The Habit Factor is by and large one of the most useful productivity apps in giving yourself a fighting chance to succeed in forming positive habits. This is not a GTD product, rather it’s a self awareness app that helps you set goals and assign the habits to make those goals a reality. It does not matter the depth of the goal. It can be as simple as drinking more water or as intense as climbing a mountain.
Since I’ll be climbing Mt. Rainier in June with my brother and friend, I chose to set The Habit Factor up for climbing a mountain. The user interface is extremely easy to use. Along the bottom there are five tabs, including about, goals, habits, track and overview. The about section gives a quick run through of what the app is and can be used for. It also notes that it’s best to start from the left and move to the right when starting out, i.e. set goals first then habits.
I chose to add “Climb Mt. Rainier” as my overall goal. From there I dove a bit deeper and added a picture looking down on the mountain from a plane. It’s pretty majestic and very awe-inspiring. Within this screen I was able to put a note about why I wanted to do it, when I wanted to start going after the goal and when I wanted to achieve it.
The app is setup for habits to be associated with goals. For example, if I want to reach the summit, I had better train a tad before trying to make an attempt. Thus, I setup habits of hike, cycle and weights. For now, they’re fairly simple in that I’m just trying to get my mind and body used to working out a few times a week. I’m basically creating a base from which in a few weeks I’ll be working towards hitting specific paces, distances and elevations.
The beauty of the app is that you can create multiple habits for each goal, specify the frequency, come back each day and check off what you’ve done and see what is on deck. I really like this feature since it keeps everything top of mind for me. I checked in one day and saw that I had finished the task from the day before which gave me positive reinforcement, then saw the hike I needed to complete that day and then saw the bike ride I was to take the next day. Writing (typing) everything down is super helpful. Actually, I think there’s some crazy fact about how when people write goals down they’re 80 percent more likely to complete it.
In the time that I’ve been testing out The Habit Factor I’ve yet to form a habit, but the consistency with which I’m now completing those habits puts me in position to not only form them, but also look forward to them. Sure, hiking around right now with 40 lbs of weights in my backpack isn’t a lot of fun, but when I’m standing atop Mt. Rainier, you can count on me giving a little bit of thanks to the app that kept me on track and moving towards my goal.