Tip Tuesday | Productivity Apps
As part of my New Year’s Goals, I’ve been trying out some productivity apps in order to improve my focus over the last couple of months. So far, I’m finding I have indeed been more productive. For today’s Tip Tuesday, I would like to give a brief survey of the productivity apps I’ve tried.
Forest
As someone who is task oriented, using Forest has been particularly helpful - I can set a time for working on research, a crafting project, or for blogging, and stay focused on that task until a tree is grown. Breaking tasks into timed blocks is what makes this app so effective for me. Thinking “I’ll work on this until lunch” means that lunchtime is always in the back of my mind - I constantly check the time, trying to decide when to take lunch, rather than focusing on my work. Forest app takes away the need for me to keep track of time because it does this for me.
Forest also discourages me from using my phone. While I do have a whitelist of apps, notorious time-wasters like Facebook are barred. The moment I open an app which isn’t on my whitelist, Forest warns me that my tree will wither. The threat is surprisingly effective! I always go back to Forest, put down my phone, and re-focus.
Streaks
I used streaks for a little over a fortnight in January on the recommendation of a friend. It’s a simple little app which acts, essentially, as a box-ticking exercise for your habits. You make a list of goals you want to complete daily, and when you do them you tick them off.
Unfortunately for me, this wasn’t very effective. My goals are primarily research-based. Academic culture pushes the idea that a postgraduate student should be working 24/7, but this type of mindset just leads to burnout, which I do my best to avoid - I try not to do research on weekends, for example, and focus on spending time with my fiance. Having an app which relies on you maintaining a streak to demonstrate your productivity, then, just encourages an obsessive attitude towards ticking that box every single day.
Pros: simple, easy to use; allows you to set reminder times for your goals.
Cons: no customisation for goals - you have to tick off every day to maintain your streak; you can only track 5 habits for free.
Goal Tracker
After Streaks, I tried Goal Tracker. This app is similar in concept - you make a list of goals or habits which you want to maintain and mark them off as you do them. Immediately, I found it more pleasant to look at. The overall design is neater, and I much prefer it’s muted colours (I wasn’t a fan of the green/brown colour scheme of Streaks).
While Habit Tracker had more customisation than Streaks, it still wasn’t the right fit for me. After using it for almost six weeks, I was getting frustrated with the fact that the only way I could set a goal to complete x times per week was to choose specific days. This then required me to set a clear-cut schedule every week in order to meet my goals, but my schedule changes every week. Again, I was faced with the same frustration I found with Streaks - it just doesn’t account for the ups and downs of daily life.
Pros: completely free with unlimited goal tracking; easy to use; pleasant colour scheme; some customisation for weekly and monthly goals; tracks statistics; detailed view allows you to see a description of your goals.
Cons: customisation is limited by specified days; chunky designs means that you can only see a few goals at one time.
HabitBull
The latest app I’ve been trialling is HabitBull. So far, I’m feeling quite positive. It seems to have ironed out a lot of the problems I have with Streaks and Goal Tracker. For me, it’s also the most pleasant visually of the three habit apps I’ve tried.
HabitBull is very customisable. Rather than setting specific days for completing goals like you have to in Goal Tracker, I can set up my habits for a certain number of days per week. This means that I can set realistic goals, rather than trying to force myself to do research every single day, for example.
Pros: extensive customisation; simple to use; provides plenty of statistics; night- and day-mode options; allows you to set a ‘success date’ by which your goals should become habits.
Cons: limited to five free habits; no detail view for a description of your goals.
Conclusion
Both Forest and HabitBull are still on my phone, tracking my productivity even now. They might only be apps, but they’ve made an immeasurable difference in my day-to-day efforts. While I’m not 100% successful in achieving my goals every week - I am only human, after all - I am on top of them, and I am always thinking about what steps I can take to improve my productivity.
Do you use a productivity app that you find helpful? Comment or reblog, or send me an ask or submission to share!
