I completely agree. If you just look at it as a system, it’s completely unstable. When do I most need support in my habits? When something goes wrong and I miss a day. When does a streak system completely remove all support and pile on a bunch of negativity? When something goes wrong and I miss a day.
Streaks seem to be good at taking you from 99% compliance to 100%, but that’s not the problem most people face.
What has worked way better for me is to take the world a week at a time. I track my compliance across all of my habits. It’s usually only like 75%, but I bet you most people aren’t hitting that. Then I meet someone for up to 30 minutes once a week. She’s not an accountability buddy (also an unstable system). She’s a project manager. We talk about what’s going wrong and how to fix it, or what’s going well and how to keep it. Done it all year and it has helped tremendously.
Back to streaks, I had an idea for streaks that still give you a goal, but they’re not so huge. So you reach for the next number in the powers of 2 or Fibonacci sequence, and your streak counter starts over when you hit it. Then you’re not trying to preserve your one precious streak, you’re just setting a new record. “I did 128, let’s see if I can hit 256!”.
A system that relies on things being ideal is likely to fail indeed. An alternative that works better than "Don't break the chain" is "Start again with the smallest and easiest step you can think of".
Hypothetical example: If you were working on running 21km and worked your way up to 14km but stopped for some reason. You could get started again with a short walk or just getting dressed to go for a walk.
I envy people that can freely share their thoughts / dreams / wishes on some random VM in some random cloud.
I don't even trust my connected devices since the amount of telemetry going on guarantees that everything I type will end up on some random VM in some random cloud.
Buy a small NUC and run some docker containers. You might end up sinking 100 hours into it, but I have the same concerns and self hosting (with some cloud backups, but encrypted) is the solution for me.
Thanks for the feedback. Safari and mobile view gives me strangely scaled picture as well. The actual calendar and graph seems to be fine. Definitely will keep this in mind for the next revision.
I have a feeling a better way to follow through your goals is to decouple tasks from the time it takes to do them. Divide your time in blocks, one tasks per block. The time doesn't depend on the task, and the task doesn't depend on which block you choose to do it.
For me, 3 blocks per day is optimum.
Interesting idea. For me the hardest thing is carving time out to do deep work at all. It’s critical to protect that time and focus on applying to a specific thing.
Changing habits is hard and therefore requires time. Not sure a 7 days trial is enough to see the results therefore the value of the application. I would prefer not to invest time using a new application if I do not have enough time to assess the benefits from the time I invested in.
Feels like 7 days is enough to get the idea of the application, its philosophy, add the first few things I want to accomplish. Not more.
Trial should end when one small goal has been accomplished so that the user could realise he/she has accomplished a goal she wouldn't have without the application, plus in less time/easier than expected.
I find the reminders app on my phone is good enough.
I have a folder called "habits", with reminders that appear at chosen times of day and days of the week.
I look at my phone frequently enough that I can't really ignore them. My memory is crap enough that I forget what they're going to be, so I scroll through them once in a while. It's mildly satisfying for me to "check" them at the end of the day, and to write my 5-word summaries on progress or lack thereof in the notes app.
There was a comment posted on HN a while ago that has always stuck with me[0] that basically said that plain old pen, paper, and a system of rules was more than enough to start a business, organisation, or, as a follow up comment said, even Rome.
This has rung true in my life many times over. I've tried complicated note and habit tracking apps that just do far more than I ever need and I tend to get stuck in the weeds, missing the forest for the trees with these types of platforms. The default reminders app and notes app on my iPhone so far, has been more than sufficient for everything I've needed to tackle in life from moving overseas, starting a business, and fostering relationships as well as building every habit I currently have.
Basically, this is just a long winded way of saying "keep it simple"
I would also like to add one more thing that helps you to achieve goals: "Make it fun".
I don't like exercise but I love watching Netflix. Unfortunately, I don't get enough time to watch my favourite shows everyday.
Solution: Put a treadmill in front of my TV. Now I happily take out half an hour everyday to do the treadmill just so I get the same 30 minutes to watch my show.
For quite a while I used the rule that my favourite TV show could only be watched in the gym on my tablet. So if I wanted to really watch the latest episode of breaking bad or whatever it was I had to go to the gym and work out. It compelled me to get to the gym and stay exercising for 30+ minutes. Then I would also typically push out some strength on top of that cardio. Surprisingly effective to tie the two together and build a habit of it over a few months, starting initially lightly it can get you a long way.
I agree that the system is very important - perhaps even more than the goal; but your example is less then ideal. The system is the journey - something that can be done for eternity and doesn't necessarily "finish". "Build core functionalities" is not a system, "code for 3 hours each day" might be.
