AN INCREDIBLE APP FOR HABIT FORMING


Welcome back everyone! With 2020 upon us, we’ve all heard radio announcers, TV hosts and article authors talk endlessly about New Year Resolutions, how hard they are to keep, and how often people fail to honour their resolution past the end of January. If we begin to think of New Year Resolutions simply as new habits we want to develop, then we can use a simple habit former app to keep those desired habits constantly top of mind.


Let’s start with an example. So as many of you know, I’m a dentist here in the Hat. And dentists are supposed to have perfect oral hygiene. But guess what? I don’t. Not even close. To be perfectly honest, there are weeks where I go without fl ossing. This is obviously not ideal, especially since I tell patients on a daily basis that they need to fl oss more… that’s some Pharisee-level hypocrisy right there, if you ask me.


Thankfully, I discovered an app that’s FINALLY got me fl ossing daily. It’s called Streaks.


Streaks allows you to pick up to 12 habits that you really want to develop. In the App, at the turn of each new day, the habits you’ve chosen are


set as incomplete (see bottom left icon in photo). As you fi nish each one, you simply hold your fi nger on the icon and it will fi ll in with colour, indicating you’ve completed the task (see other 5 icons in photo).


As you complete tasks multiple times, Streaks will let you know how many days in a row you’ve maintained the streak by showing a little number on each icon (e.g. for my “Floss Your Teeth” goal, you can see I’m looking good at 12 days in a row, but am only on Day 1 when it comes to “Don’t Complain” - Yikes).


If you haven’t completed a scheduled habit by midnight, then your streak starts over at 0.


You can set your chosen habits to be performed multiple times per day, weekly or even once per month. It’s all up to you! Flossing should be daily people, not monthly.


Some habits are those of action. For example: “Floss Your Teeth.” Others are those of omission, such as “Don’t Eat Sugar”. For those habits of omission, you can set a “life count” such that you have a few chances per day to mess up before you lose your streak entirely. For example, I’m


trying to become a person who never complains by practicing the habit “Don’t Complain.” However, it’s not easy to stop complaining cold turkey! Thus, I have two chances per day; as you can see in the image, I already lost one of my chances today. I better not complain again, or my incredible streak of 1 will be broken… what can I say, it’s a process.


To learn more, check out www.streaksapp.com to get a more in-depth explanation of just how this app works. It’s especially powerful with Apple Watch, and it has seriously changed my life.


- Michael the Dentist is a dentist at River Dental


OPEN SATURDAYS


www.RiverDental.com 403.526.5991


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