A habit app from Zen Habits that will create personal habit formulas to help users overcome resistance & stick to new habits.
This app is starting its life as a habit tracker web app, but that’s nothing special. There are probably a couple dozen of those.
Habit Zen is going to be the first habit app that learns how to best overcome resistance.
The truth is that the mechanics of creating habits is easy. But people fail to create habits because they don’t know how to overcome the resistance that comes up after a week or two of trying to stick to a habit.
So we’re going to learn how to overcome resistance, through Habit Zen.
How?
I’m creating this app because I know how powerful habit change can be, and I want to help thousands of others overcome resistance and change their lives too.
I’m Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog. Many of you know that in 2005, I started a habit journey that continues to this day. I changed nearly every habit in my life:
I started Zen Habits in January 2007 and it became a fairly well-read blog, I’ve written numerous books and ebooks to help people live better lives, and I created the Sea Change program to help people change one habit at a time.
Now I want to take my learning to another level, and see how I can help people in a new way.
We’re going to use this app to run a bunch of fascinating experiments with habits. By using the app, you’ll be helping us learn how to help people best stick to the habits they’re trying to form.
For example, this app will allow us to test:
And much more! By testing these out, we’ll be able to help create an optimal habit formula, and help you stick to things longer.
But the habit formula won’t just be a general formula … in the premium version of this app (not developed yet), we want to create your own personalized formula. If all goes well, we’ll create a way for the app to learn from you, how you work best, and make suggestions for altering your habit formula as it learns.
In this way, any habit failures will just be more information for making your formula better!
We’ll also share what formulas help the most successful users stick to their habits.
Finally, the premium version will be a kind of habit coach, creating a plan, giving you advice, helping you create your formula, and giving you feedback and encouragement to keep going.
Right now, we have a working beta version of Habit Zen. It’s a web app only (no phone app), and it’s just a simple habit tracker. Check in, see some stats, get an email reminder.
But we’re going to take it beyond that. Here’s the general plan at the moment (subject to change):
Phase 1: Build a testing platform and run numerous habit tests, learning as we go. The app will get better as we test, and will start offering tips and features based on the tests. (6 months)
Phase 2: Create a premium version that will become a habit coach, with personalized tips, plans, and a personalized habit formula. We’ll continue to run experiments as well. Note: the premium version will pay for future development, it’s not for my personal profit. (3 months)
Phase 3: Create iPhone and Android versions of the app. And continue to run experiments and improve the premium version. (3 months)
Overall, my hope is to get this all done in about a year. However, delays and adjustments to the plan are possible.
I just need enough money to pay my developers and designer (along with some server costs) until we get a premium version of the app to start paying for development costs.
So I’m hoping to fund this project for the next 6-9 months.
As a stretch goal (see next section), I’d like you to help me fund the first mobile version of the app.
Here are my costs for the $50,000 goal:
That’s $50,000 total. If there are extra funds (beyond stretch goal below), I’ll put much of it towards the developers so we can work faster, and take a little more for myself as reimbursement.
If we get beyond the $50K goal, I’d like to try to get to $75,000 total as a stretch goal, to fund the iPhone app.
Actually I’d ideally like to do both an iPhone and Android app … but I can’t fund both. So I’m going to fund an iPhone app first, then learn from that and do an Android app second.
So if you get the funding of this campaign to the stretch goal of $75K, I’ll hire someone to build an iPhone app, and my hope is that it will make enough money from the premium version to fund the Android version as well.
Aside from it being similar to my blog’s name (Zen Habits), I decided that this app will distinguish itself from other habit apps by using mindfulness. So, as usual, I’m stealing ideas from Zen and Buddhism.
Specifically, I’d like to help people become aware of their stories around their habit change … and see how the stories are causing resistance. By learning to deal mindfully with resistance, we can overcome the resistance that’s standing in our way.
In this way, habits become the vehicle for self-learning and development of self-trust. I’ve stolen this all from Zen, and so I’ve baked it into the title.
To encourage you to help me build this … I’m creating some rewards that will be exclusive to this Kickstarter campaign (depending on what level you fund):
Of course, which of these you get depends on which funding level you choose. :)
In the end, this is not about the rewards. It’s not about me getting paid, nor about the developers making any money. It’s not even about an app.
This project is about helping others who are struggling with changing their lives. It’s as simple as that.
I’ve done a lot of things to try to help people change habits and create new lives for themselves — from my blog to my Sea Change program, to writing ebooks. But this is going to help me take it to the next level.
I need your help to do this. I’m out of funds, I’m broke, and I’m asking you to fund this out of the goodness of your heart.
It will help me a lot. But most importantly, it will help me help thousands of others who could sure use the help. I want to help them. Fund this project, and be a part of this.
I’ve never created an app before, though I am working with experienced developers. We’ve already created a working beta version, so I’m confident we’ll keep developing it with competence, but how it will turn out is a big unknown.
I can’t guarantee how this app will end up. I guarantee that I will work hard on it and do my very best.