Life tracker/complete self improvement website

[freek]

This will be quite a long post so please bear with me.
While reading the millionaire fastlane i started thinking about problems in my own life i either needed a solution for or a problem i already solved. I am a 19 year old man who started focussing on improving myself, going to the gym, reading etc. Luckily for me there are a lot of other boys like me (look at all the fast growing self improvement channels targeted at young men on youtube). For me personally it was very hard to stick to good habits, eliminate bad habits, go to the gym etc until I made a tracker in excel. From then on I got a little bit better every week, I adjusted and improved this tracker for more than a year. It was exactly the type of accountability I needed, the tracker also gave me a very cool overview of my progress over the weeks and it became a challenge for me to improve from week to week. I will attach some screenshots of my tracker.

Now you may think what is so special about your tracker since there are already a lot of habit trackers in the app store.
Well, I will tell you exactly why I think mine is just a lot better. First of all i used a lot of the habit trackers myself but just lost interest and stopped using them after a week or so. What I think my tracker does so well is that it gives me scores of my performance every day, week and month. Secondly it not only includes habits but also bad habits, hours worked, sleep, gym etc. So the weekly score is based around all aspects I was focused on improving. This made it so that some weeks I was really bad at focussing on habits but for instance my productivity was really high and so I would still get a decent score. I also made it so that every habit had a difference in importance. For me for example I would score "make my bed" a 1/5 in importance and "deep work session 1" a 4/5. For instance maybe watching netflix is a bad habit but it is by far not as bad as taking drugs, so the score reflects this. I think the pictures explain this a lot better.


Thirdly, the comparison with previous weeks also made me feel a lot better in weeks where I didn't do as well, when I could look back and see that in general I was improving over the months. A bad day or week felt not so bad anymore. Also seeing improvement for example in less screen time really showed me that I was actually doing a lot better than I used to be even when I didn't feel like it at the moment. Like this chart shows below (i have the same type of charts for the habits, bad habits, amount of times i went to the gym etc.

And finally I can also make it so that at the end of the year you get stats like you went to the gym 100 times. You did 200 days of meditation your average time on your phone was 2 hours and your average score improved by 2.0. I think this would be really cool. Also something like "This month you struggled with X but Y went very well, good job"

okay i could talk for hours about my tracker but i think you get the main picture. My idea was to put my tracker in a website where people can sign up for free and adjust their own variables, so one person might really value the habit of meditation and for other people they might value this at only a 1/5 in terms of importance or not at all. Everybody would be able to make their own personalized tracker.

The idea for this tracker came about after listening to David Goggins audiobook where he talks about the accountability mirror. Jocko Willink, another very influential person on young boys also talks about taking ownership a lot.

But of course this tracker would not be enough on its own, i want to take all the good parts of self improvements and make it into 1 website

• a forum, some kind of goal page where people can write and track their progress to their goals (similar to notion). People would be able to choose whether other members can view their progress and or goals or not.
• make it possible to link your smart watches to the website so things like exercise are automatically connected to the tracker.
• a page where community members can recommend books like the millionaire fastlane and write a quick review. So people can filter on things like social skills, entrepreneurship, habit forming etc and they would be able to see which books are recommended by the community.
• A journal page where you can write either for yourself or for other members of the community, also linked with the tracker.
• A competition/tournament page where members can opt into challenges to see who can get the highest score on the tracker, workout the most in a month/read the most books etcetera.
• A section for courses, this would be something where either community members can post their courses/insights or collaborations with big creators who can post their courses there.
• A section where members can vote for their favorite self improvement videos, which will then be recommended to other users.
• And tons more

The upsides of this idea in my opinion

• Very big target group
• Tons off potential for monetization
• It would really improve people's lives (like the tracker did for me)
• It solves a big problem (lack of accountability, lack of measure of progress, people who want to improve but just don't stick to habits)

The downsides of this idea

• People who can't stick to habits are not likely to fill in a habit tracker. (however i was this person and this really changed things for me)

I am looking forward to your thoughts, criticism and insights.

