Habit tracker

Questions people actually ask

Why do streaks work?

Because breaking a visible chain costs something that skipping an invisible intention does not. The method is old — do the thing, mark the day, keep the chain unbroken — and it works best when the habit is small and specific: "stretch five minutes" builds a streak, "get fit" does not survive Tuesday.

Does missing today break my streak?

Not until midnight. The streak counts a run ending today or ending yesterday — an unchecked today just means you may not have done it yet, and punishing you at 9am for the evening run you haven’t taken would teach you to distrust the number. An unchecked yesterday is a genuine miss, and the streak resets.

How many habits should I track?

Fewer than you want to. Two or three habits checked daily beat ten abandoned by Friday — the tracker allows up to thirty, but the best predictor of a habit surviving is how little willpower the day’s full list demands.

Do my habits sync between devices?

They always save in your browser. Sign in with Google and they sync across devices — with check-ins merged as a union, so ticking a habit on your phone and another on your laptop keeps both. Export or delete everything any time from My profile.

How long does it take to build a habit?

The famous "21 days" is a myth from a 1960s self-help book. The real research (Lally, 2009) found an average of 66 days to automaticity, with a range from 18 to 254 depending on the habit and the person. The practical reading: judge your habit by the 30-day completion rate this tracker shows, not by whether it feels effortless yet — feeling comes last.

What should I do after breaking a streak?

Check in tomorrow, and treat one miss as data instead of failure — the research finding most worth knowing is that a single missed day measurably does not derail habit formation, but the second consecutive miss starts a new pattern. The rule that keeps chains alive: never miss twice.

Is a web habit tracker better than a paper one?

Paper works — the chain method predates apps by decades. What this adds over paper is arithmetic and presence: streaks and 30-day rates computed for you, and it lives in the browser you already have open, on every device, with nothing to install or subscribe to. What it deliberately shares with paper: your data stays yours.