Two years ago, a casual remark by a boss directed me to investigate apps based on gamification and behavior modification. Per his suggestion, I downloaded Streaks, which has been one of the more interesting excursions of the past few years, especially for the kind of person who likes a data-driven life in the Tim Ferris mode.

What is Streaks? iPhone users will be familiar with the idea of “closing your circles” in regards to physical activity, the idea being that the phone is actively tracking your steps, but also, somehow your standing (vs sitting) minutes and even “mindful minutes.” (No idea how it does this.) I have an iPhone and am occasionally closing the movement circles, but mostly just on long walks. The problem is, it doesn’t, for example, have any idea when I go to Yoga, which might be 250-450 calories, or Jiu Jitsu, which is easily 600-900, because the phone does not come onto the mat. (iWatch and telemetry strap users have a distinct advantage here, of course, but I haven’t found this device to be appropriate for Hot Yoga or grappling, where it can slip off.) A a telemetry strap would do better, but I’ve found these to perform very unevenly. So the workaround is to enter your data manually. Streaks offers a similar functionality, largely manually. That is to say you write up a series of tasks you want to accomplish and then “close your circle” manually in the app, when you accomplish them. Simple, low tech. Also easy to overlook, until it becomes a habit. Which it does.

Some tasks are connected to outside devices, which is great. For example, I don’t actually need to close my “weigh myself” circle manually, because I have a Wi-Fi-connected scale, which ‘knows’ when I’ve weighed myself, and closes my circle. That said, as a general practice, I usually just do it manually. Something in your brain learns to like closing circles, and hates leaving a circle unclosed. Thus, gamification.

The streak occurs when you have continuously completed a circle. Every time you complete a daily task the streak increments, so it would be very typical for me to see something like taking my meds streak at 22, whereas I think my highest streak in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is 4—more to do with age and the needs of active recovery from combat sports, than anything else. In cases like that I want to break my streak somewhat deliberately, if only to work a different set of muscle groups.

You have to know yourself a bit for this to work. If you are the kind of person who is going to be very hard on yourself every time a streak breaks, this quickly becomes a stressful exercise and slowly, a source of avoidance. Better to just track neutrally, and let the system do its work. You can see your current performance as a percentage at any time, and adapt.

At first one might be tempted to add a lot of items as circles, in my experience I would discourage this. With too many tasks, a lot of them aren’t getting closed and you start to a) feel like a loser but also helpfully b) recognize the impact of overcommitting to too many things, in your focus and consistency. As this happens, you’re also unconsciously learning to dread and avoid the app, harming your close rates and eroding the data. This is a vicious cycle that can be avoided by just tracking fewer things, and of course this is a helpful guide to life. Do less, but better.

Generally, I’ve found that the tracking skews below what you are actually achieving, it’s easy to do something and forget to track it. In my case I’m also fairly certain some of my connected devices occasionally lost connection, so blood pressure monitoring, for example, is much lower that what I think is the true number, same with taking meds. Sometimes, especially with unconscious daily tasks, you just forget.

Other times–and this turns out to be a big theme, here–you avoid. Generally I don’t weigh myself over the holidays, or rush to take my blood pressure after a night of partying. You know the news is bad and you don’t need to wallow in it. Sometimes the data itself can seem judgmental. This is an important corollary of this lifestyle, which benefits from an approach common in meditation: be the observer, not the judge. If you feel judgment creeping in, brush it gently to the side, and just say, “thinking.” But track, no matter what. You’re training yourself to see through your own bullshit.

So, now you know how it works. Let’s take a look at what I tracked and how I scored this year.

Scores

Read fiction: 27% of days. Desired score 2025: 50%.
Recorded my blood pressure: 27%. Desired score 2025: 95%.
Recorded my weight 53% of the time. Desired score 2025: 80%.
Trained Jiu Jitsu 23%. Desired Score 2025: 40%.
Took BP Meds 71.3%. Desired Score 2025: 95%.
Closed move rings 57%. Desired score 2025: 80%.

So let’s reflect on these for a second.

My fiction reading seems so meager most days, I’m surprised that the number is this high. It’s been made easier by the Libby app, though, which allows me to borrow library books for free–if you are willing to wait for them to become available in your library. This reduced my overall amazon/bookstore expenses. I’d like to commit to buying books on Amazon less–any that can be gained via Libby, always do that, and any that can be purchased in the store, always do that, that is, if you like having bookstores around.

This number also doesn’t include Audiobooks, including them would make the number significantly higher. Libby also supplies these, but I do enjoy, use, and incorporate Audible into my routines, and have a pretty extensive library there. Not sure why I should continue to pay for it, except to maintain access to the books I already have.

I’ve also benefited, almost immediately, from following Instagrammers (so-called BookTok) who provide brief reviews of books, that I take straight to Libby. I never really followed this kind of media before, and it provides the benefit of being able to feel like I’m connected to and know what’s going on in the genres and spaces of the literary world. Reminder to self–join a less genre-based book reviewer, a literature and fiction reviewer, and Reddit space, perhaps?

My blood pressure was a disaster and the number has fallen due to a cascade effect of ending contracts -> stress -> bad habits/inertia -> going to BJJ and Yoga less -> Bad diet -> Weight gain -> less desire to exercise, and on and on, in a vicious cycle. What is the original sin here? Ending a work contract and starting the search process again, which upends schedules and routines, kicking off the whole cycle. I need to either 1) get another one or 2) Get continuous work where I am in order to feel less stressed, which breaks the whole system. The life of a freelancer? Is stressful.