Koen

 

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[mikel_ma]

This will be quite a long post so please bear with me.
While reading the millionaire fastlane i started thinking about problems in my own life i either needed a solution for or a problem i already solved. I am a 19 year old man who started focussing on improving myself, going to the gym, reading etc. Luckily for me there are a lot of other boys like me (look at all the fast growing self improvement channels targeted at young men on youtube). For me personally it was very hard to stick to good habits, eliminate bad habits, go to the gym etc until I made a tracker in excel. From then on I got a little bit better every week, I adjusted and improved this tracker for more than a year. It was exactly the type of accountability I needed, the tracker also gave me a very cool overview of my progress over the weeks and it became a challenge for me to improve from week to week. I will attach some screenshots of my tracker.

Now you may think what is so special about your tracker since there are already a lot of habit trackers in the app store.
Well, I will tell you exactly why I think mine is just a lot better. First of all i used a lot of the habit trackers myself but just lost interest and stopped using them after a week or so. What I think my tracker does so well is that it gives me scores of my performance every day, week and month. Secondly it not only includes habits but also bad habits, hours worked, sleep, gym etc. So the weekly score is based around all aspects I was focused on improving. This made it so that some weeks I was really bad at focussing on habits but for instance my productivity was really high and so I would still get a decent score. I also made it so that every habit had a difference in importance. For me for example I would score "make my bed" a 1/5 in importance and "deep work session 1" a 4/5. For instance maybe watching netflix is a bad habit but it is by far not as bad as taking drugs, so the score reflects this. I think the pictures explain this a lot better.
View attachment 45971View attachment 45972

Thirdly, the comparison with previous weeks also made me feel a lot better in weeks where I didn't do as well, when I could look back and see that in general I was improving over the months. A bad day or week felt not so bad anymore. Also seeing improvement for example in less screen time really showed me that I was actually doing a lot better than I used to be even when I didn't feel like it at the moment. Like this chart shows below (i have the same type of charts for the habits, bad habits, amount of times i went to the gym etc.
View attachment 45975
And finally I can also make it so that at the end of the year you get stats like you went to the gym 100 times. You did 200 days of meditation your average time on your phone was 2 hours and your average score improved by 2.0. I think this would be really cool. Also something like "This month you struggled with X but Y went very well, good job"

okay i could talk for hours about my tracker but i think you get the main picture. My idea was to put my tracker in a website where people can sign up for free and adjust their own variables, so one person might really value the habit of meditation and for other people they might value this at only a 1/5 in terms of importance or not at all. Everybody would be able to make their own personalized tracker.

The idea for this tracker came about after listening to David Goggins audiobook where he talks about the accountability mirror. Jocko Willink, another very influential person on young boys also talks about taking ownership a lot.

But of course this tracker would not be enough on its own, i want to take all the good parts of self improvements and make it into 1 website

• a forum, some kind of goal page where people can write and track their progress to their goals (similar to notion). People would be able to choose whether other members can view their progress and or goals or not.
• make it possible to link your smart watches to the website so things like exercise are automatically connected to the tracker.
• a page where community members can recommend books like the millionaire fastlane and write a quick review. So people can filter on things like social skills, entrepreneurship, habit forming etc and they would be able to see which books are recommended by the community.
• A journal page where you can write either for yourself or for other members of the community, also linked with the tracker.
• A competition/tournament page where members can opt into challenges to see who can get the highest score on the tracker, workout the most in a month/read the most books etcetera.
• A section for courses, this would be something where either community members can post their courses/insights or collaborations with big creators who can post their courses there.
• A section where members can vote for their favorite self improvement videos, which will then be recommended to other users.
• And tons more

The upsides of this idea in my opinion

• Very big target group
• Tons off potential for monetization
• It would really improve people's lives (like the tracker did for me)
• It solves a big problem (lack of accountability, lack of measure of progress, people who want to improve but just don't stick to habits)

The downsides of this idea

• People who can't stick to habits are not likely to fill in a habit tracker. (however i was this person and this really changed things for me)

I am looking forward to your thoughts, criticism and insights.

Koen

I would use a service like you describe it, If it really does a good job I would also pay for it. At the moment I’m just using pencil and paper for this kind of stuff also because I like to put my digital devices to the side. But I would really like something that would make habit tracking better arranged and easier to keep track of also in combination with other aspects of self improvement.

