Everything You Need to Know About Habit Tracking

A common characteristic that can be observed in successful and highly productive people is that they break down their goals into daily steps or habits and track these habits consistently in order to reach their goals. Indeed, tracking habits is the best way to visualize your progress and change course if need be.

As a result, to reach your goals, you need to set new habits, ensure they fit into a consistent routine, and track them until they turn into automatic behaviors.

How Long does It Take to Form a Habit

If you’ve ever researched or read about how to be more productive, you might have come across the statement that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Indeed, in 1960, Dr. Maxwell Maltz published a book called “Psycho-Cybernetics,” in which he referred to this number of days based purely on observation of himself and his patients. The book became a best-seller, and the number quickly became a reference as opposed to a simple observation.

However, according to a study published by the European Journal of Sociology, it takes between 18 and 254 days to form a new habit. The reason for such a broad time frame is that the time it takes to form a new habit isn’t a ‘’one-size fits all’’ figure. Indeed, it strongly depends on the habit and the person. Some people find it easier to adopt a consistent routine, while others might struggle and take longer to get used to it.

Best Habit Tracker Apps

Now that we’ve established the importance of a habit tracker for success, you might be wondering what the best habit tracker apps are. While there are a lot of habit tracking apps available, we’ve listed below the ones we’d recommend.

Habitica

Habitica is the habit tracker that transforms your daily routines into a fun and rewarding game. The app features in-game levels reached by accomplishing certain tasks, rewards for your goals, and battling monsters with friends. With a strong social network and easy-to-use interface, Habitica makes it easy to stay accountable and on track.

Streaks

Streaks is a to-do list app designed to help you form good habits. You can create up to twenty-four tasks. As the name suggests, the idea is to create streaks of consecutive days. The fact that if you break the chain, your streak will go back to zero can help hold you accountable.

Fabulous

This habit app is designed to help you create routines and break them down into small steps. Fabulous uses insights from behavioral science to help you develop healthy habits. A timer will help you visualize how long it takes to complete these steps. The tracker also lets you customize your routine and offers a library of meditation exercises you can select and set as a routine.

We hope this article will help you set new habits and will provide you with useful tools to reach your goals. Remember, "life is about the journey, not the destination."