When it comes to productivity, I’m not a fan of consolidating different tasks into single apps. If you want to keep a track of what you need to do, use a to-do list app like Tick. If you want to track your achievements, use an app like Datalove. And if you want to form better habits, then Clever Routines is the way to go.
Routines and habits are about regularity. They’re actions you repeatedly perform, but on some sort of schedule. Clever Routines wants to make make it easy to set and follow up on these routines. The app uses a pink, black and white colour scheme that works well to make it striking without being too gaudy.
The homescreen of the app is a list of all your routines, segregated by whether they are a daily, weekly or monthly activity. It’s a simple list and you can mark an item as ‘done’ by swiping it left-to-right, which has a rubber-band effect on the card, complete with a green trail. Swipe right-to-left to bring up a black pane of options with multi-coloured icons to mark the item as done, set a reminder for it for today (with customizable time), set a reminder for later (tomorrow, in 2 days, next week, next month), or skip it entirely. It’s quite a lovely interface, with smooth transitions and clear legibility.
To set a new routine, pull the list down and input your task. You can add a description if you want to. There are options to set the schedule as flexible (daily, weekly, monthly) or not (which gives you control over exact days, dates and times for repetition); which has a sub-option to skip the task if not completed or push it to the next day till it’s finished. If you choose the flexible schedule, you can set the occurrence frequency and the intensity of the reminder.
Set it up and just like clockwork, Clever Routines will remind you about your habitual commitments when you need to be. But that’s all it is — a reminder, nothing more.
The app is restricted to just telling you to follow through on your habit, it’s still up to you to motivate yourself and get it done. You could very easily dismiss it, just like hitting the snooze button on your alarm will keep it quiet and let you cheat. There isn’t a social element to it, like checking in with friends whether they finished their morning run, sharing anything on Twitter, Facebook or other networks, or even setting a personal blackmailing threat like Aherk.
If you have the self-discipline to follow up on creating good habits with a simple reminder, then Clever Routines is a beautiful app that’s well worth the dollar it asks for on the App Store. But if you need any sort of motivation or social element to go with it, this one ain’t for you.