Counting sick days against youā¦ š¤
Why you donāt get to āskipā a day in Polar Habits, even when you're sickā¦ š¤§
Hello, hello! š
Iām writing a little over a week later than I promised last time because Iāve been deep into ābuilding modeā for the past few weeks.
I feel like I should be building faster, and thereās neverĀ (š) enough time to do my writing.
Anyway, letās dive right inā¦
Counting āsickā days against youā¦
Back in January, a user of Polar Habits asked this question:
āHello, is there an option to skip a day/week of a habit? For example, I was sick this week and couldn't exercise but I feel that it should not count against my momentum. I wasn't sure if this was an option since I know the tracker is new. I've been loving it so far, I use it every single day!ā
The simple answer would have been, āNo, thereās not, and thatās how itās meant to be.ā
But that didnāt feel right.Ā š
This user was sharing how they felt about my app counting their āsickā days against their momentum, and I couldnāt just respond with, āSorry, thatās how it is.ā š
I had to explain. So, I wrote:
āThe Momentum system is designed to make skipping days okay, as long as those skipped days don't pile up. Unlike streaks, we don't believe in 100% perfection, because life itself isn't perfect. There are countless reasons in life (such as getting sick) that make it impossible to maintain a perfect track record. It's unrealistic. We want to acknowledge and accept that, so we don't try and hide those imperfections. Instead, through the Momentum system, we encourage you to bounce back as quickly as possible, and focus on progress over perfection.
āOver time, the dip you'll see in your momentum will be negligible compared to your overall progress. You might even look back on that day and feel proud of your resilience to bounce back after a rough day!ā
A lot of habit trackers and other streak-based systems let you āskipā days to compensate for the natural chaos in life. The urge to protect oneās streak is so strong that Duolingo has various pages dedicated to this topic, and you can even buy āstreak protectionā and āstreak repairā to maintain that perfect streak.Ā š¤Æ
With so many habit trackers offering ways to protect your streak, itās natural that people would ask for the same in Polar Habits.
But, the Polar Habits philosophy is unlike that of any other habit trackers out there. It doesnāt make sense to emulate what everyone else is doing. š¤·š»āāļø
Momentum, not streaksā¦
I feel quite proud of the Momentum system I designed for Polar Habits. Itās not perfect, but I do believe itās MUCH better than streak-based habit-tracking!Ā š
The users agree, including the person who asked that question earlier, and then responded to my explanation with this:
āThat makes sense, thank you very much for the explanation! It's true that even though I wasn't able to do my habits when I was sick, I don't feel as discouraged to give up on my momentum.ā
So satisfying to read that!Ā š
But yeah, itās not perfectā¦
There lies the reason why I enjoy working on this project so much: I absolutely love the experience of figuring out new ways to do old things!Ā š§ š¤©
One of those imperfections is the inability to take extended breaks from a habit. Iām not talking about skipping a day or two or even a week, but about pausing a habit for an entire month or even a full season.
For example, letās say youāve started an online course, and youāve been making small, consistent progress every day, but after a couple of months, you decide to temporarily shift your focus to learning something different. This isnāt a hypothetical scenario. Itās happening to me right now. Iām caught between maintaining my momentum towards improving my CSS skills vs learning something more relevant to my needs right now!Ā š¬
In a streak-based system, once you miss a day, you have nothing else to ālose.ā Your streak has already reset to zero, so it wonāt hurt you to let go. But in Polar Habits, youāll have to watch your momentum die a slow death!Ā šš
That directly contradicts the core principle of Polar Habits, which is a guilt-free habit-building experience!
I have to fix that!Ā š
I know Iām not alone because āpausing a habitā has come up a few times in my conversations with users already, but even if I were the only one needing this, Iād build it just for me. Perhaps this isnāt a great ābusinessā mindset, but from the beginning, I built Polar Habits (called ābreakthechainā at the time) for me. I choose to trust that if I do that, Iāll find my tribeāpeople who need exactly the thing I need!Ā š¤
So, thatās what Iāve been working on for the past few weeks, and Iām calling it āHabitĀ Phases.ā
Habit freezing + phasesā¦
Pro users will be able to freeze (pause) a habit, but itās called āPhasesā because itās so much more than a pause. The pausing option isnāt even the part Iām most excited aboutā¦ Iām actually excited aboutĀ solvingĀ aĀ problem I mentionedĀ back in March!Ā š„³
(OK, Iām trying to stay on-topic, so if youāre curious to know what Iām getting excited about, click those two links.Ā āļøš)
The challenge with designing a habit āfreezeā feature is making sure itās not confused with some sort of āstreak protectionā mechanism. Iām still undecided on how to solve this, but one idea is to require a minimum number of days or weeks you must freeze a habit if you choose to use that feature. Exactly how many days or weeks? Iām not sureā¦ Maybe 7 days for a daily habit and 2 weeks for a weekly one? But then, what if you want to freeze for 4 days because youāre going away for a long weekend? I honestly donāt knowā¦ What do you think?Ā š¤
No matter how we solve that problem, I think itāll be an exciting feature to have.
Most of the work is already done. I just need to build the UI for editing habit phases and frozen periods. Thatās what Iāve been dragging my feet on!Ā š¬ I tend to procrastinate when building new interfaces because Iām such a perfectionist, and design work is freaking HARDā¦ (help?!!!Ā š )
Gotta wrap upā¦
One other imperfection of Polar Habits is the lack of goals and targets. I wanted to write about that today, but I wasnāt expecting to have so much to write about already, soā¦
Iāll save that for another time! š
Thank you so much for joining me on this ride!Ā š
If you have any thoughts about anything I wrote about today, please donāt be shy and let me know in the commentsā¦ Iād LOVE that!Ā š„°
I honestly love the way PH is setup right now, it just works so well.
As much as I'm tempted to say add this feature or that feature, I actually prefer it to be minimalist when it comes to features.
I love the UI so much that I share a lot of screenshots on social, and maybe that's just me, but I think it would be cool to have shareable profiles on PH, or some sort of button to click to make a shareable image of a specific habit, or pofile pic with all habits/scores.
Maybe also have "groups" where I could join with other users into a group where we have group habits we try and build together, for example I'm part of a challenge right now with a lot of other people trying to do certain things each day (post on Twitter, publish on Medium, read, etc) and it would be cool if we could be linked, and maybe even have a momentum leadeboard.
Sorry for rambling lol... love what you're doing, keep up the great work!
Thanks, Jamie!
It always feels like I need to add more advanced options to justify charging for the app, and itās good to hear people like yourself are finding it valuable enough as it is! š
I love your idea of shareable images! Iād thought about public profiles for sharing, but images of the momentum graph would be super cool too, and more shareable than entire pages. šÆ
As for āgroups,ā Iām definitely planning to add that at some point. Thatās also where I think I could potentially have a B2B offering, e.g. for cohort-based courses or paid communities.
Iām inclined avoid leaderboards, but I also wasnāt planning to support non-daily habits, then the users changed my mind.
I donāt want to encourage comparison, especially because once you miss a day, your momentum will always be lower than that of someone whoās been more consistent. The only way to catch up is if they miss a day too. The danger here is that people will end up focusing on the ācompetitionā instead of focusing on and appreciating their own progress. But if I could find a way to encourage healthy competitionā¦ š¤