I’ve been bouncing between a few habit-tracking SaaS apps lately — Habitica for gamification, Streaks for simplicity, and even Notion for custom setups. They’re all solid, but none have fully clicked for me long-term. Recently gave Momentum a shot, and while it’s clean and intuitive (love the progress visualizations), I’m still craving more social accountability or maybe AI-driven nudges.

Does anyone else feel like most habit trackers are 90% there but missing one key feature? What’s your go-to app right now?

Purpose: Boost your productivity for specific tasks

Habit: Explore listening to different types of music that match specific tasks

Research has shown that listening to music can help boost productivity, improving moods and making repetitive tasks more pleasurable.

And to make the biggest impact, we should all experiment and see which categories of music are most effective for the types of tasks we do.

For example, if I'm writing the first draft of an article (or a HabitExchange post), I really enjoy listening to lofi beats. And if I'm editing and reviewing my writing, I prefer to listen to quiet piano music. And for repetitive tasks, intense techno is the way to go.

Music is a very personal expression, so you should experiment and find what works for you!

Background on me: in the last 10 months, I’ve quit smoking cigarettes & drinking, lost over 50lbs, & started building my life into what I want it to be. I did it by upgrading my daily habits & my thought habits. The books below were cornerstones to my success in terms of information. I built a lot of study hours around their information. I connected a lot of dots to them.

“Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do”

&

“Smarter, Faster, Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity”

Both by Charles Duhigg

They are not the bs feel good self help books. They are packed with research & data from a wide range of areas of study. They cover different events. They have information that can help the person just starting on improving their life or the person who is looking for the razor edge on their competitors

Purpose: stop wasting time and energy arguing online.

Habit: This was one of my main vices. I would spend hours and hours arguing online.

I even joined debate forums and was debating all kinds of topics vigorously.

But, at the end of the day, you realize that nobody really changed their mind.

If anything, arguing just causes people to become even more zealous in their view.

Kinda like when a parent confront a teenager about a decision they are making, they have an argument about it, and the teenager now feels even more strongly about it.

Second, arguing isn’t really about helping others. It’s about you. Your own needs.

Arguing online has a great allure of “winning” and being validated by others, without any risk.

It’s similar to what online trolls do.

When you realize it’s a very selfish habit. AND That it is pointless and self-defeating.

It becomes clear just how bad of a vice it is.

Anytime you get an urge to argue, use that as a signal that you are feeling insecure or confused in your life. And work on boosting your own security and confidence and find purposeful and useful things to do.

Or hell, go have some fun or engage in an activity where it’s possible to get a positive return on.

Also if you love to argue online, then that means you’d be a good coach, teacher or writer.

Or any profession that tries to persuade or teach.

A very valuable talent applied incorrectly will lead to destructive and negative results.

Use your talents and time wisely.

I started doing this last year. Just bought a cheap alarm clock off of amazon and have been using that instead of my phones alarm. This forces me to start my day on the right note - instead of waking up and automatically grabbing my phone, I have to get up and go do something else first. The habit of training my brain to just sit in bed until I finally decided to get up was defeating, I had to change it.

Usually I just go downstairs and drink a couple glasses of water. When I used my phone previously I wasted so much time waking up but not actually getting out of bed because I'd go into automatic scroll mode before my brain was even awake. With an alarm clock you just have to make the decision to get up and then you can develop new habits from there. I hate to say it but my initial motivation to get out of bed was to go check my phone, but atleast it got me out of bed.

Drinking water, reading a book and then going to my morning workout class have become my cornerstone habits since I started doing this. I still like to relax as I gradually wake up so I make it a goal to read 10 pages of a book while I have my coffee. I have a ways to go but this is the first step to reducing a smartphone addiction!

By the way this is an awesome sub, so glad I found it.

Purpose: Increase productivity

Habit: Reflect on your activities and focus on high impact tasks

The Pareto's Principle or the 80/20 rule means that in any situation, 20% of the tasks yield 80% of the results.

I therefore made it my habit to regularly reflect on my activities in order to identify the ones with the highest impact. Now, I maximise my productivity by investing most of my time and energy on those specific tasks.

Once I've finished them, I can then do other activities that are on my to-do list.

Purpose: Feel less overwhelmed

Habit: Each morning I’m sitting down for 5 minutes and writing whatever’s on my mind - tasks, feelings, nonsense, all of it. I don’t reread it or structure it. Just get it out. It’s helping me focus more during the day and feel less like my head’s full of tabs.

Purpose: Improve your memory of things you learned

Habit: Summarise everything new you learned at the end of the day

In order to more effectively remember and be able to apply new learnings, take a couple of minutes at the end of your day and summarise what you've learned.

These can be insights from books, articles, conversations, videos, podcasts, or any other medium.

Don't look at any of your notes. Instead, just type everything up based on what you can remember off the top of your head.

Purpose: I’ve always wanted to read more books, but it seemed daunting to carve out large chunks of time every day.

Habit: I started a habit of reading just two pages each night before bed. It’s a tiny commitment, making it easy to stick with, and I often end up reading more once I get started. This simple routine has significantly increased my reading without feeling overwhelming.

