Blog
On habits, gamification, ADHD, and building SELV in public.
Free means five different things in habit tracking, and only two of them are free. How to read the pricing model before you invest months of data.
Logging daily and analysing daily are different things, and one of them is counterproductive. A five-minute fortnightly routine that actually changes decisions.
The week-three crash is novelty expiring on schedule, not a character flaw. How to rotate habits for a fresh hit without throwing away your data.
Notion habit templates look great and break in predictable ways. Where Notion genuinely wins, where it quietly fails, and how to tell which you need.
A heatmap shows you the shape of your consistency, not just its average. Here are the five patterns worth recognising and what each one tells you to change.
After weeks or months off, the instinct is a clean slate. That's the expensive move. Here's the re-entry that keeps your history and actually holds.
When the tracking becomes the thing you're avoiding, the system has failed. Five causes of habit tracking burnout and what to change for each one.
Streaks is a beautifully built app with one load-bearing mechanic. Five iPhone alternatives for when the streak itself is the thing causing you problems.
Flat scoring says flossing equals a 90-minute workout. Here's how to weight habits by real difficulty, calibrate honestly, and avoid aspirational weighting.
Time blindness breaks clock-based habits and retroactive logging. Here's why logging friction matters more than any other tracker feature, and how to cut it.
Dopamine fires on anticipation, not reward. That's why slot machines work and why most habit apps borrow the wrong mechanic from them. Here's the useful version.
A 60% completion rate can mean you're doing well or failing badly. Here's how to read the number properly, and the four ways it lies to you.
Finch's bird works beautifully until it doesn't. Five alternatives for people who want the warmth without caring for a virtual animal, compared honestly.
Habit stacking fails with ADHD when the anchor isn't reliable. Here's how to pick anchors that survive a disrupted week, and what to do when they break.
Most habit trackers are built for consistent executive function. Here's which mechanics help ADHD brains, which ones backfire, and how to set a tracker up.
HP loss, lost currency and broken streaks are built on loss aversion. Here's why punishment produces avoidance of the app rather than the behavior you wanted.
A spreadsheet beats most habit apps on flexibility and costs nothing. Here's exactly where it wins, where it quietly fails, and how to decide between them.
The 21-day rule came from a plastic surgeon's observations about amputees, not habit research. Here's where it came from and what the actual data shows.
Flat XP per task teaches you that flossing equals a 90-minute workout. Here's how a habit tracker's XP should be calculated, and what breaks when it isn't.
Habitica's HP loss and cartoon RPG layer put a lot of adults off. Six alternatives compared by what they actually do differently, and who each one fits.
The research converges on three to five concurrent habits. Here's why the ceiling exists, how to tell when you've exceeded yours, and what to cut first.
A complete guide to gamified habit tracking: the four mechanics that drive behavior, where most apps get it wrong, and how to set up a system that lasts.
You don't quit habits because you lack discipline. You quit at five specific failure points — and each one has a fix. Here's what's actually going on.
Discipline isn't built in dramatic moments. It's built in boring daily actions. Here's how small habits create real discipline — backed by Navy SEAL logic.
Apply Atomic Habits' 4 Laws to gamified habit tracking. Practical, thesis-by-thesis guide to building tasks that actually stick.
Streak-based habit trackers were designed for neurotypical brains. Here's what the research says actually works for ADHD.
Three apps. Three philosophies. One question: which gamified habit tracker actually works for adults?
It started with a Google Sheet. Seventeen tasks, weighted by importance, tracking daily completion percentages. Then I realized: this is a character sheet.