Note to the submitter: Firefox gives me a "Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead" message when I try to visit the link. Error code: SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER. Seems like a https certificate problem.
This is something I would definitely try if you had a free tier (just to get a feel of the app, maybe restricted to 1-2 goals) or at least a free trial without CC info/commitment.
But that doesn't convert enough! Think about all the $120/yr payments you can extract from people that don't know you can use an Excel spreadsheet to do the same thing!
I totally agree on this, the pricing is not well thought, take HabitBull for example, the app is free for 5 goals and you can unlock the rest of features with unlimited goals for a one time purchase of $10.
That's a way better pricing model for this kind of apps in my opinion.
Shameless plug: I teach people how to do exactly this at bizworklife.com. It's tool agnostic: just how to get control of your goals (geared mainly for startup entrepreneurs).
It started as an online course (that is still there) but has branched out a bit into personal consulting.
[+] [-] learnstats2|5 years ago|reply
As soon as the chain is broken, I'm never going to pick it up again.
[+] [-] travisjungroth|5 years ago|reply
Streaks seem to be good at taking you from 99% compliance to 100%, but that’s not the problem most people face.
What has worked way better for me is to take the world a week at a time. I track my compliance across all of my habits. It’s usually only like 75%, but I bet you most people aren’t hitting that. Then I meet someone for up to 30 minutes once a week. She’s not an accountability buddy (also an unstable system). She’s a project manager. We talk about what’s going wrong and how to fix it, or what’s going well and how to keep it. Done it all year and it has helped tremendously.
Back to streaks, I had an idea for streaks that still give you a goal, but they’re not so huge. So you reach for the next number in the powers of 2 or Fibonacci sequence, and your streak counter starts over when you hit it. Then you’re not trying to preserve your one precious streak, you’re just setting a new record. “I did 128, let’s see if I can hit 256!”.
[+] [-] bloodorange|5 years ago|reply
Hypothetical example: If you were working on running 21km and worked your way up to 14km but stopped for some reason. You could get started again with a short walk or just getting dressed to go for a walk.
[+] [-] thotsBgone|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tinydata42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fnoord|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] juliancox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoanhan101|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmnicolas|5 years ago|reply
I don't even trust my connected devices since the amount of telemetry going on guarantees that everything I type will end up on some random VM in some random cloud.
[+] [-] francis-io|5 years ago|reply
https://github.com/htpcBeginner/docker-traefik
[+] [-] crsv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkubicek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoanhan101|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hoanhan101|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dimovich|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pbronez|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hammershaft|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] politicus1000|5 years ago|reply
Feels like 7 days is enough to get the idea of the application, its philosophy, add the first few things I want to accomplish. Not more.
Trial should end when one small goal has been accomplished so that the user could realise he/she has accomplished a goal she wouldn't have without the application, plus in less time/easier than expected.
[+] [-] teraku|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gen220|5 years ago|reply
I have a folder called "habits", with reminders that appear at chosen times of day and days of the week.
I look at my phone frequently enough that I can't really ignore them. My memory is crap enough that I forget what they're going to be, so I scroll through them once in a while. It's mildly satisfying for me to "check" them at the end of the day, and to write my 5-word summaries on progress or lack thereof in the notes app.
[+] [-] lethologica|5 years ago|reply
This has rung true in my life many times over. I've tried complicated note and habit tracking apps that just do far more than I ever need and I tend to get stuck in the weeds, missing the forest for the trees with these types of platforms. The default reminders app and notes app on my iPhone so far, has been more than sufficient for everything I've needed to tackle in life from moving overseas, starting a business, and fostering relationships as well as building every habit I currently have.
Basically, this is just a long winded way of saying "keep it simple"
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222150
[+] [-] superasn|5 years ago|reply
I don't like exercise but I love watching Netflix. Unfortunately, I don't get enough time to watch my favourite shows everyday.
Solution: Put a treadmill in front of my TV. Now I happily take out half an hour everyday to do the treadmill just so I get the same 30 minutes to watch my show.
[+] [-] PaulKeeble|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] virgilp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diegoholiveira|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoanhan101|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoanhan101|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spekcular|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkskm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amateurdev|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoanhan101|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] occamschainsaw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fbelzile|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Void_|5 years ago|reply
I would have tried this, if it didn’t require a card, and maybe a longer trial would be nice.
[+] [-] toyg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marwen|5 years ago|reply
That's a way better pricing model for this kind of apps in my opinion.
[+] [-] politicus1000|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shapiro92|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjftokyo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rawoke083600|5 years ago|reply
Is this correct ?
[+] [-] nicklarsennz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoanhan101|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dhimes|5 years ago|reply
It started as an online course (that is still there) but has branched out a bit into personal consulting.
[+] [-] nextaccountic|5 years ago|reply