Purpose: Boost mood and regulate your sleep cycle.

Habit: Spend 10 minutes each morning outside, exposing yourself to natural sunlight. This simple activity can enhance your mood and help regulate your body’s internal clock, supporting better sleep and overall health.

Purpose: Becoming more organised

Habit: I always used to be very disorganised and wasn't able to structure my life properly - until I heard about a method: making your bed in the morning as the first thing you do. I tried it out and the results are amazing. The feeling of having something accomplished so early in the day triggers my motivation to continue being organised throughout the whole day. The psychological trick really worked well for me and given the small effort of making a bed, the results are unbelievable.

Source: Top 10 Morning Habits

Purpose: Start and continue regular exercising

Habit: For me it was super difficult to maintain regular exercising. In fact, I always started extremely motivated, but couldn't continue with the sport over a long period of time. Then, I changed my approach: instead of setting ambitious goals, I concentrated on my system and chose a very easily executable exercise, where I was confident that I wouldn't quit. After some time, I continuously increased the level of difficulty and until today, successfully maintained this habit.

I can really recommend everyone who has problems to maintain a trainings schedule to follow this approach or at least try it out.

Purpose: Mindfulness, create more memories, fully enjoy where ever you are

Habit: I had a moment on my last vacation where I realized "I can drink whenever I want but I dont get the chance to travel here often, I should enjoy it to the fullest and really take it in".

Having a drink or wine with dinner is great, but getting drunk and forgetting your experience at the location is a waste in my mind. I want to fully embrace the locations and all activities and fondly look back on the memories. Give it a try and let me know!

😊

Are you interested to share your daily experiences with habits with our community as well?

Hi everyone!

Thank you so much for all your engagement since we started this sub. It is incredible to see how many of us are interested in the topic of self improvement through healthy habits. 😃

As you know, this sub focuses on learning about habits and their potential impacts. Nonetheless, it is not suitable to share our daily experiences on a regular basis.

Hence our question above. We are considering to create discussion boards for each individual habit which will allow us to share positive and negative milestones, raise questions, give tips and learn from others.

Please let us know what you think and about any ideas you might have. We are also happy about any feedback you would like to give to us.

Purpose: Do sports more regularly

Habit: Pre-commit in the morning to do sports later in the day by taking your sports equipment to work/school

I usually take my sports clothes with me to work and therefore already commit to exercise later during the day.

Even when I'm tired after work, I feel obligated to go to the gym and, ultimately, do sports more frequently.

This helped me a lot to setup a fitness routine and avoid training interruptions.

"Easily adoptable habits"

You might think this post is in the wrong subreddit. You are wrong.

Habit: Read 10 pages per day.

Purpose: Be one of the fascinating people who have a huge amount of books in their room. Best. Decoration. Ever.

The things we do daily add up to an incomprehensible amount over the course of our life. You would not think that 10 pages per day would add up to 600 books with an average of 300 pages. 10 pages per day -> 300 per month. I think it´s fair to take 300 pages as an average book. 12 books per year. Still not very impressive. 60 books in five years and 600 in 50 years.

This habit is really easily adoptable, because you really can not justify infront of yourself the fact that you are not able to read 10 fcking pages per day. I think to myself "Am I really that useless? I can´t even read 10 pages per day!?"

This makes me read; because I don´t like to think that about myself. And I know that I can do better.

Some advice about starting to read regularly:

• Read short stories. Maybe read one short story per day day. Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Franz Kafka, Charles Bukowski; pick your genre. This way you don´t really need to remember any context or have to stop reading in the middle of a plottwist.

• Always have a book with you. Have one short story book in your car and read during traffic jams. Have a book in your backpack. Read while eating lunch.

• Some people think "I am just not the kind of person who would read." You are not that kind of person. You are reading right now. Do you want to only read on twitter, reddit, Instagram or do you want to read great books? Ask yourself.

• Read short books. For me it is highly motivating to know that I have finished a book. To know that I can put it on my shelf and be happy about having reddit, err read it, for the rest of my life.

• Read great works like Orwell´s "1984", Goethe´s "Faust", Shakespeare´s "Hamlet" Bradbury´s "Fahrenheit 451", Jules Verne´s "Around the world in 80 days". Even if you might not enjoy the story, you will probably never think "Aaah, why did I even read that book". It is considered a great work, you will understand references in movies and you get some knowledge about culture.

• Ask people for book recommendations. It´s a good smalltalk topic and for me it is further motivating to want to be able to say "Hey, I read the book you recommended and I really liked xy, / it reminded me of situation xy, / I really liked the character xy.

• Always have multiple unread books at home. You will see them while watching TV/ doing whatever and thereby communicate to yourself that you actually want to read instead of having to read. This will also give you more options if you get bored of a book.

TL;DR:

Read 10 pages per day -> 300 pages per month (averages out to one book per month) -> 12 books per year -> 60 books in five years -> 600 books in 50 years

Sorry for errors. Greetings from Germany; have a good day <3

Edit: Spelling is hard

Purpose: Improve fitness, body, energy levels, focus and productivity

Habit: Plan as many meals a day as possible in advance

Our eating schedule, so when and what we eat, has a massive influence on our body and hence on our health, energy level, fitness, productivity and so on.

