ForumsNewsNew Section: Habits
New Section: Habits
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AA |
Please, how do I get back to the "Suggested Habits" page? There were a few useful suggested Habits there, but as soon as I enabled the first 2 Habits, those suggestions disappeared, and there is no way to get them back. I can now find them neither on this website, nor in the Android app. (Also, it seems Habits are completely missing in the iOS app at this point. Lists are missing in both the iOS and Android app.)
It's really maddening that when I click here: http://habits.toodledo.com the Habits suggestions flash on the screen for a split-second, and then they immediately disappear, and only my 2 existing Habits appear instead. How do I get to see that suggestions page, please? This message was edited Jan 02, 2015. |
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Kiko |
Posted by Jake:
At the bottom of the habit's page, click "Complete Habit" and then you'll have the option to delete. A suggestion: re-write this sentence ("Complete Habit"), to explicitly inform delete option. Or create a separete Delete link? I was not clear to me, at a first glance, where to delete a habit. |
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Kiko |
Posted by AA:
Please, how do I get back to the "Suggested Habits" page? There were a few useful suggested Habits there, but as soon as I enabled the first 2 Habits, those suggestions disappeared, and there is no way to get them back. I can now find them neither on this website, nor in the Android app. (Also, it seems Habits are completely missing in the iOS app at this point. Lists are missing in both the iOS and Android app.) It's really maddening that when I click here: http://habits.toodledo.com the Habits suggestions flash on the screen for a split-second, and then they immediately disappear, and only my 2 existing Habits appear instead. How do I get to see that suggestions page, please? It's important to me, too. |
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Kiko |
Posted by Axl.l:
One thing: desimal! E.g. when monitoring my weight, I wish to have a comma point (or punctuation, depending on your preference), if my weight is 97.4kg today, and tomorrow my weight is fallen to 96.6kg. In this case there will not be a change in the stored value in the Habits section of 97kg! ... One ideia that came to me is, while this issue isn't fixed, to record numbers as 974, then, 966, that is, they are multiplied by ten. |
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AA |
I agree with Kiko. I also didn't know how to delete an Outline, especially in the Android app. (I only learned it here in the forum.)
I like these new additions (especially Habits and Lists) to Toodledo a lot, and I thank Toodledo for implementing them. However, I see many issues to start with. Here are my issues: 1) How do I get back to the Habits suggestions page? (See my previous post; the webpage has just completely vanished for me.) 2) Can I rename an existing Habit? (For example, to fix a typo.) I can't see the option. 3) Can I reorder the sequence of Habits, so that they follow my preferred sequence of performing them in the course of the day? I need custom sorting here, really. Alphabetical sorting of Habits would only confuse me. 4) Could we, please, also set up our preferred time/hour of day for performing a Habit? I don't necessarily mean an exact time to perform an activity, but a "not earlier than" hour, for example. Believe it or not, I have 20 morning Habits, and 20 evening Habits. Because I only perform evening Habits after 7 p.m. (for some of them, after 5 p.m.), those evening Habits don't need to clutter my Inbox before 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. arrives. I'd like to be able to specify, for every Habit, the preferred earliest hour of the day when I wish to perform the activity. Evening Habits should stay out of my Inbox if it's not 7 p.m. yet. 5) I only perform certain Habits every second day, every third day, or every weekday (but not weekends), every week/month/quarter... These Habits configuration options seem to be missing for now; only daily Habits are on the menu. This is, partly, a glaring omission also in Toodledo's main (Tasks) interface: it seems impossible to set up a Toodledo task to occur, for example, on "every second Tuesday of a new month", or "the last weekday in a month", or "the first weekend day of a new month", or "every weekend day, but not weekday", etc. I'm really missing these advanced recurrence configuration options both for Toodledo Tasks, and now also Habits. Thank you for implementing these suggestions in future, if possible. Edit: Scratch no. 2... I accidentally clicked on the name of the Habit... and it can be renamed that way! It never would have occurred to me that the name of the Habit was clickable there, let alone editable. It's a great find, but purely accidental. To resolve issue no. 1, I again deleted/archived my Habits. It appears that suggested Habits are only available if you have set up 1 Habit (or no Habits). I think, though, that the suggestions should be accessible at all times. For anyone looking for them, I have composed a screenshot of all default Habits Suggestions on my iPad: https://db.tt/gbzxBaDo It's not immediately clear whether a particular Habit is a checkbox/numbers/ratings Habit, but the list can help in setting up Habits. I agree with the need for decimal numbers for tracking Weight, for example. You can enter decimal numbers even now, but Toodledo will round them up or down automatically, which is not what I prefer. For example, if I enter 86.6, Toodledo automatically rounds it up to 87. (And a couple of minutes later, without my doing anything, it reverts it to 86!) That's not good. Similarly, for tracking Sleep, [14)] we need both hours and minutes, not just hours. Or, for Reading, not just minutes, but both hours and minutes. For each Habit, we should be given the option to choose either hours, or minutes, or both, to track that particular Habit. General PS: I'm really missing Markdown, throughout Toodledo's user inteface, in all Notes fields (both on the web and in mobile apps), as well as here in the Forum. It's so much easier to type asterisks *like this*, instead of having to type out the full HTML tags for italics, bold (etc.) every time. Also, when accessing Forum topics from my Watchlist, the direct link "Go to most recent [unread] post in this thread" is missing. If it's a 10-page thread, you need to go to page 1 of that thread first, then manually click to go to the last page of the thread, and then manually search for the most recent [unread] post. It's inefficient and time-consuming. Please fix these usability issues on Toodledo.com, if possible. Thank you. This message was edited Jan 02, 2015. |
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AA |
6) We need the ability to mark a Habit as uncompleted for today, "prematurely". For example, if your Habit is "Don't Eat Junkfood", but if you eat junkfood for breakfast... well, that Habit is already broken for today, the chain is already broken, in the morning of that day. I should be able to mark that Habit as not completed for today, although it may only be 9 in the morning, so that that "broken" Habit no longer clutters my Inbox for the rest of today. Similarly, if your Habit is "Morning Exercise", but it's already afternoon, that Habit should no longer be visible in your Inbox, because it can no longer be completed today. I now have a bunch of Habits in my Inbox that can no longer be completed today (it's either too late to complete them now in the afternoon, or today I've already broken my "Don't do this" resolution, etc.). I should be able to clean my Inbox so that, throughout the day, the Inbox only shows me those Habits that still can be accomplished today (and ideally, around this time today, see #4 above). So, I believe that instead of only 2 sections on the Habits page, "Inbox" and "Completed", there should be 3 sections: "Inbox", "Completed", and "Missed Today" (or something like that).
