Building new habits is hard, but tracking progress can help motivate you—that’s why there are a lot of habit tracking apps out there. Habituator stands out for its clean yet playful design, integration with system features like Apple Fitness, and widgets that make it easy to check off habits without having to actually open the app.
The application, from indie developer Alain Caltieri, is free for up to three habits with no ads and all features included. For more habits than that you need to pay $9.99 per year or $19.99 for a lifetime purchase.
Getting started is simple: just add a few habits. There are templates built in for all kinds of things, from drinking water to taking a regular walk. Fitness-based habits can be automatically checked using data from Apple Fitness, while other habits are checked manually in the app, on your Apple Watch, or using any of the built-in widgets.
Credit: Alain Caltieri
There’s a great deal of flexibility offered. For example, if you only run on certain days of the week, you can set that. You can also set some habits to happen multiple times per day, or set notifications up to remind you to follow through.
Credit: Alain Caltieri
You can also dig into the stats on any of your habits—an overview shows you a calendar summary, your longest streak, and the days of the week you are most likely to follow through. This all adds a game-like feel to building a new habit.
Now, for some this is all going to feel like overkill, and for those people I recommend a gold old-fashioned paper calendar that you can mark Xs on for particular habits. If you live and die by your phone, though, I recommend Habitulator. The free version is more than generous enough to give you a feel for the application. If you find this approach works for you, then $20 isn’t going to feel like a waste. If not, well, you lost nothing.