Here we are with a new year upon us, and for many, resolutions of self-improvement. Lather, rinse, repeat. How can we approach it differently this year? Many of those around me hear me repeatedly scream, “I hate technology!” And, I often do. But it does come with some benefits and conveniences. With that in mind, we have done some research, and here are 3 apps that just may be the accountability resource you need to help with forming new habits. And with new habits come change!
Habitica:
- This is a game. You have an avatar, which you keep alive by doing tasks you want to accomplish daily/weekly/monthly. If you don’t complete your task, you lose health but, if you do, then you win prizes that you have set for yourself (a new computer screen/ 30 minutes of reading/ a massage etc.) You fund your rewards. We see this working well for gamers/ kids.
- Set up To Do’s: Enter tasks you do once or rarely in the To Do’s column, one at a time. You can click on the tasks to edit them and add checklists, due dates, and more!
- Set up Dailies: Enter activities you need to do daily or on a particular day of the week, month, or year in the Dailies column. Click task to edit when it will be due and/or set a start date. You can also make it due on a repeating basis, for example, every 3 days.
- Set up Habits: Enter habits you want to establish in the Habits column. You can edit the Habit to change it to just a good habit or a bad habit.
- Set up Rewards: In addition to the in-game Rewards offered, add activities or treats which you want to use as a motivation to the Rewards column. It’s important to give yourself a break or allow some indulgence in moderation!
HabitHub:
- This one could be useful for adults, especially those who have organizational tendencies but are not necessarily on top of it all the time. It is also appropriate for those who are driven by something as little as not breaking the “chain”. Forming new habits takes a minimum of 3 weeks, so committing to keeping the chain going is a huge help.
- HabitHub is based on Seinfeld’s productivity secret – Don’t break the chain! Every time you do a habit, your chain grows longer. Eventually you will build a very long chain. Your only job now is to keep the chain growing.
- Categories- Organize your habits according to different aspects of your life by assigning them to categories. You can even assign colors to categories to make them stand out.
- Graphs- Visualize your data with beautiful graphs. Get an overview of how well you have been performing and identify any patterns that might be preventing you from successfully cultivating the habit.
- Reminders- Do you want to be reminded to drink a glass of water every 2 hours? Not a problem. HabitHub allows you to set reminders so that you stay on track and never again forget to mark a day.
- There are other additional features to this app such as Notes, Rewards, Flexible Goals and Rewards.
Due:
- Due remembers everything you need to so you don’t have to. It’s lightning-fast to set reminders, and it’s so persistent you can’t forget anything.
- With 12 fully customizable buttons, you can instantly set your reminder to the next 12 noon or the next 10 PM with just a single tap.
- You can even add or subtract time from the current date—extra nifty in snoozing reminders or fine-tuning due dates.
- Due repeatedly notifies you of overdue reminders until you mark them complete, reschedule them, or turn off their auto snooze.
- It’s super-easy to mark reminders complete or defer them to a later date, if you can’t act on them now. You don’t even have to go into the app. Just postpone the reminder right from its notification.
- You can also run multiple countdown timers at once, and once you create a timer, you can reuse it forever without setting it up again.
If apps aren’t your thing, then I highly, highly recommend the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. This is an easy-to-read book with realistic steps towards change.
Professional organizers, friends, spouses, or any other accountability partner is a tried and true way to assist with the process of forming new habits as well.
Sure, Professional Organizers can sort, purge and put items in labelled bins. But unless we offer solutions to change partnered with accountability, coaching, cheerleading and more, organizational systems will likely not stay maintained. This is the hard work we do when working with clients.
