A simple habit tracking app

The parts that do the work

A list of the things you are trying to do. One tick per day. A streak, so there is something to protect. A view of the last few months, so a bad week looks like what it is rather than like failure.

That is the whole mechanism. The tick is the reward, the streak is the stake, and the grid is the perspective. Everything beyond it is either a different product or decoration.

The parts that get in the way

Gamification. Points and levels replace the habit with the game, and when the game gets boring the habit goes with it.

Onboarding. Five screens asking about your goals before you can write "drink water" is five chances to close the tab.

Social feeds. Doing something every day is quiet work, and an audience changes what you are willing to track. Nobody adds a recovery habit to a feed.

Scoring. Percentage completion and weighted consistency scores turn a yes-or-no into a number to argue with.

A tracker with nothing else in it

tickbook is the front page and that is all of it. The checklist is on the page you land on: type a habit, press add, tap it to tick. No sign-up, no onboarding, no app to install.

Each habit shows its current streak and how many of the last 30 days it was done. Below the list is the year grid — 53 weeks, one square per day. Underneath that, export, import and a calendar reminder. There is no fifth screen, because there is no fifth thing.

If you would rather have habits as a game, with creatures that grow as you keep a routine, that is a real and different thing to want; Animunda does it, and it needs an account.