PRODUCTIVITY
3 Tools To Help You Build Better Habits
The key is consistency.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to start reading more books. And that I wanted to try out an audiobook.
So, what better book to listen to than Atomic Habits by James Clear? I had been wanting to develop new, better habits in order to live a more full life, and so I started Atomic Habits.
As I listen to it, I learn several key ideas about habit formation, and so I’ve started developing three main habits:
- Do some form of exercise daily.
- Practise guitar daily.
- Do focussed work for two hours a day.
When first building out these habits, there are many strategies and tools that can be used to maintain them. One that I have just learned about from Atomic Habits is intertwining habits and identity, ie: I exercise daily because I am a healthy person.
However, for the timebeing, until I finish off the book and begin to fully implement the strategies detailed, I needed to find methods to keep myself accountable.
Here are my 3 favourite tools to do that.
1. Timecap
With a beautiful user interface, Timecap aims to help you limit the time you spend unproductively and help you reach your goals.
I’m finding this especially useful as I try and hold myself accountable to the habits that I am building.
Timecap works almost like Snapchat “streaks” in the sense that every day, when you complete an activity, stay under a time limit, or reach a desired time doing an activity, it adds on to your streak. If you miss a day, you have to start all over again.
This serves as a form of motivation, as I don’t want to miss a streak, meaning that I’ll do the daily activity and reach my goals. As I continue to do these things over a long period of time, they’ll become habit, and I won’t have to rely on the app anymore.
As for the features in the app, it’s got a heap of customisation and features built in, with custom time periods (ie: complete a goal on only Monday, Thursday and Friday), colours, and well designed statistics.
Although there are features that are locked until you purchase a membership, I believe that it is definitely worth it if you can build better habits because of it.
So, I recommend trying it out. It helps me greatly, and I believe it will help you too.
Get Timecap here for iOS and here for Android.
2. A To-Do List
Yes, I know what you’re thinking — this is the most basic tool around.
But if you’re the kind of person who has an obsession with getting stuff done on your to-do list, then I truly believe that integrating habits into a to-do list can help you solidify them into your daily routine.
In terms of a specific tool to help with this, I recommend my to-do list app of choice: Todoist.
It’s a great app for helping you stay on track and get things done (you can check it out here along with 4 other tools to help you be more productive).
Todoist also has a recurring task feature (that many other to-do list apps also have) which allows you to set the task once and have it show up every day in your to-do list. Some other alternatives to Todoist are Things 3, Ticktick and Microsoft To-Do.
This is definitely a great way to keep track of your habits if you’re a “Type-A” person.
Get Todoist here.
3. An Accountability Buddy
This is a tool that is extremely useful when studying (ie: study groups), but it’s also helpful for keeping track of habits.
How would it work?
Say you want to build a habit of going to the gym every day (pre-COVID for the sake of this example), and you have a friend who also wants to build that same habit.
The two of you would go to the gym together or check in on each other weekly.
Now, you can hold them accountable, and they can hold you accountable — they’ll make sure that you’re keeping on track with your gym routine, and you’ll do the same for them. It’s a wholesome form of peer pressure.
If you don’t have a friend to do this with — reach out to an online community! There are many online spaces such as r/GetDisciplined, in which if you post a request for someone who has the same goals as you to get in contact with you, you will often get many replies, and eventually find an accountability partner.
So, here are my three favourite tools to help build better, long-lasting habits. I hope that you’re able to utilise them to improve your life.
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