Most modern productivity apps try to do all sorts of complex things.
You enjoy them for a week or two. And before long, they become just another app competing for your attention. So, you gradually ignore them and move on.
To you, it may feel like a lack of discipline. Perhaps you didn’t have what it took to stick to a routine.
However, the extraneous “productivity features” you chose to use could have been the problem.
For me, that realization led me to delete HabitNow after three years of consistent use.
I passed on the feature-packed apps on purpose
So the simplest one got every minute of my day
Before 2022, I wrote my routine on paper. Every night, I took 30 minutes to an hour to write down everything I needed to do the next day.
Then, on the following day, I’d follow everything I had written down. The system was simple and effective, but it was also very time-consuming.
Not to mention, in many cases, I’d wake up in the morning with no routine because I’d forgotten to prepare it the night before.
These issues are why I looked for a mobile app alternative: to make my routine-planning process more reliable.
So, after installing and testing tens of options on the Play Store and online, I finally settled on HabitNow.
The app did exactly what I needed. It was simple and just as effective as my paper method. The only difference was that it didn’t come with any of its caveats.
That was how I transferred my routine from paper to an Android app. It was genuinely one of the best things I’d ever done for my productivity.
But that was until I started to take things too far.
My simple app slowly stopped being simple
Then it rang in a meeting despite every volume being down
About two to three years in, I started trying more of the unused features in my HabitNow app. I set up filter lists, which group activities in my routine into different categories.
I also started replacing many recurring tasks with habits I could track over time.
As if that was not enough, I changed the reminder on some of my “highly important” tasks from a notification to an alarm.
That’s how I ended up in a situation where I was continuously getting stopped in the middle of work to mark completed tasks.
Before I could fully realize the blunder I had made, my HabitNow alarm rang in a meeting, despite my phone being on silent.
I’m not sure why the makers of the app saw it necessary to make the alarm feature have its own volume, independent of the phone’s volume. But that did it for me.
I decided I’d had enough and deleted the app.
Out of sight, my routine stayed in mind
Now I only check in at three set points
Lucas Gouveia / Android Police | Google
Just like you don’t check a map for a route you’ve walked for years, I didn’t need HabitNow to get on with my day.
I had almost the same routine for almost four years, so I instinctively knew what needed doing at every time of the day. I didn’t even have to think; I just knew.
For about two to three weeks, I got everything done without any routine tracker. I was so relieved of all the stress and breaks in focus HabitNow had been causing.
But that only lasted so long. I’m human, so, as you’d expect, I started to forget my routine again.
Without a tracker to show me my list of planned activities for the day, I started missing important tasks. That’s when I realized I needed my sweet, sweet HabitNow back.
But this time, all the extraneous features would have to go.
I still track, but not with HabitNow
The numbers that matter live in their own apps
If you’re trying to achieve anything in your life, and you’re not tracking your performance over time, it’s safe to say that you won’t achieve your goal.
That’s how important it is to track your work. However, there’s a huge difference between tracking your progress and tracking whether you completed a task.
Before I deleted HabitNow, I was in the habit of tracking things I shouldn’t have, like the number of days in a row I’d written content.
I’m a professional writer. Why would I need to track that? That’s like tracking how many days in a row you’ve brushed your teeth.
Will there ever be a day when you don’t brush your teeth? Most definitely not. That’s how writing is for me. Yet I was tracking it.
Meanwhile, the things that actually needed tracking, like my workouts, had their own dedicated apps on my phone.
So when I reinstalled HabitNow, I replaced all my unnecessary habits with recurring tasks. After that, I removed every alarm reminder and turned it into a notification.
Then, I went to my phone’s settings and set HabitNow’s notifications to silent. That way, when I’m on my phone and it’s time to perform a task, I’ll visually see the notification at the top of my screen.
But when I’m in the middle of work, with my phone tossed to the side, I won’t get distracted by notifications or alarms.
So, essentially, I’ve reverted to the original setup I had when I first started using HabitNow, with the only difference being that I use silent notifications.
Whereas, back then, all the apps on my phone had notifications turned off, including HabitNow. Pretty extreme, I know.
HabitNow is back to the job my paper used to do: a clean list of my tasks. The only difference is that when I’m on my phone and not working, it reminds me I have important things to do.
For me, that’s the perfect setup. A routine tracker is supposed to take the load off your mind and help you stay focused on what matters.
If your app is starting to feel like an additional task for the day, maybe it’s time you cut back on the excessive tracking.
