It is almost 2 weeks since New Year’s Eve and we might just be witnessing a sigh across the world as many fail to keep their resolutions. There’s an age-old belief that one can break out of a bad habit (or stick to a good one) for good, if you can do it for 21 days. Apparently there’s no scientific reasoning behind the 21 day theory, but it sure does sound reaffirming; that whatever you want to achieve is possible, if you can do it for three weeks.
Better Every Time has an interesting approach for capturing your journey as you stick to the plan. It isn’t only focused on habits, but anything it is that you want to get better at. The tried-and-tested philosophy says that you can get better at doing something by doing it over and over again. This free iPhone app helps you keep a track of that during the course of the three weeks.
The first screen portrays a mountain in the background as it asks you to ‘start a journey’. Fill out what you want to get better at in the text box, and it’ll ask you how many times a week or month can you do it. Once you’ve set a goal, the app stops right there. Yeah, it might feel abrupt but that’s the whole point — the idea is to go ahead and working on your goal and then get back to the app once you’ve taken the first step.
Every time you check into the app after setting a goal, it assumes that you have moved one step forward. Better Every Time wants you to think of the task as a mountain that you have to climb. Sure it’s going to be tough (you anyway won’t use an app to accomplish something that was easy, right?), but by taking one step at a time (21 steps total), you will eventually reach the top. Graphically, it shows a checkpoint suggesting that you’re inching closer to your goal. Here, you can jot down notes about how you feel and even attach a picture.
When you finally open the app the 21st time, it shows you that you have climbed that mountain! All this will make any sense only if you actually do what you intended. If you haven’t been able to follow through, there’s an option to pause the schedule and even abandon the journey. Also, it does not allow you to set multiple goals; only one thing at a time. This is in line with the instructions generally given suggesting that one should avoid reforming many things at once.
But the advantage of accomplishing one thing done at a time is that when you’re ready to set a new goal, the app provides a scorecard of your previous journeys. And if you’ve been able to do well in the past, ‘revisiting’ a journey would motivate you to do better with the current goal. This is why jotting down your feelings during every checkpoint might help, as they can remind you exactly how you did it.
Better Every Time has a very interesting approach when compared to progress tracking apps I’ve come across, and I honestly believe the simple, unobtrusive functioning is worth giving it a try. Better Every Time is available for free on the App Store. Get climbing that mountain now!