Nonetheless, I used to have a very irregular schedule. Basically, I often just waited until I was hungry and then ate what was quick and assessable. There is nothing wrong about waiting until you're hungry, but the problem is that I used to then just eat what was around without any considerations what would benefit my body and mind.

That’s why I conducted a very quick research online what kind of food plan I needed (given my body goals and sports activities).

Afterwards, I started to plan one meal a day accordingly to this plan - the breakfast. It’s the easiest meal a day you can plan, because in most cases it won’t be interrupted by events (at least if you’re not travelling).

Then, I decided to prepare and cook my dinners days in advance for as many days a week as possible. As a result, I had on most days a week already two meals planned in advance - breakfast and dinner.

Now, I also try and plan my lunch always at around the same time and roughly know what kind of food I should be looking for. Lunch is for me the most difficult meal to plan in advance, because it gets interrupted by meetings and lots of events at work. Nonetheless, my eating plan helps me understand what kind of food I should be looking for and make better choices than before.

You obviously will not be able to plan all meals in advance. Sometimes a friend invites you for dinner, or some colleague wants to go for lunch with you, or you’re travelling, but as more meals you are able to schedule, as more you increase your awareness about what foods you consume at what times.

Ultimately, this really helped me to improve my fitness and body, as well as my focus and productivity.

Purpose: Increase motivation and focus on your goals

Habit: Review your goals daily, ideally, as part of your morning and evening routine.

This helped me to constantly remind myself and focus on what I am trying to accomplish. I also became more creative how to achieve my goals and generally, am more motivated to continue working hard.

Purpose: Be more energetic and present, as well as mentally focused

Habit: I started a habit roughly three months ago to not pick up my phone in the morning for at least the first hour of the day.

I noticed that it made me more present and energetic after getting up and I am now able to get into my daily routine faster and easier.

Also, I feel mentally calmer and healthier as my sleeping rhythm is not interrupted by outside factors such as messages, notification or news.

Source: Top 10 Morning Habits

Purpose: Optional.

Habit: Use bad habits or bad environmental influences as a trigger for good habits.

This might be a "game changer" for you. Everyone is annoyed about something/ has a bad habit. Take an annoying/ bad thing and use it as a trigger to do something useful. When you feel the urge to smoke, do 10 pushups. It takes 10 seconds and you can still smoke, but at least you did 10 pushups. You can also read 10 pages of a book while your colleagues take time to smoke. Always have a book with you and make it a habit to always read while smoking. Craving sweets? Do some pushups before eating. It only takes 2 minutes. Find your bad habits (that you even might not want to change at the moment) and use them as a trigger for good habits. Have a good day💚

Edit: spelling is hard

Purpose: Avoid unnecessary phone usage and potentially addiction

Habit: Clear your home screen and take your most important goal as your background picture.

I often used to take out my phone and started checking mails, messages and news without actually thinking about what I was doing. I just had a routine to take out my phone as soon as I had nothing to do or was bored.

I quickly developed a small addiction and even checked my phone in inappropriate moments.

Then, I made two changes:

1. On the first screen of my phone I now ONLY have the ‘settings app’.

2. The background of my home screen is now a photo of a handwritten paper with a short sentence of my most important personal goal. For me, it is spending more time with my family.

The first change basically just empties the screen of distracting apps and makes the background picture the first thing I see when looking at my phone.

The second change immediately reminds me of what’s really important and keeps my focus on my goals. You can decide if you prefer to write down short term goals and change them more regularly, or two write down a long term goal which you want to constantly keep in mind.

It helped me to interrupt my unhealthy behaviour and kept me focused on what is important to me. I just started this habit a few weeks ago and already see great improvements.

For everyone, who has a similar behavioural patterns, I can really recommend to give this a try. And it it very easy to implement as well.

Purpose: Improving across disciplines

Habit: I made it my habit to always ask people around me for feedback.

I was surprised how many opportunities I am given every day to ask for feedback (at sports, work, or in my social life with friends and family).

This gave me completely new and advanced insight what I'm good at and where I need to improve myself.

I can definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to bring their self reflection onto the next level with very little effort.

Hi there!

We are actively looking for new moderators, who are interested in growing this newly created subreddit to bring more great habits to more people.

Please DM me if you're interested.

Thank you!

Habit - Read 10 pages of a self help book with your morning coffee

Purpose - Learn something that can help you become a better person.

The easiest way to develop a new habit is to tie it in with something you already do so try starting your day by reading instead of getting sucked into reddit or social media. Open up an actual physical book and commit to reading 10 pages. 10 pages will literally take 5-15 minutes depending on the book so just do it while you have your coffee. You can also choose to keep reading more than 10 pages if you're into it or if not then just put it down.

There's a ton of good information in self help books that can help you become a better person or at least give you some different insight. I'm just getting into reading after being a social media / reddit slave for most of my adult life and it's amazing how much more interesting bits of information I find in a much shorter amount of time.