Insight Timer's Hidden Feature Keeps Your Meditation Streak Going

Introduction

It’s 10 pm and you’re winding down for the evening. Wrapped in a blanket, you hold a mug of warm tea in your hands.

You start to grab your phone to do a guided meditation on Insight Timer, but tonight you decide you just feel like listening to the sound of rain outside instead.

You stretch. You massage your feet. You breathe deeply. The 10 minutes you take for yourself every night has become a ritual you look forward to.

The sound of rain is soothing. You begin to feel yourself drift into a deep and relaxing trance as the distant rumble of thunder lulls you into a peaceful slumber.

Never once do you worry about losing the impressive meditation streak you’ve built up on Insight Timer. Why? Because you know a secret…

The secret Insight Timer has been hiding from you

You can log time manually on Insight Timer.

Yes, that’s right. Even when you can’t log into the app (or simply don’t feel like it), you can still keep your meditation streak going.

And you don’t have to use their timer or listen to one of their guided meditations.

I discovered Insight Timer’s hidden logging feature years ago, and it’s allowed me to build a mindfulness practice on my terms. Sometimes I just want to listen to relaxing music on YouTube while I do yoga, but I don’t want to lose the 2,560-day streak I have going on Insight Timer.

Yes, I’ve logged a session every single day—for 7 years.

And you can, too! Simply navigate to the super-secret setting I’m about to show you, and log your time directly into the app—at your convenience.

The things you can log are endless

Mindfulness practices come in many shapes and sizes. You don’t have to be sitting in the lotus position on your yoga mat for it to count. You can be as creative as you want about the activities you log as a session.

• Did you spend 15 minutes staring out the train window while commuting home from work? Log it as meditation.

• Maybe you’d like to count that 20-minute relaxing hot shower you took before bed? Log it as healing.

• Do you take your dog for a walk every day? Log it as walking. It counts!

Insight Timer has 11 different practices you can choose from, covering everything from manifesting to napping—even breathing.

Technically, you could log 24 hours of breathing each day and you wouldn’t be lying.

But don’t push it. 😄

How to log time manually in Insight Timer

Step 1

Open the Insight Timer app on your phone. Tap the 3-bar menu on the upper-left side of your screen.

Step 2

A panel with your account details appears. Tap Settings.

Step 3

On the Settings page, tap Features & Preferences.

Step 4

On the Features & Preferences page, scroll down to Preferences and tap Sessions.

Step 5

On the Sessions page, tap Add session.

Step 6

The Add session page appears. Under Type, you can choose the type of mindfulness practice you’d like to log. You can see that the default is Meditation. Tap Meditation.

Step 7

A selection of practice options appears. Tap the practice you’d like to select for your session.

Step 8

Under Length, there’s a dial-style clock. Gently drag the Hour, Minute, and Second dials into position to log your practice time. You can log as little as a 1-minute session.

Step 9

Under Date, you’ll see a dial-style calendar. Gently drag the Day, Hour, Minute, and AM/PM dials into position to log the day and time of your practice. You can even log sessions for days in the past if you forgot to log them, and it’ll restore your consecutive day streak.

Step 10

When you’re finished adding your session details, tap Save.

Congrats, your session is logged!

Conclusion

Sometimes you just want to meditate, go for a walk, or take a restorative nap in the middle of the day—and you don’t want to bring your phone with you.

And then there are days when you’d rather listen to relaxing music on YouTube, but you thought it couldn’t be counted on Insight Timer.

But now, with Insight Timer’s hidden logging feature revealed, you no longer need to be actively engaged with the app in order to log time. You can manually enter your healing, yoga, meditation, manifesting, and napping sessions—wherever, whenever—at your convenience.

Keep in mind, you can log as little as 1 minute of practice time to keep your meditation streak going.

So, feel free to log those 20 minutes you spent in traffic today and focused on your breathing. It counts!