 

[freek]

I would use a service like you describe it, If it really does a good job I would also pay for it. At the moment I’m just using pencil and paper for this kind of stuff also because I like to put my digital devices to the side. But I would really like something that would make habit tracking better arranged and easier to keep track of also in combination with other aspects of self improvement.

Thank you for your reaction Mikel,
i plan to make the program for free, and only monetize extra/premium features. I understand that you like to put digital devices to the sied however personally i find pen and paper just less structured and also harder to find something. I think the program would provide a clearer view of your progression.

 

[mikel_ma]

Thank you for your reaction Mikel,
i plan to make the program for free, and only monetize extra/premium features. I understand that you like to put digital devices to the sied however personally i find pen and paper just less structured and also harder to find something. I think the program would provide a clearer view of your progression.

That’s exactly what I mean, and that a clearer structure might be something that would be really valuable in your service.

 

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[freek]

That’s exactly what I mean, and that a clearer structure might be something that would be really valuable in your service.

thanks mikel, any ideas how i can further improve the idear?

 

[KateKendrick]

This will be quite a long post so please bear with me.
While reading the millionaire fastlane i started thinking about problems in my own life i either needed a solution for or a problem i already solved. I am a 19 year old man who started focussing on improving myself, going to the gym, reading etc. Luckily for me there are a lot of other boys like me (look at all the fast growing self improvement channels targeted at young men on youtube). For me personally it was very hard to stick to good habits, eliminate bad habits, go to the gym etc until I made a tracker in excel. From then on I got a little bit better every week, I adjusted and improved this tracker for more than a year. It was exactly the type of accountability I needed, the tracker also gave me a very cool overview of my progress over the weeks and it became a challenge for me to improve from week to week. I will attach some screenshots of my tracker.

Now you may think what is so special about your tracker since there are already a lot of habit trackers in the app store.
Well, I will tell you exactly why I think mine is just a lot better. First of all i used a lot of the habit trackers myself but just lost interest and stopped using them after a week or so. What I think my tracker does so well is that it gives me scores of my performance every day, week and month. Secondly it not only includes habits but also bad habits, hours worked, sleep, gym etc. So the weekly score is based around all aspects I was focused on improving. This made it so that some weeks I was really bad at focussing on habits but for instance my productivity was really high and so I would still get a decent score. I also made it so that every habit had a difference in importance. For me for example I would score "make my bed" a 1/5 in importance and "deep work session 1" a 4/5. For instance maybe watching netflix is a bad habit but it is by far not as bad as taking drugs, so the score reflects this. I think the pictures explain this a lot better.
View attachment 45971View attachment 45972

Thirdly, the comparison with previous weeks also made me feel a lot better in weeks where I didn't do as well, when I could look back and see that in general I was improving over the months. A bad day or week felt not so bad anymore. Also seeing improvement for example in less screen time really showed me that I was actually doing a lot better than I used to be even when I didn't feel like it at the moment. Like this chart shows below (i have the same type of charts for the habits, bad habits, amount of times i went to the gym etc.
View attachment 45975
And finally I can also make it so that at the end of the year you get stats like you went to the gym 100 times. You did 200 days of meditation your average time on your phone was 2 hours and your average score improved by 2.0. I think this would be really cool. Also something like "This month you struggled with X but Y went very well, good job"

okay i could talk for hours about my tracker but i think you get the main picture. My idea was to put my tracker in a website where people can sign up for free and adjust their own variables, so one person might really value the habit of meditation and for other people they might value this at only a 1/5 in terms of importance or not at all. Everybody would be able to make their own personalized tracker.

The idea for this tracker came about after listening to David Goggins audiobook where he talks about the accountability mirror. Jocko Willink, another very influential person on young boys also talks about taking ownership a lot.

