The Journal App Making Journal: Day 55

User experience with the Clear Habit Journal

Continue to journal on two questions everyday in this Journal App Making Journal.

1. What have I learned about app design and development today?

Taking a break from coding today.

2. What have I learned about journaling products / technologies / other journal users today?

Continue to look into journaling products / technologies out there today.

Featured journaling technology today: The Clear Habit Journal

> About the Clear Habit Journal

This is a physical notebook designed by James Clear, the author of the bestselling book, Atomic Habits. I have been using it as an implementation system for the book, and experimenting with my own habit change over 21 days, to assess how effective the journaling system is. This experiment will end on Day 56.

> Key ideas I learned from Atomic Habits today

Atomic Habits is a book about the four principles of habit and behaviour change — Make It Obvious, Attractive, Easy, and Satisfying.

My reading today was all about Making It Satisfying.

• On surface, the principle of Making It Satisfying seems similar to the one about Making It Attractive. At closer inspection, the main difference lies in, attraction refers to the incentive to start, whereas satisfaction refers to the user experience, “a habit needs to be enjoyable for it to last … And change is easy when it is enjoyable.”
• Given Apple Inc. has recently crossed the landmark valuation of $2 trillion, and be the first company in the world to do so, it does bring home the message that great user experience is power. Apple products are absolutely the iconic and quintessential representation of attractiveness, ease, and satisfaction combined.
• I particularly like the example applications of this principle to personal financial behaviour change. Creating a savings account with a label, “Leather Jacket”, makes putting cut spending into that account a satisfying rather than depriving experience.
• Another application of this is habit tracking to create a sense of progress, pursuing unbroken streaks as a sense of achievement.
• The last key application is the use of an accountability buddy. Social belonging, approval, and cost are all part of a behaviour’s experience.

> The UX of using Clear Habit Journal for my own habit change

• I have not used the Habit Tracker available within the Clear Habit Journal to track my meditation habit. Because the Calm app I use automatically tracks it.
• It is interesting today to read about the satisfaction of habit tracking however. Because it does seem that by delegating the tracking to technology and not actively ticking off the activity, I have robbed myself of the satisfaction of its completion. And, it may have contributed to me skipping some days in reflection.

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