-
Default app icon
-
The perfect habit tracker for imperfect people.
-
Track momentum, not perfection. No streaks. No guilt. Just progress.
-
Home Screen widgets
-
Set custom reminders for each habit
-
Dark mode app icon
Inspiration
I have struggled with productivity my whole life. I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, which has been an eye-opening experience. I always thought I was just broken. I saw everyone else setting audacious goals and never struggling to be on time, but I can barely keep my head above water most days.
I am driven and want to be successful and dependable. I have spent hours setting goals--writing them down, coming up with plans, convincing myself that this time it's going to be different; this time I'm going to actually stay with it and follow through. I stick with it for a few days, then suddenly it's been a few weeks and I realize at some point I fell off the wagon. Nothing happened--there wasn't a conscious choice made. I just stopped. I still want to do what I wrote down and planned, but I just somehow forgot about it.
I know that doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but that is a constant throughout my life. "Out of sight, out of mind" is a very real thing for me. I have wanted an app that could solve this for me, and I have tried dozens of them. I've tried what feels like every habit tracker and system in the world. I've read Atomic Habits and tried to be 1% better every day. I've tried to never miss twice. None of it has worked more than a week or two. And often those systems end up discouraging me more than helping me. I build up a streak of 5 or 10 days--maybe I even get to 20 a few times. But then I miss a day or two. I come back to the app and it's devastating. I failed. I have to start over from the very bottom.
So I set out to build something to address my own needs that I think will resonate with lots of other people who have also struggled with tracking their habits and reaching goals they set.
What it does
Momentum does two main things. Firstly, it simply reminds you of your goals. There's no pressure involved, just a simple reminder that "hey, you said you want to build this habit, so I'm just reminding you about that". The second part is that it helps you visualize the momentum you are building while establishing your habits. Every day you do your habit, you are telling yourself that habit is part of who you are. And each time you do that, it becomes more and more meaningful. Then you miss a day (or 5). Does that mean all that work you've done and all that progress you've made is lost? Absolutely not! You don't have to start over. You don't have to feel guilty. You just try to be better and do it today.
As you track your habits in Momentum, you can see your progress building up over time. And when you miss a day or two, you see that progress dip a little bit. Then the next day you do it, your progress goes up even higher than where it was before you missed a couple days. Because that's more realistic. And it's more empowering.
How we built it
I built Momentum by myself using SwiftUI. I store all the data with SwiftData and handle the pro version with a subscription via RevenueCat.
Challenges we ran into
The biggest challenge directly part of the app that I ran into was with using SwiftData. It's very powerful and simple in a lot of ways, but can also be tricky to use exactly how I wanted to. I also ran into challenges of how to make Momentum really stand out from all the other habit/goal trackers out there. There are a lot of them, and most are designed much nicer than mine. So I distilled it down to its purest form and stripped away all the distracting numbers so that the idea can just stand on its own.
Another (much bigger) challenge was finding the time to complete the app. I have 5 month old twins, and I love spending as much time with them as I can (not to mention, my wife needs me to spend time with them after work so she can have some time to herself too!). Because of that, there were many days when I didn't have much time to work on my project. In the past, I would have just mailed it in and said that I'll work on it tomorrow or that I know the chance of me winning is small anyway, so it probably doesn't matter. But this project has been personal. My wife was so supportive of me throughout the journey so far, and I can't thank her enough. I also am really looking forward to getting more than 5 hours of sleep a night now!
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Honestly, what I'm most proud of is that it has been helping me with my own habits/goals that I set earlier this year. I have not been doing well with them, but since I was able to begin using Momentum to track them, I have been much more consistent. I know there is definitely a bias for me to use my own product, but I truly feel a difference. I notice myself thinking about my goals more often throughout the day and figuring out how/when I am going to accomplish them. That's 90% of the battle for me. If I am the only person to ever benefit from this app, it will be a massive success in my mind. But I do hope that other people are able to find value with it as well.
What we learned
I can ship something in just a few weeks. It's not as polished as I hoped it would be. It doesn't have lots of the features I want it to have. But it exists. And it's already helping me every day.
What's next for Habit Tracker by Momentum
I have so many plans for Momentum. More widgets. More details and customizations for habits. A big one is the need to support habits that are not supposed to be done daily--maybe just a certain number of times a week, for example. I want more advanced notifications (multiple per day, different times for different days, etc.). I need to save the data in the cloud (either via iCloud or something else) in a way that makes sense. I would love to create an Android version. I have a lot of work to do to improve my paywall, including experimenting with different versions, prices, etc. (thanks for making that so easy, RevenueCat!). I did work on ASO before/throughout, but I will spend a lot of time dialing that in as well. And that's just the beginning. I want Momentum to help as many people as possible for as long as possible.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.