Tracking Habits? Some Apps To Choose From

There are a lot of things that divide people, but the one thing we have in common is that everyone has a new year looming, whether they’re stoked or bummed. We all have to answer to a new year.

As part of the goal setting process, Camden and I have undergone a big process to figure out what’s important to us in the new year. We try and take a holistic approach to goal setting and make sure that we’re covering all our bases. Our goals span from finances to health, career, entertainment, religious, and personal development. While the below graphic didn’t specifically guide my thinking this year, I’ve always liked this layout from Funders and Founders.

There is one big thing that I’ve realized as we’ve worked to set goals over the last few years, first as a newly married couple, and now as parents of a wee man who requires his own whole section in our planning meetings.

Success is dependent on whether you are reviewing your goals and habits every single day.*

As part of ensuring we make that review, I engaged in an exhaustive review of apps to help us track all of our different goals.

Well, I guess I should say I first started by creating a google form.

That might work for some people, but I just didn’t feel special enough. As a millennial, I pride myself on only wanting to use products that I can brag about using to everyone else.

So here are a few products that I reviewed, and the one we ultimately picked.

Habitica

The thing that got me digging into all these apps was reading The Simple Truth Behind Reading 200 Books A Year, where he talked about using Habitica to track apps, so that’s where I started. If you like video games, you’re gonna love this.

Habitica is, of the 15 apps I reviewed, the only one that had both habits and what they called “dailies.” The difference being that habits are things you might want to track multiple times per day (e.g. I want to say “sup bro” less often, and I want to get dinged every time I say it). In “habits” you can ding yourself every time you do something good, or every time you do something bad.

Another feature that I really like is the ability to tag certain goals in certain categories (e.g. finances, health, etc.). This was another feature where Habitica was the only app that had this, at least in the free version.

I would have gone with Habitica if not for two reasons: (1) I don’t like video games, and (2) it doesn’t let you see a historical record of your progress. Every time you achieve a goal, or do something positive, it gives you points that you can use to buy gear for your avatar. Super interesting if you’re into that sort of thing, but not great for seeing a historical record of your progress.

I found a comment on their product wiki where this feature was requested back in October 2017 and still hasn’t been updated.

So I was on to the next one.

Productive

This one had way too much going on, and was dead set on getting me to pay for it. Every time I switched screens it brought up a page to try and get me to sign up for the premium version. I will almost never pay for something unless I feel myself becoming a power user (e.g. Evernote), so getting hit with that noise is like a wedding proposal on the first date. I didn’t spend much time here.

StickK

I’ve read a lot about behavioral economics, so when I heard this was based on principles of research by folks studying the subject at Yale, I got real excited. However, my habits are much more “did you do them, yes or no?” This app seemed more focused on big, life-changing, tell your friends, commit money-type goals. Like if you’re going to quit smoking and you want to donate money to a political candidate you hate if you fail. That kind of thing. For the day-to-day type stuff it wasn’t as good a fit.

Habit List

This one I tried super briefly. If you’re big into minimalism, this is a good one for you. I likely would have chosen this one because it’s a nice design, has some good reporting, and lets you make the titles of your goals as long as you want. But it only gives you three goals before it tries to charge you $4.99 for premium. Granted, these models are usually “pay once, and the rest of the features are free forever. But if that’s the case, why even let me download the app? Just make me pay from the get-go.

This is, as I stated before, incredibly forward. I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment. I think products like this will really struggle because it’s not really a fremium model. This is dressing up as a free product and then surprising you with a “money first” face smash.

Habitify

This is another one that I thought I had settled on. It’s got really attractive design, good reporting, and a lot of functionality. I actually started loading my goals into this one before I got hit with the same, “Oh you have more than 3 goals? Well you over-achieving son-of-a-gun, go ahead and pay us some moneys.”

Almost all of the apps had the ability to determine when the goal would repeat (daily, weekly, some had monthly,) and then a start date, a reminder. Habitify was unique in that it let you lay out what time of day you expect to do the thing you’re trying to make a habit of, though it wasn’t much of a game changer.

HabitShare

HabitShare is the one I finally settled on. My only negative is that it anchors a little to heavily to the social aspect, things like messaging people about their goals and tracking your friends. I basically ignore those features.

The only things I wanted were the ability to (for free! Buy me dinner first) set goals, track whether I did them or not, and see what % of the time I am being successful.

There is a very weird 30 character limit in the title of the goal. So I occasionally had to get creative with what I listed as the subject. It also doesn’t have a tagging feature, so I grouped my goals by initial titles (e.g. FIN — Record how much you spend).

What Would My Ideal Product Be?

HabitShare did what I need it to do, which is why I’ll be using it for my 2019 goals. But there are some things I wish I had.

The ability to make endless goals for free
The ability to tag / categorize goals into different groups
Reporting on my progress over time (e.g. line graphs, bar graphs, calendars, etc.)
A shared environment so my wife and I can both engage with the app as different users without having to be “at a distance” from each others goals

Credit to LifeHack for the list that exposed me to most of these apps.