shared between frontend and product management, whereas the backend logic is developed by his savvy spouse.

Challenge

Learning a proper tech stack takes time, and not everyone is cut out for it. No-code is simply faster and easier to learn. That’s it!

How did you discover Directual?

The journey into the no-code sphere began with marketing—social media, performance marketing, and building landing pages on Tilda. It’s fascinating—move some things and boom, it’s done and it works. 

Then, comes a desire for something more complex—Integromat (now Make) was the tool of choice. Even Make, powerful as it is, will eventually exhaust its usefulness for complex projects. 

That’s how Directual was discovered—a few tutorial videos on Zerocoder brought the platform to life and the rest is history. 

Technology

• Creatium (frontend)
• Directual (Backend)
• NodeJS

What did you build with Directual?

Got a dog, learned you can't just yell at them—they need positive vibes. Figured it's the same with kids. So, why not make a tracker app? Thought about a mobile app, too hard. A personal account somewhere? Too much hassle. Ended up using Telegram—it’s easy, no setup, the kid loves it.

Parents feel the same; nagging sucks. An app could tell kids to speed up, and clean up, without us breathing down their necks. Set tasks, they do 'em, they get rewards. No cash though—it has to be something else, something wholesome. Monetary incentives at a young age are not a good thing, as we have guessed and confirmed with educational psychologists. Kids like games, they make everything fun. Turning chores into a game keeps everyone cool—no lectures, no stress. 

So, we built the app quickly on Creatium, with the backend made with Directual. Even tweaked it with some code—just a tiny bit.

Here’s how it works:

• Parents set tasks.
• Kids see what’s up for today and get it done for bonuses.
• Miss a task? No bonus.
• Nailed it? Instant reward.

Multiple kids? No issue. Each kid sees tasks from every parent. It’s nice when you can put your own creation to work. Our kid’s self-managed now—up on time, bed made, teeth brushed, all without us saying a word.

Why was Directual chosen as a base technology?

It’s powerful and easy to work with. We needed to introduce dashboards and proper functionality, and it’s perfect for that. The web app is embedded into a Telegram bot, with the frontend managed via Creatium. 

Took us a week to get the prototype running, which is nice!

What could be improved?

The web page builder. Right now, it gets the job done for basic things and it’s good for that. For anything more complex, and there are so many different things that can be made beautiful…not yet. We hope to see Directual become a frontend builder similar to Creatium or others. 

Otherwise, no complaints—it gets the job done well.

Plans ahead

Directual is there to stay with us for a number of reasons:

• The price is right! 
• The backend is powerful
• The team is really helpful (we sorted out many things together)

Our tracker app is climbing its way up, and the market for it is definitely there. Apart from that, we’ve got another project in the works, which is also made on Directual—you might learn more about it soon.

Afterword

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