Rad Habits: New App To Aid Small-Scale Scheduling For Self-Improvement

Do you need to be reminded/guilt-tripped into maintaining healthy habits, but don't want to have to ask your friends and loved ones to publicly shame you?  No worries...a new app can keep you on task, and to the rest of the world you'll actually appear to have motivation.

The sticky notes aren't enough to save your slackadaisical self, and you know it.
(Image courtesy blog.contagiouscompanies.com.)

Productive, a new app for iOS, is like a little slice of your conscience calling (or, for those of you who prefer to do without the conscience connection, the app acts like a pleasant little secretary of shit you should be doing.)

Simple enough, right?  Now stick to it.
(Image courtesy productiveapp.io.)

The premise is simple - the tough part is following through.  Users schedule different tasks that they want to achieve, indicating what time  of the day would be most amenable to this striving for success.  Activities like meditating, running, stretching, and more are readily reminded by the day, week, or month, with alarms going off as often as you want to keep you aware of how much better you need to be doing, right now.

Don't act like this isn't at least a little resonant.
(Image courtesy linkedin.com.)

As their presskit states, "Productive has all the tools you need to build a routine of positive, life-changing habits."  The "routine" part is charted when you complete your desired tasks: "Perfect Days" turn green on your calendar when all of your activities have been accomplished for the day.  Your current streak of "Perfect Days" is prominently presented, so if you don't want to disappoint your phone, you'd better go for a stroll.

We mean the future self that isn't dead yet.
(Image courtesy thatswildwithkiesha.wordpress.com.)

Each activity also has a "Total Times Done" chart, as well as the "Current Streak" of how long you've been able to cling to some small shard of sanity in a repetitive but reliable form.  The "Best Streak" feature charts your all-time greatest lack of procrastinating, which is important to remember for physically-augmentative activities like running, and probably pretty damn crucial for other tasks ("walking the dog" seems like one that you should be acing, if you're not completely awful.)

To be fair, the dog might be unmotivated, too.
(Image courtesy youtube.com.)

When faced with a need (or hope) to enact noticeable improvements, some of us are motivated simply by the desire to be better people.  Some of us are motivated only by abuse.  Some of us just need the cold, calculating logistics of a computer program to explain exactly where and how often you make your horrid, human-like mistakes.  If you fall into the latter category and need a bit of bullying by the byte, check out Productivity.  Here's to a long streak of "Perfect Days."

"You just keep me hanging on.  You just keep me hanging on.
You're going to reap just what you sow.  You're going to reap just what you sow."
 -Lou Reed, 'Perfect Day'
(Image courtesy productiveapp.io.)