Changing habits is damn near impossible when you go at it alone. I’ve tried apps to keep track of eating more healthy, for getting more sleep and even getting myself to get out there and go running. All of these habits tend to last a few days to a month at the at the most. A few weeks ago I came across a post on Kevin Rose’s blog about the 100 breath meditation on lift. Since seeing this post I downloaded the app to see what makes it special and if their thinking really works.
Lift is essentially a social network for creating good habits. These habits are anything from eating healthy vegetables to going days with out cigarettes. By having a community of people who are supportive of your accomplishments and an app that gives you motivation to keep going has helped me to develop a few good habits of my own. Other users are able to give you props for accomplishing something and are able to comment on your check ins to keep things social.
Check-ins
Every day when you sign in after setting up your account you have a check list of all the habits that you are trying to keep up, for me they are things like “inbox zero” or “drink more water” and when you check in to these habits you get a cute little note next to the habit with the number of times that you have checked in and if you’ve been doing it everyday for a week it’ll say “for the 7th day in a row!”
I look forward to checking in to lift every night because in the morning my notifications is full of props from other users and it feels like you have a support system and that you can do it! They become familiar the same people tend to like your check ins over and over, and you might find that they are the people you should follow back.
Design
The design of the site is very close to that of Twitter, you have a profile with all of your activities, a board of the activities of your friends and a home page that has your list of habits that you want to check off with a motivational quote. This is an iPhone only app that I’m really hoping they will come out with an android version because using the iPhone app on my iPad hasn't been the best. The app has essentially the same design as the website which is a feature so many sites are missing, just having continuity between web and mobile make the experience so much more enjoyable! I have asked on lift’s twitter feed if they are planning to release an android app and have yet to receive an answer.
Notifications
Under settings the default for notifications is to receive everything over mobile notifications and to receive a daily digest of how you are doing. The graphics in the daily digest are cute letting you know that you are on a hot streak and how close you are to a new milestone for a habit, but I find getting daily emails from an app tend to take up more inbox space (I practice inbox zero remember?) than I would really like to allot. But they are easy to cancel and you can even turn all notifications off if you prefer the quiet life.
Groups
Like in all social networks lift has groups, they’re made up of people who want to participate in a certain habit or groups of habits. I am in the wake up early group which is a group of people that strive to start their day early. Granted some people are waking up at 5:30 am and some people early is 9:00 am you don’t have to feel bad about the time that you wake up. No body is judging you, and when you wake up earlier than you have been and point it out you will get a lot of props for it!
All in all this has been a great app and it has been successful in keeping me on task with habits I want to grow. Like I have been saying for years that I want to drink more water. On the first day of joining lift I drank half a water bottle, the second day I drank most of my water bottle and by the third day I was refilling my 1 liter bottle at work. I feel like I’m moving forward and that drinking a lot more water isn't as big of a task as I thought it was.
This app is great and I highly recommend it. The only flaws I have found are the limitation of usage for non-iPhone users but as long as you have a computer with Internet you can still use the site to check in and participate in the groups. I recommend not taking on too much at one time, like don’t join the 4-hour-body group if you don’t think that you can accomplish all the habits. There are lists for easy habits (brushing your teeth), trending, and supportive and many more. There is something for every one its not just about health and wellness, you can set out to read more, blog more, listen more than you speak- you name it there is probably a habit out there for you to join.
Update: In gearing up for the new year lift has added some new features that are bound to make your habit stick even more. The first that they had been working to implement since earlier on this year were plans. You could select a plan for something that you wanted to work on, say you want to get better at pull ups, you would join the plan that has a number of stages. Everyday you complete one of the stages until you completed the plan and by that point you should be well on your way to creating a habit that will stick. More and more plans have been added so you can find a plan for almost anything that you want to accomplish.
In the last week or so there was a change made to milestones. It used to be that you would check in and every few you would get a milestone, now every 21 check ins in a milestone. The number seems a little random to me but I'm sure that there is a method to the madness. Also in recent news the Android app is said to be up and running fully functional. I was in touch with the lift team a few months ago about a huge bug they were having on the android app but it is now up and running.
You can find me on lift and twitter. Do you use lift? Have you found it to help you build new and constructive habits? Have a similar app you think I should try out? Comment bellow I’d love your feedback!
Update: In gearing up for the new year lift has added some new features that are bound to make your habit stick even more. The first that they had been working to implement since earlier on this year were plans. You could select a plan for something that you wanted to work on, say you want to get better at pull ups, you would join the plan that has a number of stages. Everyday you complete one of the stages until you completed the plan and by that point you should be well on your way to creating a habit that will stick. More and more plans have been added so you can find a plan for almost anything that you want to accomplish.
In the last week or so there was a change made to milestones. It used to be that you would check in and every few you would get a milestone, now every 21 check ins in a milestone. The number seems a little random to me but I'm sure that there is a method to the madness. Also in recent news the Android app is said to be up and running fully functional. I was in touch with the lift team a few months ago about a huge bug they were having on the android app but it is now up and running.
You can find me on lift and twitter. Do you use lift? Have you found it to help you build new and constructive habits? Have a similar app you think I should try out? Comment bellow I’d love your feedback!