BETA YOURSELF
TRACK YOUR LIFE You don’t have to spend your time at home binging on Netflix and snacks. This is a perfect time to build some new habits. Stuff has the apps to help and the tips to keep you sane. THE BASICS
■ Prioritise your tracking
What we’re talking about here is tracking your entire life, but be reasonable: monitoring everything you do can become onerous. If you don’t fancy the busywork, decide on what you care about most. Once you’ve infused a couple of habits into your routine, there’s a good chance you’ll be hooked on the idea and will want to expand it into other areas.
■ Set attainable goals
Time to get a grip? Before you start, don’t set yourself up for disappointment, or morale will go through the floor – and tracking kit out of the window. Go easy on yourself at first, whether attempting to eat better, reduce screen time or exercise more. Positive trends are what’s important, not blazing to the best possible you in an instant.
■ Streamline everything
Tracking can rapidly become complex if you splash out on a ton of hardware and end up juggling apps. Where possible, centralise and simplify. If you can use one app for multiple types of tracking, do so. One piece of hardware over three? Great – that will save time, money and brain load.
■ Keep data private
Tracking is inherently personal. That’s just as true whether monitoring food intake or keeping tabs on your Tiger King addiction. So be sure you can trust the systems you’re using with this personal data. That’s doubly important whenever money enters the equation – especially if you link financial trackers to live bank accounts.
■ Don’t get obsessive
It’s vital to understand your motivations – and what demotivates you. If tracking something specific starts to get you down, ease up on demands or temporarily stop. For example, there’s no point tracking sleep with an app like Sleep Cycle (Android, iOS) if you get anxious about never getting your eight hours – and then end up with insomnia.
START SOLID ■ Track habits
Unlock ’n’ roll
Don’t invest time and effort in systems you can’t get data out of. If export options (like the pictured one from Apple’s Health app) don’t exist, head elsewhere.
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Infusing new habits into your routine requires you do them often – and tracking helps with this. Streaks (iOS), Habitica (Android, iOS) and Productive (Android, iOS) all provide flexible systems for setting and tracking such goals.
■ Watch your money
Always running out of cash before payday? Then figure out where it’s all going. YNAB and Mint are popular options for complex budgeting. Expenses (Android) and Pennies (iOS) are also solid, even if only to sanity-check non-essential spending.
