I have a late ADHD diagnosis. For years I tracked my habits. I read get shit done and many habit books in my 20s. I obsessed over my tracking, believing on some level it would elevate my life.
Around 5 years ago, during covid I stopped. Looking back I can comfortably say that habit tracking caused me considerable distress and the benefits are mostly not there.
I now use obsidian and a digital peice of paper style. I use lists that have no timing or deadlines of any kind. When I am able, I pickup the list and do something.
This still causes me distress but the low effort, low maintainability method I find is just as effective and considerably reduces self punishment.
I also apply the same low effort style to journalling (also in obsidian). Journal entries are 'if I am motivated'.
After 20 years I found the best journal entries have 3 questions:
This was posted on HN a while ago and I started using it then. I've accumulated quite a bit of data and have used both export and import. That's turned out to be the most useful feature for me
I've used other trackers, ones focused on CBT. My only suggestion is to allow text notes in each entry, so I can track emotional states or recurring thoughts
I love this. My only gripe is that I wish habit trackers were more evidenced-based for some real accountability. "Work out 25 minutes" is such an easy habit to fudge by showing up late to the gym, but if you know 22 minutes can't get you the tick mark, you do the extra work required to create the space in your schedule.
With vision models, evidence-ing should be easy, but what's the best way to make it privacy first without needing a dedicate GPU tower at home?
Ultimately I don't think you will ever be able to rely on technology to validate authenticity . Even if you had a live human expert checking you off, you could still feel you didn't really give your all even though they were satisfied. There is no such thing as being able to objectively verify that you fully engaged in the spirit of a thing.
I also think your thinking on tick marks is backwards. If you're struggling to "fully do" a goal, you should absolutely be giving yourself tick marks. That way the desire to to maintain the streak helps keep you in the rhythm. Habit trackers aren't trying to "perfectly record your activities" - they use psychology to push you into building a habit. Once you get into the stage where the habit is established but you want to push yourself - then you get into detailed food and workout journaling that will let you track intensity over time. But if you aren't making it to the gym the intensity doesn't matter yet.
You're fighting a ghost here, no one's lying to themselves. I encourage you to read some of the other comments in the thread (including mine) to get to the nature of the problem.
I’m releasing something similar but auto-logged based on Apple Health history.
Feel free to email me via this site if anyone wants to TestFlight it.. I’m currently rebuilding the UI but the next release should be available for testing in the next week.
At least Atomic Habits says it's more important to show up. Like a good way to start a running habit is just to put on your shoes every day even if you don't run.
So here just going to the gym could be enough to check of the box for the habit, rather than say you failed if you don't do the whole 25 minutes or you feel like you wasted time at the gym.
You of course can build on top but it's good to have that fallback minimum.
You're gonna do better at building the habit working out for 1 minute per day than 7 days in a row for 60 minutes, a few times a year.
i would say, be generous with yourself in terms of tracking showing up at all since that alone is huge (and most important for sustaining the behavior). if you notice that you're slipping and showing up late too often, maybe create another habit for being on time?
i don't understand the rationale behind cheating one's own self improvement journal. what's the end game?
Self-destruction, via small acts of self-sabotage.
Next day, your inner critic and saboteur tell you something along the lines of: "You shouldn't go today - you're tired, there's so much work that you should do instead, and you're not even doing the gym actually/properly (AGAIN), just look at yesterday, you couldn't even do 25 min, you've cheated and have now tainted it". Even though it was the same exact voice that led you to do it yesterday.
i don't think that computer vision gates or even an ai agent trying to enforce accountability are going to help all that much in that case. maybe try a therapist or a real-life accountability partner.
I’ve tried it all. No real life partner can be there on the hour (most accountability partner systems work on a daily/weekly basis). “Friends” definitely don’t work.
An automated measurement system is the way to go. Like the poster above you said, the “cheating” rarely happens in a binary Yes/No situation or me going into a log and editing it (that would obviously be silly). It happens in the rolling measurements, the 22mins vs 25 mins hard day gray zone situations
yeah in that case, use a binary for "did you do it that day?" and a measure for "how much of it did you do that day?". loop habit tracker supports both, i bet this one does too. a built-in stopwatch to make time tracking specifically easy would be cool.
i have done things like "do x at least once three times a week" and then had a separate counter for how many times. it's good to track intensity or progression, but i think the most value comes from "did you do it at all that day?" and then sticking to a plan that involves n days a week.
the finer grained tracking can contribute to "i am not on target, so maybe it doesn't matter" sort of thinking where maybe the most valuable thing is "i am setting time aside n days a week and sticking to at least attempting the activity on that schedule."
