Like 16% (or 58%…) of the UK I’m setting some personal new year’s resolutions for 2023. Recently I’ve been reading James Clear’s (excellent) Atomic Habits, so decided to set up 10 positive habits that I can realistically keep up all year, instead of goals. Here’s what I’m aiming for, and the Android app I’m using to track them!

Whilst 10 habits might sound impossible, they’re mostly things I’m already doing occasionally that just need more consistency. Here’s the 4 categories, the 10 habits themselves, and my existing behaviour:

10 Habits

Physical

1. Cardio: Every day, go for a significant walk of around 8-10k steps. I currently do this most days.

2. Working Out: Every day, do a bodyweight fitness workout1. This will be the same daily workout, steadily increasing over time. I currently do this inconsistently.

3. Calories: Every day, track everything I eat in Lifesum2. I currently usually do this, but stop if I’m having an unhealthy day!

4. No Alcohol: Don’t drink alcohol! I currently usually drink alcohol on 1-3 occasions per week.

Creative

5. Writing / Coding: Every day, write some public code or words outside of work e.g., StackOverflow / open source / this post! I currently do this inconsistently, with code or words written 2-3 days/week.

6. Weekly Post: Every week, publish a blog post on one of my sites. I currently definitely don’t do this, with some weeks containing 4-5 posts, then entire months without any.

Mental

7. Reading: Every day, read for at least 30 minutes. I currently do this almost every day, missing perhaps 1 day/week.

8. Reflection: Every day, make a note of the best and worst thing that happened, to reflect upon them and to review at the end of the year. Currently I do nothing like this, but wish I did.

Offline

9. Consideration: Every day, do something nice unprompted for my partner. Currently I do this most days, honest! I’m hoping to make it a more conscious “above and beyond” habit however.

10. Weekend Plan: Every week, do something new every weekend. Currently, I end up doing similar things most weekends.

Loop Habit Tracker

To track my progress on these habits, I wanted an app that:

  • Let me mark a daily habit as “done” very easily.
  • Let me see all of my habits at once.
  • Showed me my progress for today, the last few days, and longer term.
  • Didn’t require signup, payments, or any other nonsense.
  • Ideally open source, so I could maybe add features myself.

So, I took the very complex step of Googling “reddit android app habit tracking”, clicking the first result3, and discovering Loop Habit Tracker4 which met all of my requirements!

In addition to my basic requirements, it also has a dark mode, lets you group / colour habits, and supports complex habits (e.g., “2x per week”). For complex habits, it represents the task not being necessary today by showing a tick outline, a great visual. Additionally, it has the option to “end” days at 3am, supporting later sleep times.

Unfortunately it doesn’t have any kind of sync / backup feature (besides the built-in Android backup or exporting to file). Ideally the app could back up data to my Google Drive every day, in case I lose my phone. Additionally, whilst Loop has widgets they each only showcase 1 habit, whereas I wanted an overview of all 10 at once.

Habits Settings Add Habit

References

  1. https://redd.it/kofo8l ↩

  2. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sillens.shapeupclub ↩

  3. https://redd.it/p1jy5s ↩

  4. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.isoron.uhabits ↩