But of course this tracker would not be enough on its own, i want to take all the good parts of self improvements and make it into 1 website

• a forum, some kind of goal page where people can write and track their progress to their goals (similar to notion). People would be able to choose whether other members can view their progress and or goals or not.
• make it possible to link your smart watches to the website so things like exercise are automatically connected to the tracker.
• a page where community members can recommend books like the millionaire fastlane and write a quick review. So people can filter on things like social skills, entrepreneurship, habit forming etc and they would be able to see which books are recommended by the community.
• A journal page where you can write either for yourself or for other members of the community, also linked with the tracker.
• A competition/tournament page where members can opt into challenges to see who can get the highest score on the tracker, workout the most in a month/read the most books etcetera.
• A section for courses, this would be something where either community members can post their courses/insights or collaborations with big creators who can post their courses there.
• A section where members can vote for their favorite self improvement videos, which will then be recommended to other users.
• And tons more

The upsides of this idea in my opinion

• Very big target group
• Tons off potential for monetization
• It would really improve people's lives (like the tracker did for me)
• It solves a big problem (lack of accountability, lack of measure of progress, people who want to improve but just don't stick to habits)

The downsides of this idea

• People who can't stick to habits are not likely to fill in a habit tracker. (however i was this person and this really changed things for me)

I am looking forward to your thoughts, criticism and insights.

Koen

Hey Koen! I think this is a great idea! I specifically love the idea of tracking negatives as well as positives, to give you a weekly score. I have a fitness business and would love something like this for my clients. Kate

 

[S.Y.]

Great idea. If the tracker is well done, I would certainly pay for it. The idea of having a score is an interesting twist for sure.

For the general public, you face the same issue as any of those habit tracker apps: accountability. How do you make people stick to using them in the long term? And how will your app help them turn their data into something actionable? Gamifying it can be a solution.

A niche for people in the wellness industry can be another avenue. Say nutritionist, "coaches", as it can give them a window into what their clients are doing.

If you haven't looked already, I suggest exploring the quantified self community. Though I don't know how big it is these days; in the past, there were great projects to do something similar that you can learn from.

 

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[freek]

Hey Koen! I think this is a great idea! I specifically love the idea of tracking negatives as well as positives, to give you a weekly score. I have a fitness business and would love something like this for my clients. Kate

thanks kate!
What kind of business do you have? And what would be important features to make my website valuable for your business?

 

[KateKendrick]

thanks kate!
What kind of business do you have? And what would be important features to make my website valuable for your business?

Hi!

I run group training sessions and run goal-setting programs in schools. It would be amazing to have a platform that I could get my athletes to populate so they can track their progress and that I can log into to keep an eye on them and provide guidance. What I would really love is something that I could buy (or subscribe to) and brand as my own with my logo. NO ONE ELSE HAS THIS YET!!!

Mate - the very best of luck to you - I think you're onto something

 

[freek]

Great idea. If the tracker is well done, I would certainly pay for it. The idea of having a score is an interesting twist for sure.

For the general public, you face the same issue as any of those habit tracker apps: accountability. How do you make people stick to using them in the long term? And how will your app help them turn their data into something actionable? Gamifying it can be a solution.

A niche for people in the wellness industry can be another avenue. Say nutritionist, "coaches", as it can give them a window into what their clients are doing.

If you haven't looked already, I suggest exploring the quantified self community. Though I don't know how big it is these days; in the past, there were great projects to do something similar that you can learn from.

Thank you S.Y!

i agree, with the accountability issue, i was thinking of making it some sort of competition among members. And as you suggested further improve the concept of gamifying the experience, i got tons if ideas for this.
Also highlighting the things that went well even in bad weeks. At least for me if i had a really shitty day i would still get motivated to do X and Y habit because this would mean i would at least score better on these habits than i did last week so even in bad weeks i could pick my small victories. This would be highlighted by special messages in the app with some kind of weekly report with focus on the positive things especially in the bad weeks.
And the beauty of habits is the fact that they get easier everyweek, if you do it right it will just be in your system at some point. I think this really motivated me to keep sticking to the tracker. Progress is fun.

Thanks for your suggestion, i haven't looked into the quantified self community at all, will definitely do this!

 

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[freek]

Hi!

I run group training sessions and run goal-setting programs in schools. It would be amazing to have a platform that I could get my athletes to populate so they can track their progress and that I can log into to keep an eye on them and provide guidance. What I would really love is something that I could buy (or subscribe to) and brand as my own with my logo. NO ONE ELSE HAS THIS YET!!!

