After spending a month searching for a new habit tracking app, I finally determined that Way of Life was the app for me. I took the plunge and bought the premium version so that I could track more than the three habits that are offered in the free version. I’m pretty cheap when it comes to apps, I make do with the free versions of most things, and really fret over purchasing almost anything. This is often flat out stupid, since I’m being cheap rather than frugal. Oftentimes I’ll finally break down and purchase an app for the premium features and spend the next few weeks kicking myself for taking so long to get access to the advanced capabilities. At this point I’m extremely happy that I made the small ($4.99) purchase.

During the Habit Tracking Face-off, I was tracking three habits I was trying to incorporate into my life:

• Exercising for 45 minutes
• Drinking 128oz of Water
• Sleep by 11:15

As soon as I purchased the premium version of Way of Life, I decided to add two more health-related habits

• Early Up – by 6:30am
• Take Vitamins every morning

I opted to concentrate on health-related habits for this month so that I could focus on the relationship between them. Health has been a fairly large issue for me in the past and I needed to set some foundational habits to help get me back on track. Furthermore, it’s really easy to track health habits, since they fall into the category of “I did this” or “I didn’t do this”. I’ve also fallen in love with the ability to mark a habit as skipped. We had a crazier-than-normal week here (that’s saying a lot, by the way), and I decided that sleeping in past 6:30 was warranted one day. Because I’d made the decision the night before, I had no qualms about marking the Early Up – by 6:30am habit as skipped the next day. I’ve been pretty strict about using skipped only for very conscious, well thought-out decisions. If I wake up, hit the snooze four times, and sleep until 7:00am that does not count as skipped. It’s a fail and gets marked as such.

Way of Life does have the ability to add a note to a particular habit, for a particular day. I haven’t used the feature much, but decided to start using it to help record when I’ve skipped a habit. More importantly, I’m trying to use it to record when I failed at performing a habit. I’m still struggling with the Sleep by 11:15 habit. I’ll be writing more specifically about that habit at a later date, but let it suffice that I’m a hybrid morning-person/night-owl. What kills me is the middle of the day from about noon until 4pm. If it was socially acceptable to sleep at that time here in the US, that’s what I’d do. A couple of my kids who’ve spent months in Chile, Belize, and Argentina recommended that I relocate to a culture that has a siesta. If it was possible, I think I would…but for now I’m rooted here in the central US. That means that things get going early in the morning, and I need to be part of the activity in the Hectic Household. So the value of the habit is there, but my execution has been spotty.

Over the 6+ weeks I’ve been tracking, I’ve had 45 opportunities to go to bed by 11:15. Of those, I’ve succeeded 23 times, skipped the habit 12 times, and flat-out failed 10 times. Those aren’t very good results from a strictly numerical standpoint. Looking at the monthly overview, I’ve noticed a developing pattern where I’m successful for a string of days, and then mix my skipped days with failed days. Since I wasn’t journaling about why I failed and skipped, I’m having a hard time figuring out what was going on. I’ve tried to refer back to my Google Calendar and Todoist to see if I can get any clews, but my forensic research hasn’t produced any significant results.

As a data guy, it’s been an interesting challenge to look at the results of this habit and try to discern what’s going on. That’s intrinsically been helpful to the process though. On a regular basis I’m reviewing what’s happened and also why I’ve set this habit. I’ve even spent time considering whether I am a Night Owl or a Morning Person and whether I should shift towards one or the other. In the past, I would have been wracked by guilty feelings about not getting to bed on time, and then tried to force myself to get up the next morning. This usually resulted in poor productivity in the morning, and often to a cranky attitude then entire day. Taking the time to actually think about my need for sleep and when I’m productive has led me to a better understanding of what I ought to be doing. I’m still not quite done with the decision about whether I should work at night, but I’ve got some data to back up my thoughts. That’s a big win in my book!

The other big win revolves around how easy it is to track my habits. I’m investing about two minutes a day to enter my results. I’ve set a reminder for 10pm that tells me it’s time to update my Way of Life journal. This has been helpful on a number of fronts. It gently reminds me that I need to start wrapping up my day, or need to make the conscious decision that I’m going to keep working. Either way, I make a conscious decision as to what I’m going to do. That’s extremely important to me. Rather than just flitting from one thing to another and getting sucked into wasting time, I’m actually deciding what I’m going to do. In a very small, yet tangible way, it’s allowed me to take back some control in my life.

The second benefit is that I’m recording the results of my habits the same day the occur. That’s allowed me to spend a couple of moments thinking about the day itself. I’m able to assess my successes and challenges from the day. Once again, it’s given me a sense of control over my life that has been sorely lacking for a long time.

Third, the actual data entry is blazingly fast, so it can be done quickly and then set aside. During the Habit Tracking Face-off, I struggled with a couple of the other apps. They were a bit more difficult to use during the data collection phase, and they almost forced me to review the results at that time. I really want to review the results separately. Sure, I think about them as I do the data entry, but then I put my phone down and start my evening recipe. I’m still thinking about my habits and their results, but I’m not doing an actual review of the data. I’ve actually set a task in Todoist to remind me to review my results weekly. I’m doing it as part of my weekly review on Sunday, so it ties in with my review of all the things that happened during the week. When I’m in that review mode it seems natural to consider the habits that I’ve set.

Wrap-Up

With six full weeks in the app, it’s been fascinating to me to see how I’m doing. Over the 45 days I’ve skipped exercise five days and missed only one other day. In reality, those skipped days are actually planned recovery days. My actual goal related to exercise is to do 45 minutes of focused exercise 5 out of 7 days. I’ve avoided saying 3 days on, rest day, two days on, rest day because I know I won’t stick to that schedule. I usually look at my week and try to split things up so that my fitness routine fits our lifestyle. I’m working towards increasing the intensity of my exercise and to mixing in more forms of exercise. By using Way of Life I’ve validated my belief that I can exercise on a regular basis. The next step is to increase the intensity of that exercise.

That information alone has been very motivational to me. I’ve proven to myself that I can habitually exercise. I’ve also got a very quick and easy reference to remind myself of my progress. Everybody needs a boost once in a while, and I’ve found great satisfaction in my progress towards exercising regularly. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you’ve probably seen my more frequent postings of my post-workout selfies. I’d apologize for the way I look…but that’s the way I look post-exercise. I started doing the selfies as a way to let people know what I’m doing, and create a bit of an accountability group. When I missed four days of posting the selfies I got a couple inquiries as to why I wasn’t exercising. Honestly, at that point I didn’t realize anybody was really watching. The fact that anybody cared was another bit of motivation to me.

It’s funny, but habits are a very personal thing. It’s so easy to set resolutions at the beginning of the year. It’s a snap to say I want to lose weight, or I want to lose 20 pounds, or I want to lose 20 pounds by August 1st, but actually doing the hard work to get those pounds off your frame is a different story. Tracking how you’re doing is a great way to make the task easier. It’s not the giant leaps that we take, but rather the small, measured steps that we take every day. That’s what really gets us to our goals. Through my use of Way of Life I’ve made some huge advancements towards some goals that are important to me. I’ve found a way to easily record my success with my habits, and a way to create an accountability structure that’s proven extremely motivational.