With the start of the new year, we are all are desperately trying to leave 2020 behind us by focusing on improving ourselves in 2021. However, as many of us already know, merely jotting down a list of new year’s resolutions isn’t the best way to implement self-growth. Instead, it is often more effective to build sustainable habits that can help us accomplish our target goals. In hopes of constructing better habits, I’ve recently been testing out Habio — an app by Minsk-based marketing partner, Apptember.
Your personal habit assistant
Habio is an app, made available on both iOS and Android devices, that’s focused on helping users build and track habits while offering information about the behavioral science behind it all. It is ultimately designed to teach users how to construct and sustain their habits in an enjoyable and motivational fashion. This habit assistant covers a range of different habits relating to the topics of mental health, physical fitness, and even relationships. All of the habits you’d like to work towards are completely customizable. For example, if you’d like to improve your relationships, you can set habits that involve steps to making new friends or reaching out to old ones.
Building habits
When you first begin using the app, Habio offers you a variety of different types of goals to choose from before getting started. These initial goals are all in relation to your mental health, fitness, productivity, and nutrition. However, once you’ve set up your first goal, you have complete control over what goal type your second and subsequent habits should be. If the app doesn’t automatically suggest the category that you have in mind, you can easily click the ‘+’ sign and type in your own — creating a new category type to suit your needs.
Each new category you create also allows you to decide on the corresponding icon for it. In total, the habit tracking app allows users to choose from 86 adorable icons. With this, users have complete customization control over their habits, and it’s also great for people who appreciate the use of aesthetic visual elements within their apps.
Habio also lets users build and track as many habits as they’d like. As of right now, I am currently using the app to track three of my habits, and the app shows no signs of introducing any restrictions or in-app charges for the addition of more habits. Unlike other habit tracking and motivational apps, such as Fabulous, Habio is completely free.
Educational and informative
If you were curious as to how Habio teaches you about habits and how to implement them in an enjoyable way, the app offers many different articles and courses. There are two separate features within the mobile app that offer educational and inspiring content — Insights and Courses.
With Insights, users are able to access an endless collection of articles, which promote motivational tips and tricks. All of these articles have been backed up by sufficient research from reputable sources. While the app version doesn’t include their chosen research sources, Habio’s corresponding blog always includes references at the end of their articles. Albeit the articles available on their website are significantly longer in length.
I really appreciated how the articles (within the app) displayed their estimated reading times. The app articles range from two to five minutes in length, which makes it very easy to consume little motivational, yet educational pockets of information throughout the day. Being able to learn more about the behavioral science behind the development of habits can help people to remain more faithful to their habit goals.
Habio also offers quick courses within their app. These consist of a variety of reading material, involving plenty of useful information and tips. However, this might be a negative thing for those who enjoy courses that involve video and audio material. With that being said, Habio courses aren’t just about gaining knowledge on certain topics. The app will also include tasks into your in-app to-do-list after you’ve completed a particular course. This way, users are able to put all they’ve learned into practice.
Reflect on your progress
With the habit journal feature, users can check in with their habit development journey whenever they want. While journaling certainly isn’t for everybody, Habio allows you to use this feature in the way that best suits your needs. If you’d only like to indicate how your habit progress is making you feel, you can simply record your mood levels and leave it at just that. In the event that you’re feeling inspired to input more information, you can write as much as you’d like about how you’re doing. You can also identify what aspects you’re feeling a particular way about.
Alternative apps
Despite how easy and simple it is to use Habio, it might not be the best habit tracking app for everyone. Some people might want an app with less learning materials and more engaging features. For example, there are quite a few habit monitoring apps that are almost ‘game-like’ — to encourage their users to maintain their habits in a fun manner. Examples of this type of app would include Habitica (an app that attempts to turn your daily goals into an RPG-like gaming experience) and SleepTown (an app that expands your virtual town as you achieve your sleep targets).
While I found it difficult to find any faults within Habio’s in-app features, there was one aspect that I did find disappointing. One of the ways in which this habit tracking assistant aids in the development of users’ habits is through their reminders. Users can set specific alarms to go off when they’d like to receive alerts to act on their habits. However, more often than not, the app didn’t notify me of my set alarms.
Despite checking that my notification settings for the app were all on, I found that I wasn’t receiving any notifications from Habio until I actually tapped and opened the app. In fact, every time I opened the app, I was met with approximately five notifications consisting of set reminders that never went off and recommendations for user-tailored articles. However, this could merely be a bug that may have gone unnoticed in the current version of the app (ver. 2.1.1). Hopefully, Habio fixes this issue in their next update.
All in all, this app-based habit assistant is simple, easy to use, and completely void of any annoying in-app promotions. If you’re into behavioral science and tracking your habit process, Habio is a reasonably great health and fitness app to try out in 2021.
Photo credit: The feature image was captured by Omid Armin. The app screenshots are owned by Apptember.