Follow-up: Would also love a Rewards tab attached to a certain amount of growth in the habit-score Ala Habitica but with real-world rewards. Great setup so far though!
I don’t mind AI-written code. But an obviously generated README.md is such a turn off. If you don’t take the time to explain what your software does in your own words, I struggle to trust that it’s been thought about much at all.
Yeah, I really think this should be the new universal standard. Mostly for respect reasons, but also going through and saying “what DOES my app actually do?” (which is something writing a README forces you to think about) is pretty much the minimal last line of defense attempt at quality control.
You can and probably should do more quality control than that, but it’s a reasonable assumption that if the initial landing document hasn’t been quality checked, the rest hasn’t either.
If the app is good the app is good. End of discussion
Why do you care how it was made? What’s next? It matters what country or city the developer is from or ahah language it’s written in or what machines were used or how the electric was sourced
Anything similar for Android (or anyone want to burn some tokens cloning)?
I see the readme mentions it's inspired by Loop. Ideally something that also allows tracking not-necessarily-habit daily things (drank coffee at time y)
I have a late ADHD diagnosis. For years I tracked my habits. I read get shit done and many habit books in my 20s. I obsessed over my tracking, believing on some level it would elevate my life.
Around 5 years ago, during covid I stopped. Looking back I can comfortably say that habit tracking caused me considerable distress and the benefits are mostly not there.
I now use obsidian and a digital peice of paper style. I use lists that have no timing or deadlines of any kind. When I am able, I pickup the list and do something.
This still causes me distress but the low effort, low maintainability method I find is just as effective and considerably reduces self punishment.
I also apply the same low effort style to journalling (also in obsidian). Journal entries are 'if I am motivated'.
After 20 years I found the best journal entries have 3 questions:
1. What's not going well
2. What's going well
3. What one thing will make a difference today
Great that you finally found what's working for you!
This was posted on HN a while ago and I started using it then. I've accumulated quite a bit of data and have used both export and import. That's turned out to be the most useful feature for me
I've used other trackers, ones focused on CBT. My only suggestion is to allow text notes in each entry, so I can track emotional states or recurring thoughts
You can add a note with each habit completion, by pressing a day on the habit detail screen ;)
Cool, if we could by hour I can replace my CBT tracker !
I love this. My only gripe is that I wish habit trackers were more evidenced-based for some real accountability. "Work out 25 minutes" is such an easy habit to fudge by showing up late to the gym, but if you know 22 minutes can't get you the tick mark, you do the extra work required to create the space in your schedule.
With vision models, evidence-ing should be easy, but what's the best way to make it privacy first without needing a dedicate GPU tower at home?
Ultimately I don't think you will ever be able to rely on technology to validate authenticity . Even if you had a live human expert checking you off, you could still feel you didn't really give your all even though they were satisfied. There is no such thing as being able to objectively verify that you fully engaged in the spirit of a thing.
I also think your thinking on tick marks is backwards. If you're struggling to "fully do" a goal, you should absolutely be giving yourself tick marks. That way the desire to to maintain the streak helps keep you in the rhythm. Habit trackers aren't trying to "perfectly record your activities" - they use psychology to push you into building a habit. Once you get into the stage where the habit is established but you want to push yourself - then you get into detailed food and workout journaling that will let you track intensity over time. But if you aren't making it to the gym the intensity doesn't matter yet.
Indeed, "I wish there was tech to stop me from lying to myself" is just not a tech problem.
You're fighting a ghost here, no one's lying to themselves. I encourage you to read some of the other comments in the thread (including mine) to get to the nature of the problem.
I’m releasing something similar but auto-logged based on Apple Health history.
Feel free to email me via this site if anyone wants to TestFlight it.. I’m currently rebuilding the UI but the next release should be available for testing in the next week.
https://teamvagner.com/streak-life/
At least Atomic Habits says it's more important to show up. Like a good way to start a running habit is just to put on your shoes every day even if you don't run.
