Tracking and Motivation: Daily Tracker, Way of Life, and Promodoro

It can sometimes be tricky to motivate myself, particularly under circumstances where I don't have an external structure to keep me focused on finishing (or even starting) a task. For example, if I'm working on an art project, I am the only person who is going to hold myself accountable, and it can be easy to let things slide. So, in an effort to make the most of my free time, I've been experimenting with various apps and other methods which can impose a little bit of structure on personal endeavors.

I've previously mentioned using List Master as a method of tracking expenses and other personal stats. While I still find that app very useful (particularly because it is highly customizable), I have been experimenting with apps that allow me to track my progress in a somewhat more sophisticated fashion.

Daily Tracker is, essentially, a one-size-fits-all app that allows a person to track various aspects of their lives. Though there are many apps which enable users to track their progress in various endeavors (for example, a dedicated fitness tracker or finance tracker), Daily Tracker allows you to create and customize a variety of lists (with different settings and list types), which can allow you to organize and track different aspects of your life. The tracker can function as a timer, a checklist, a notebook, or a more traditional list, depending on the parameters you set.

The app automatically averages your scores and creates graphs based on your input; although I haven't found them especially useful at this point, the graphs are fun to look at. They can be viewed with respect to a single list or an entire subcategory of lists (which can be potentially useful if the categories are related to one another.

Way of Life is a fairly basic and straightforward tracking app; however, its simplicity gives it certain advantages over something more sophisticated. To begin using it, you list different activities or behaviors and label them as 'good' or 'bad.' Every day, you record whether or not you did that activity.

I've only just started using the app, and have only been recording a few activities/behaviors (and have not yet put any bad habits on the list). While I don't intend to perform each activity that is (currently or potentially) on my list every single day, I would like to do them (or at least the 'good' ones) on a regular basis, and having a long string of 'nos' recorded on my app might prod me into paying a bit more attention to an activity that I've been neglecting.

Even though nobody else will be privy to my checklists, I'm hoping that the desire to avoid recording a 'no' at the end of the day will provide the motivation I need to remain engaged with healthy and rewarding activities, even if I can only manage to do a minimal amount of a listed activity on a particular day.

The app also contains a few graphs and pie charts, which allow users to see larger trends in their behaviors or catch when there have been periods of lower productivity. I imagine that the charts will be more useful once some more time has passed, but, even at this point, they are interesting to look at.

The third and final app, Promodoro, is based on the Pomodoro Technique, a time-management system that has been around since the early nineties. The method is named after the Italian word for tomato, because its inventor happened to use a tomato-shaped timer when he was first trying it out.

The technique is based on the principle that people tend to work most productively during uninterrupted bursts of activity, rather than long periods in which they are allowed to become distracted.

The Pomodoro Technique breaks tasks down into 25-minute periods called 'pomodoros.' A pomodoro is an indivisible period of time during which someone works on a single task (or, alternatively, a series of smaller but related or similar tasks). A particular task may take several pomodoros to complete.

After finishing a pomodoro, a person takes a five minute break to clear his or her mind and unwind a bit before starting on the next one. Once a few pomodoros are completed, the person takes a longer break before starting on the next cycle of pomodoros.

While Promodoro isn't the most 'attractive' pomodoro or time management app I've come across, I have found it to be the simplest and most functional. It has a basic timer, a checklist of tasks that are the subject of the pomodoros, and a page with statistics showing your productivity in terms of the number of pomodoros. It also allows you to customize the lengths of pomodoros and breaks to suit your needs.

Admittedly, I haven't fully committed to the method, and I haven't gotten habituated to the practice of completing activities according to the Pomodoro Technique. In addition, not all activities can be broken down into pomodoros. Still, when I do force myself to dedicate a short block of uninterrupted time towards a single task, I do seem to get good results.

Dedicating oneself to work for 25 minutes straight is less onerous, and therefore less intimidating, than beginning work on an unpleasant task which might take an indefinite amount of time. It is also easier to quiet the urge to distract oneself, which can often derail efforts to complete a task. It is less challenging to stick to a task when you know a break is coming up in a few minutes. In addition, because the breaks themselves have a clear time limit, there is less risk that you will lose track of the time while you're unwinding.

At this point, it is unclear whether all (or, really, any) of these apps and practices will end up sticking in the long term. But I am hoping that I will continue to use them and add a little more structure to my life.