The big takeaway here is the discovery of cornerstone disciplines, the disciplines that create an atmosphere or chain reaction of other good habits. In my case, BJJ has proven to be the cornerstone discipline, and long walks. Both close movement rings, but BJJ compels a tremendous amount of weight loss and force you to take care of yourself to stay competitive, while long walks quietly burn calories but also allow time for reflection, reading audiobooks, or dictation.

The opposite of cornerstone disciplines are antipatterns, bad habits that create or enable other bad habits. Phone use, caffeine, cigarettes, bad diet, et cetera. Most anything you find yourself doing at a party, “treating yourself,” and so forth, all probably qualify. Not intrinsically bad, but especially bad if allowed to continue unmonitored. Monitoring and tracking are the sword-and-shield. In my case, I was surprised to discover my chief antipattern is caffeine, which starts a chain reaction of burn-bright/burn-out cycles that leave me depleted. Did I stop drinking caffeine? No! But I drink a lot less coffee now, more tea and mushroom powders.

Recording my weight–I’m also surprised this worked as well as it did. Helpers: connecting the scale to the app. Hinderers: Overeating/weight gain/eating early in the morning generally make me not want to weigh myself because I feel the results will be skewed–and they will, but I need to remember that the skew is part of the process and viewing the results honestly is the first step, table stakes.

BJJ Training has gone well but my numbers are below desired, and even moderately below expected. Often on days I’m not training, I’m doing something else that qualifies–yoga, going on a walk or a run, or just spending time with loved ones or socializing. This one is simple: choose days, go on them. Sometimes things will come up, keep going. I’ve come to realize I would be a lot better if I was willing to have no social life, which is not possible for a freelancer who must Always Be Closing. Measuring attendance via the Streaks app has done wonders for my consistency and monitoring. The Streaks app truly is a cornerstone of a good system of systems.

My BP meds are below where I want to be but higher than expected, as I do try to stay on top of this. I need to be more diligent about pick-ups at the store when these become ready–a huge slippage site is just finding time to get to the drug store. Indeed, if the pick ups are at my local Walgreens, I might be able to close two circles by walking to pick them up!

I’m very proud of my work around the move rings. I think I can get better results if I re-engage with Noom to record and track my diet. Noom provides another system of systems. I think the solution here is simple: Buy the annual plan and force-commit to one year of engagement. Being able to add Noom to my circles will provide immediate benefit. A big contributor to the move rings this year were the walks outside. These are also a useful personal and reflective time, they’ve given me great, usable creative ideas, and I’ve managed to learn a way to incorporate AI into my idea-generation and journaling process, as an aid in dictation. That said, 57% is lower than desired if not expected. It’s better than I might have thought I would do. (Remember that listening to Audiobooks closes the “read fiction” ring!)

New Additions and Plans for 2025

Write 30m/day: 50%. If consistency can be achieved here, turn up the volume, but not until then.
Practice Calisthenics (Yoga, Seven, etc): 35%.

Other Strategies

Enable Noom annual plan.
Find a BJJ app, e.g. Juggernaut.
Add meditate/find a meditation practice app?
Consider negative goals, things to NOT do, e.g. “no brown liquor,” no smoking, etc, that can also be streaked.
Balance against desire to keep the number of goals small, manageable, and focused. We don’t want Streaks usage to become a chore, or its own time-suck, something that calls us into the phone to get lost there. Maybe consider a general daily time to apply scores?
Organize the phone so finding things is easy and you spend the absolute minimum of time there. Remove unused apps.

Overall Takeaways and System Modifications

Vacations, Holidays, and other extended rest or bench periods are the sites where “slippage” occurs, damage is done and backsliding is happening. I need to closely monitor these slippage sites and keep them under control. If you look at weight gain charts, for example, the weekend is a regular and reliable slippage site, and undoes a lot of the good progress accumulated during the week.
Don’t worry too much if an item’s circle is not getting closed every day. The core of this activity is the monitoring, which leads to completion, so even if you can’t complete a task, continue to monitor it.
Identify the cornerstones, the behaviors that compel other good behaviors. Protect them diligently.
What you don’t do is often as important as what you do.
Have fallbacks. Using the Seven (workout) app isn’t as good as taking a class (Yoga, BJJ, etc) but it’s better than nothing and closes those rings.
Respect the process. If something says “write for 30 minutes,” write for 30 minutes. You can stop after that. If you want to keep going, that’s fine, but stopping is allowed, and expected. If you want to go further, go further. But it isn’t owed.
If you keep going further and find yourself doing better than the allotted amount of time, modify the title of the task to reflect your new capabilities. (e.g. “write for 30 minutes” becomes “40 minutes.”) If at the end of the year the stats are not 100% accurate, THIS IS ALLOWED. What is not allowed is backsliding, or reduction of effort. You want to increase muscle load where you can.
If a reduction is allowed this should trigger a review. A review must be documented.
Strive for high levels of consistency as opposed to high levels of output. We are training the mind, the training of the body is a side-effect and full benefit.
Concentrate, in 2025, in watching your form. Do less, more efficiently.
When in doubt, fall back to the cornerstones.