Y’all, I am not one for favourites but I would love to introduce you to my habit tracking app: Streaks. This app is keeping me honest as I begin to create and reinforce habits in 2021. Why is this important? Because Cocktails, we lie to ourselves about ‘how much we are trying’ all the time – especially when trying to make a new habit stick! How many times do you think you have worked out enough for the week but in reality all you did was throw on some gym clothes? Yeah – we’ve all been there but this app is the accountability partner that you never knew you needed!
How is an app doing this you may ask? Allow me to walk you through it!
- Create a task to track a habit – You can track most activities – read a book, brush your teeth, floss, drink water … you can also create your own tasks that can track your custom habits if the app doesn’t have what you are tracking.
- Set the duration – You then decide how long or often you want the app to track the task. For example, I determined to read for an hour a day in 2021. I know this sounds like a long time to some but honestly, I had a reading goal (see here) that I need to hit and I am not letting procrastination sabotage it! So I track this goal and duration through the app! I simply push play and the app counts down the minutes and lets me know once the hour is up!
- Track! That’s it – you are good to go! Once you have created the task and set durations, you are all set.
Above are examples of what I am currently tracking in the Streaks App.
Bonus:
- Set up notifications – I am not a fan of notifications but I have the app send me notifications for example when my reading hour is up or if the day is coming to an end and I haven’t meditated! This gentle push helps ensure that I keep track of the habit without fail.
- Sync with Apple Health App – In 2021 we are creating systems that will ensure that our habits stick (see my review of Atomic Habits here). Syncing with Apple Health App ensures that my health related habits are tracked and can be analyzed on a macro scale. I track how much water I drink, how often I workout, when I mediate … all in the Streaks app, which then gets synced to the Apple Health App! I despite double data entry and this eliminates the need to enter the same information in two different apps!
- The app is cross platform you can track tasks from your Apple Watch or the iPhone App … if you workout, that automatically gets tracked and you don’t really have to do anything but validate the duration and gas yourself up!
So there you have it folks! This is the app that you need to track those habits and make sure that you aren’t lying to yourself about how you really are doing with those resolutions/intentions that you set last month!