So here just going to the gym could be enough to check of the box for the habit, rather than say you failed if you don't do the whole 25 minutes or you feel like you wasted time at the gym.
You of course can build on top but it's good to have that fallback minimum.
You're gonna do better at building the habit working out for 1 minute per day than 7 days in a row for 60 minutes, a few times a year.
i would say, be generous with yourself in terms of tracking showing up at all since that alone is huge (and most important for sustaining the behavior). if you notice that you're slipping and showing up late too often, maybe create another habit for being on time?
i don't understand the rationale behind cheating one's own self improvement journal. what's the end game?
Self-destruction, via small acts of self-sabotage.
Next day, your inner critic and saboteur tell you something along the lines of: "You shouldn't go today - you're tired, there's so much work that you should do instead, and you're not even doing the gym actually/properly (AGAIN), just look at yesterday, you couldn't even do 25 min, you've cheated and have now tainted it". Even though it was the same exact voice that led you to do it yesterday.
i don't think that computer vision gates or even an ai agent trying to enforce accountability are going to help all that much in that case. maybe try a therapist or a real-life accountability partner.
I’ve tried it all. No real life partner can be there on the hour (most accountability partner systems work on a daily/weekly basis). “Friends” definitely don’t work.
An automated measurement system is the way to go. Like the poster above you said, the “cheating” rarely happens in a binary Yes/No situation or me going into a log and editing it (that would obviously be silly). It happens in the rolling measurements, the 22mins vs 25 mins hard day gray zone situations
yeah in that case, use a binary for "did you do it that day?" and a measure for "how much of it did you do that day?". loop habit tracker supports both, i bet this one does too. a built-in stopwatch to make time tracking specifically easy would be cool.
i have done things like "do x at least once three times a week" and then had a separate counter for how many times. it's good to track intensity or progression, but i think the most value comes from "did you do it at all that day?" and then sticking to a plan that involves n days a week.
the finer grained tracking can contribute to "i am not on target, so maybe it doesn't matter" sort of thinking where maybe the most valuable thing is "i am setting time aside n days a week and sticking to at least attempting the activity on that schedule."
ymmv of course, this stuff is deeply personal!
Follow-up: Would also love a Rewards tab attached to a certain amount of growth in the habit-score Ala Habitica but with real-world rewards. Great setup so far though!
This looks great!
I use Loop Habit Tracker¹ on Android which at a glance seems similar.
I wish someone could pair a habit tracker with a CalDAV task tracker like jtx Board².
¹ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.isoron.uhabits ² https://f-droid.org/packages/at.techbee.jtx
Highly recommend Habit. Been my go to since the past 4y or so
Oh thanks! Do you have a link? I searched but a lot of Habit apps are returned.
Sure! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.isoron.uha...
I don’t mind AI-written code. But an obviously generated README.md is such a turn off. If you don’t take the time to explain what your software does in your own words, I struggle to trust that it’s been thought about much at all.
I didnt even need to open the link, a ghibli-generated profile pic already says so much about someone's priorities.
So what
Yeah, I really think this should be the new universal standard. Mostly for respect reasons, but also going through and saying “what DOES my app actually do?” (which is something writing a README forces you to think about) is pretty much the minimal last line of defense attempt at quality control.
You can and probably should do more quality control than that, but it’s a reasonable assumption that if the initial landing document hasn’t been quality checked, the rest hasn’t either.
If the app is good the app is good. End of discussion
Why do you care how it was made? What’s next? It matters what country or city the developer is from or ahah language it’s written in or what machines were used or how the electric was sourced
Who cares!
A README is one of the most important pieces of a project, if one can't even advertise their own project with their own words, it signals low effort.
After all, the people visiting one's repo on GH likely have access to the same AI tools, too.
Absolutely fantastic, for an age I've yearned for an iOS version of Loop Habit Tracker!
Great work.
Anything similar for Android (or anyone want to burn some tokens cloning)?
I see the readme mentions it's inspired by Loop. Ideally something that also allows tracking not-necessarily-habit daily things (drank coffee at time y)
How about antitracking, is that controversial? When one is enough and there is no need to beat previous score?
Superb, I installed and will use it.
i saw there is in app purchases, what is that for?
Just to give a tip. It doesn’t unblock any feature :)