My Favorite Apps for Habit Tracking and Creating Accountability Systems
What is a Habit Tracker and Why Do You Need One?
A habit tracker is a tool that helps you track your habits and goals. It can be a physical or digital tool and it’s up to you which one you prefer.
Habit trackers can help you stay on track with your goals and they can also help you figure out what kind of habits are good for your health.
The Best Apps I Have Used for Habit Tracking
I recently finished reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear and it was honestly one of the best and easiest books I’ve read. I love how simple he keeps things and also how easy it is to take action with tips that he gives in the book. I will write a book summary about it but for now lets stay on focus.
I’ve adopted a digital system for habit tracking. The two main apps that I use for habit tracking are, Habitica and Streaks.
Streaks is a really simple app and I found it worked well for me because it gamifies the experience for me. The more consecutive days you keep up your habit the longer your streak and that definitely helps me. I hate breaking a streak. If you’re looking to get started Streaks may be a good app to use in order to get you started. I must say though having to manually put the streak everyday can become tedious. I would find myself doing the habit but not remembering to put it into the app then my streak would be gone. I found that sometimes when I broke the streak (even though I didn’t break it) it would play on my mind that the number isn’t correct so I would seriously break the streak and start all over again. That didn’t help me with keeping up the habit consistently long term unfortunately.
I then decided to partner Streaks with Habitica. Habitica takes gamifiying your habits to another level. Habitica is a game and the more you complete tasks the more XP you earn and your character health goes down when you don’t complete habits or even just tasks that you set for yourself. This was a gamechanger for me because I play this mobile called Rise of Kingdom and I’ve basically not only made it a trigger to do habit that I have planned but to also remember to continue my Streaks! If all that wasn’t good enough Habitica has a web app to go with it!
If you don’t go for Streaks I’d definitely say give Habitica a go it’s run if you’re a gamer and want to mix gaming and productivity.
How to Keep Yourself Accountable with Your Habits?
It is important to keep ourselves accountable with our habits. It is a way of ensuring that we are living the life that we want to live. We need to make sure that we are doing what we can to help us achieve our goals, and also make sure that we are not procrastinating on things that need to be done.
There are many ways in which one can keep themselves accountable with their habits. One way is by using a tracking app on your phone. That is why I’ve taken the approach of using Streaks and Habitica. I’ve found using the combination of them is my formula for accountability. These apps will allow you to log all of your daily activities and you will be able to see how much time you spend on them, as well as the types of activities you do throughout the day. Another way would be by creating a personal rule for yourself, like going for a walk every day at 5pm or reading ten.
If you really want to make Habits stick I would recommend reading atomic habits. Add triggers to your habits by using other habits that you’ve already established. Explore the paperclip method it is a method of using physical cues as triggers. I’ve also experimented a bit with a Notion Habit Tracker but I found for me the simpler I made it the easier it was for me to stick with the system. I may revisit it sometime in the future but for now things work just fine!