Mate - the very best of luck to you - I think you're onto something

Hi,
This is a really good idea, thanks!
so if i understand this correctly this would mean i sell some sort of a license whitch would allow you to use my program for your own groups with your own logo etc. In this program your clients could sign up and log their progress on the training programs you provide. This would allow you to monitor their progress and see where or what clients are struggling with.

I have some more ideas for this just let me know if this would be valuable or a waste of time

• a community section where people in your program can chat and discuss the training
• an announcement page were you would be able to post information relevant for all your clients
• the ability to chat/call with individual clients. (so for instance someone is struggeling and you can contact this person straight away
• a "like" function where you can praise individuals who performed really well in certain weeks In addition to this members of the group could write little comments to people's progress (if they choose to make this public to the group) Maybe even a "social" section where people can post a little picture of for example a healthy meal, the gym after they hit a pr of a picture from outdoors after a nice run.
• some sort of "shoutout function" were you write a little story with maybe a picture off a client who did really well in the past month, this would be a special tab that all members of your group can see.
• the ability to track calories in the app
• set specific challenges in your Groups. Clients could opt in if they are up for the challenge (for instance a 5k run)
• Make it an app as well as a website

further i would really like to know what aspects are important for you to track. Would this only be workouts or other stuff as well?

Thanks for your feedback once again!

 

[KateKendrick]

Hi!

I run group training sessions and run goal-setting programs in schools. It would be amazing to have a platform that I could get my athletes to populate so they can track their progress and that I can log into to keep an eye on them and provide guidance. What I would really love is something that I could buy (or subscribe to) and brand as my own with my logo. NO ONE ELSE HAS THIS YET!!!

Mate - the very best of luck to you - I think you're onto something

Hi,
This is a really good idea, thanks!
so if i understand this correctly this would mean i sell some sort of a license whitch would allow you to use my program for your own groups with your own logo etc. In this program your clients could sign up and log their progress on the training programs you provide. This would allow you to monitor their progress and see where or what clients are struggling with.

I have some more ideas for this just let me know if this would be valuable or a waste of time

• a community section where people in your program can chat and discuss the training
• an announcement page were you would be able to post information relevant for all your clients
• the ability to chat/call with individual clients. (so for instance someone is struggeling and you can contact this person straight away
• a "like" function where you can praise individuals who performed really well in certain weeks In addition to this members of the group could write little comments to people's progress (if they choose to make this public to the group) Maybe even a "social" section where people can post a little picture of for example a healthy meal, the gym after they hit a pr of a picture from outdoors after a nice run.
• some sort of "shoutout function" were you write a little story with maybe a picture off a client who did really well in the past month, this would be a special tab that all members of your group can see.
• the ability to track calories in the app
• set specific challenges in your Groups. Clients could opt in if they are up for the challenge (for instance a 5k run)
• Make it an app as well as a website

further i would really like to know what aspects are important for you to track. Would this only be workouts or other stuff as well?

Thanks for your feedback once again!

Hello again!

What I know would work is that if my athletes, who know and respect each other, could share their goals and progress/activities with the community. We talk about accountability and we've tried various things, such as training buddies (works best), training diaries (less so) and daily motivational talks (usually works), but I know that if they know that their whole fitness community is watching their journey - they will do better. This will work.

A function where I can talk to them and provide feedback would definitely be great.

Tracking calories is out - tracking macros is in. Tracking protein intake would be handy. Tracking hydration would also be handy. Tracking weight loss is also wildly popular. Specific challenges would be a great addition and could be used to promote upcoming events.

I think it would definitely need to be an app. I could pay to have the app branded for my business, and the clients could also then subscribe. OR you could offer the branding free to businesses to encourage more gyms/boxes to get their clients on board... the gym owners then effectively sell the app for you.

People love to post their show reels on social media, and they'll be happy to share their fitness success stories, but I'd love a space where people can also be honest about their failures, these conversations bond people and will help strengthen our community.

I hope some of this helpful - these are my insights after running the business for a while, for background, I have 200+ members and have been operating for 7 years.

Good luck Koen!

Kate