Workaround for item #3 from my list above: because Toodledo currently only supports alphabetic listing of Habits, I have renamed them using an alpha-numeric system. For example, m01- Morning Exercise, m02- Morning Shave, m03- Breakfast... whatever. And then, v01 - Watch Evening News, v02 - Play with kids, v03 - Call mom... whatever, for evening Habits. That way, at least, the Habits show up in my Inbox in the (rough) chronological sequence in which they're meant to be performed in the course of the day – "evening" Habits are no longer mixed up with "morning" Habits, etc. This message was edited Jan 02, 2015. |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
The Habits section is still in it's infancy, and we have plans to make a lot of improvements to it soon. We wanted to get a "minimal viable product" available for Jan 1, so people could start using it and we could start getting feedback.
Based on this feedback, we have already made a change to allow decimal numbers when recording your habits. On the website you can now enter decimals. In our mobile apps, it will still enforce integers until the next update to the native apps are available. We also plan to add: 1) alarms 2) habits that repeat other than daily and 3) more clear way to delete a habit 4) a way to view the suggested habits even after you have added a few habits 5) sorting of habits |
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AA |
Thank you, Jake. I appreciate your bringing the feature to us from 1st January. I've been manually tracking most of these things in Excel up until now, so it's good I can transfer them to Toodledo.
However, the decimal numbers still don't work. Not on the website, either. It's buggy as described in my previous post. If I enter "89.5", it automatically rounds it up to "90". Then, without my doing anything, after a minute or so, the website changes it to "89". If I enter "89.4", the website rounds that down to "89". Worst of all, the chart then shows both of these values as being equally 90, not 89. |
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AA |
OK, thank you. You're likely fixing it as we speak, because now for the first time, the website accepted a decimal number from me, without rounding it up or down. Thank you.
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
You probably just had to refresh the page to get the changes.
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AA |
Nope, I had reloaded the page repeatedly (and in Chrome, not old Opera) before posting here. But all is good now; the decimals are sticking, even in old Opera now.
A few more (minor) bugs I noticed, or feature suggestions: 7) Habit titles don't seem to accept quotation marks. If you use a quotation mark within a Habit title, it then displays as \". Escape characters likely need to be implemented in the coding. 8) Alphabetic sorting is buggy for non-English users. Diacritic letters (such as Š) appear incorrectly at the end of the alphabet (following the letter Z). This is a very wide-spread bug (Google suffers from it, too), but it would certainly be nice to see it fixed. English is not the only language spoken on this planet. ;-) If the full Unicode range of characters is supported on Toodledo.com (and luckily, it is), then also Unicode-aware alphabetic listing should be employed. (That is, the letter Š, which is a mere variant of S, should follow the letter S in an alphabetic listing, not the letter Z.) 9) I'd welcome the option to mark a Habit as optional, not strictly necessary, occasional... Some kind of distinction between those Habits I really wish to adhere to every day, or every X days, and some other Habits, useful too, but not required. Maybe a priority feature for Habits, just like we have various priority levels for Tasks? (I currently have 68 Habits in Toodledo, which may give you an idea why I'd like to differentiate among them, if possible, as well as why I'd like to be able to "unclutter" my Inbox "in real time", see request #6 above.) 10) I'd welcome the ability to customize piechart colors. 11) I'd welcome the ability to customize the range shown in a data-chart. For example, for tracking your weight, it's scarcely necessary to display the entire numeric range from 0 to your actual weight. I'm afraid if any Toodledo user's weight were 50 or 70 pounds, they'd likely be dead soon. ;-) A customized range for a weight chart would make perfect sense – the range where your weight normally moves and fluctuates. The day-to-day variations in body weight would then be easier, more distinct to see. 12) I'd appreciate the option to see more time-ranges in the (pie)charts: not only the last 7, 30, or 365 days, but also basic units (even business units) like: current calendar week, current calendar month, current calender/business quarter, current calendar year, current 5-year plan, current x-year plan, all-time chart. 13) Additional report options/output from the charts would be great. For example, what's the average star rating for this particular Habit over the last 365 days? And how does it compare with the star rating for other Habits? What's the average number of hours per day I spent reading over the last 30 days? (Although a dot appears in the monthly chart, no exact numeric value is shown.) