When creating new habits, we often need gentle reminders and motivators to assist us in accomplishing our goals. Awhile ago, I discovered a beautiful little iOS app from Zervaas Enterprises called Streaks to help me do just that and I’ve used it daily ever since.

Streaks is a task list app that helps you to solidify habits in your life. The app tracks your progress for up to six tasks and the goal is to build up a consecutive streak for accomplishing those tasks. You determine how often you want to complete your tasks, whether it be every day, every other day, 3 times a week or even once a week.

The Main Task Screen

The main screen lists your tasks and the progress you’ve made on them. It’s fun to watch your task circles move throughout the day as you get closer to your goals. The top right corner of the screen displays your current streak, your best streak, how often you’ve attained your goal in the last 7 days and in the last 30 days. To complete a task, hold down on your task circle until the border fills in. However, tasks connected with the Health app update automatically.

Integration with the Health App

What I found especially attractive about this app was its seamless integration with the Health app to help you achieve your fitness goals. If you track your health data on your iPhone or Apple Watch, the app automatically shows your task progress and completion. For instance, one of my tasks is to walk a minimum of 10000 steps daily. As I progress throughout my day, the app constantly updates my progress, letting me know how much I have yet to go. I also track my movement/calories which is also automatically updated from the Health app.

Adding Tasks

To add a new task, click the Add A Task button on the main screen. The app includes several sample tasks that you can use as a starting point, with many of them integrating with the Health app. Of course, you can create your own custom tasks as well. To do so, type in the name of your new task in the CREATE YOUR OWN box and then tap the right-pointing arrow to move to the next screen. Here, you choose how many days a week you want to accomplish the task by tapping on the appropriate circle. You can also change the task icon by clicking the circle containing the three dots and choosing the icon you want to use. The app offers hundreds of icons to choose from.

App Customization

If you don’t like the app’s theme color, you can change it from the Settings screen – there’s quite a nice selection of colors to choose from. From the Settings screen, you can also rearrange your tasks, set notification options as well as add new tasks.

The Notifications page is where set the frequency of your reminders – to a single daily reminder, a reminder for each task or no reminders at all. I like that this app doesn’t take the nagging* approach that you see in many other task-based apps.

Verdict

The simple, elegant interface makes this app a joy to use. It inspires and motivates you to keep your streaks going. It’s an excellent way to build positive habits and I find that I’ll often push myself at the end of the day to ensure that I don’t ruin my current streak. This app has become one of my favorite tools and has earned a place on my home screen. Recommended!

The app is $3.99 and is available from the App Store.

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