There is a lot of talk and hype about habits. They are the cornerstones of our behavior and our future in many ways.

There are many good books written about them and quite a few apps for tracking your habits. Atomic Habits, The power of Habit.

A habits tracker is an essential part in any productivity enthusiasts arsenal.

In 2018 when I started programming LifeHQ, the habit tracker was one of my favorite features, so I finished it first.

That is why it was quite plain, regular, boring.

I did some optimizations over time but nothing serious.

This looks pretty decent, it’s not that bad. But, people weren’t using it.

The page is just a place for you to click on boxes, not very engaging to put it mildly.

I was missing two things.

  1. Better overview of what people have accomplished.
  2. Social element, connect people with similar habits.

So I started sketching, here are some of my rough drafts.

I was trying to capture that sense of accomplishment you get from being consistent over days, weeks and months.

The Social Element

I must allow people that are on the same journey interact with each other. When you’re running 5k per day and you see someone doing 15k per day, you are going to push yourself tomorrow, trust me.

Conversely you will see someone doing worse than you and you’d offer them some advice. Boom, you feel like an expert.

The Social element of productivity is exactly the reason that I started building FocusHub. To connect people around productivity, becoming better and kicking ass in life.

To use the power of social networks for the greater good.

Darko (quote machine) Kolev

To accomplish this I added a specialized social feed from people on the same path, bellow the actual habit tracker.

The end result ended looking like this.

The second picture is the top of the page.

Direct link to the habits module.

Initially you record your consistency and feel good about the green chain and your streak.

Bellow that you set your schedule.

Even further down you get to the social aspect where you see what other people are doing in regards to this specific habit. This is the best type of motivation. If I see 1000 people fasting for 20 hours, heck I can do it too.

Found some more sketches. Even more miserable this time (:

As you can see I suck at design, especially on the first try.

But if you keep putting time into something it will turn out, not that bad.

Until next time,

Stay productive