Mobile Apps That Can Help You Build Healthy Habits

Building healthy habits isn’t always easy. If it were, most people would live healthier and happier lives. From hitting the gym daily to staying off your phone for a specific number of hours, it takes a lot of discipline and determination to turn over a new leaf and build beneficial habits.

In addition to looking inward for strength, you can also build new habits by getting all the external help that you can manage. While some people enlist their friends or family to help keep them in line as they try to form new habits, you can also turn to technology through mobile apps to help you on your journey toward building positive habits or breaking negative ones.

Interestingly, even industries not typically associated with self-improvement, like casinos, have begun adopting habit-forming strategies. Some gaming apps allow loyal customers to enjoy promos that reward consistency and encourage positive engagement. While the goal in this case may be brand loyalty rather than personal development, the psychology behind habit formation remains the same: repeated actions paired with rewards build lasting behaviours.

As you will discover in this article, there are several apps with features to help you meet your goals and maintain discipline. Read on for an overview of some of the most effective habit-forming apps that you can consider downloading.

Streaks

Streaks is an efficient habit tracking app designed specifically for iPhone users. As the name suggests, this app helps users build a healthy habit by maintaining a consistent streak. This makes it suitable for tracking any kind of habit consistently, daily, weekly, or monthly.

You can even use the Streak app to track activities you want to do multiple times within a day or week. Each time the task is completed, you get to mark it off the list. The app also includes charts and statistics, so you can analyse how well you’re doing at maintaining your streak over time. It costs $5.99 to get the universal Streaks app.

HabitNow

HabitNow is a daily routine planner that can be used to tick off one-off tasks off a basic to-do list or track habits that you want to build in the long term. As a robust habit tracker, HabitNow can be used to track your recurring tasks, with options for setting the specific days when you want to repeat the task. You can also set reminders for each task or create a checklist of sub-tasks within a much bigger goal.

After completing a task, you can mark it off, rate it with a numeric value, or use the app’s built-in timer to set time limits for yourself to see how well you performed. In addition to tracking specific activities, you also get to keep data and analytics so you can see how well you’re progressing against your set goal. HabitNow is free for tracking up to seven habits and offers a one-off payment plan of $9.99 for extra features.

Way of Life

Way of Life is a mobile app that takes a more interesting, realistic, and less strict approach to helping users build healthy habits. It allows you to create a journal for each habit, where you can write to provide context or explanation for each habit you did, failed to do, or skipped intentionally. This allows you to reflect on your habits and the decisions that lead you to do or fail at them.

Additionally, instead of the strict streak-based approach used by other apps (where missing a day means you lose your streak), the Way of Life app introduces some flexibility. The app allows users to create streaks with flexible lengths known as Chains. With this approach, you get to take allowed (pre-set) breaks during a streak.

The Way of Life app works on both Android and iOS devices. With this app, you can track up to three habits for free, or pay $4.99/month for premium features such as cloud backup and unlimited habit tracking.

HabitBull

HabitBull is a mobile app designed to help users break bad habits or build positive habits, depending on their goals. It provides a simple interface where users can log their goals and set how often they want to hit them within a specific time frame.

HabitBull has features for monitoring and maintaining progress on any goal. These include:

• Calendar
• Charts
• Reminders
• Support from an active community

One of the benefits of tracking your habits with this app is how flexible it is. Users have complete control over their habit entries. The app also has widgets that can be added to the home screen so you can input data directly without opening the app. You can also sync data across multiple devices, so you can always follow the progress of your habits. HabitBull operates on a freemium model, with free basic features and the possibility of unlocking extra features at $4.99 per month, or $19.99 yearly.

Habiz

Unlike other habit-building apps that focus on general habits and daily routines, Habiz is the app to get if your goal is to build a consistent workout routine. This app can help you track your habits across over 80 different types of physical activities, from hiking to stretching, jogging, or lifting weights.

Habiz provides a one-stop app for tracking your workout habits. Its features automatically transfer data from Apple Health to the app instead of entering it manually each time. The app also allows users to set goals with smaller steps that they can gradually knock off their list as they achieve them. You can also set flexible reminders so you never miss a workout session again, maintaining consistency in your training sessions.

Productive Habit Tracker

The Productive Habit Tracker app takes building healthy habits to another level by providing a comprehensive suite of features to help you get your life on track. More than just ticking items off your to-do list, this app is designed to act like a personal coach, helping you identify the things you need to change about your life and create actionable steps for doing so.

From tracking your sleep pattern to motivating you to achieve your goals, this app has a range of features to help you lead a productive lifestyle. Some of the features of this app include:

• Calendars for tracking progress
• Reminders
• Regular challenges
• Advice and recommendations
• Statistics

For just $30 per year (after the free trial), this app can help you design habits that stick and make your life goals a reality.

Atomic

Atomic is a mobile app that helps you stay on top of your daily routines and build healthy ones. One way it does this is by breaking your daily goals into small, manageable tasks that are easier to track. It also helps you stay consistent with important activities such as meal prepping, bedtime routines, and more.

To maintain habits like meal prepping, planning your shopping is just as important as planning your meals. A store-specific mobile app can make this easier by helping you prepare in advance, shop more efficiently, and stick to your budget.

The Atomic app features an intuitive visual dashboard with a clean design and a user-friendly interface. It can also generate reports and statistics so you can track which habits you’ve maintained and which ones need more attention. Atomic gamifies progress by unlocking puzzle pieces and other perks as you complete habits.

The table below summarises the pros and cons of using mobile apps for building healthy habits:

Pros	Cons
Mobile phones are convenient and accessible	Potentials for distractions
You can take advantage of device features like calendars, alarms and reminders	Data & privacy concerns
Data-driven insights	Cost
Synchronisation across devices

Conclusion

Maintaining consistency at anything is a difficult task. If you’re one of those struggling to build healthy habits, your mobile phone might hold the answer you need. By downloading a productivity app like the ones highlighted above, you can finally put practical measures in place to track your habits and build the consistency required to get things done.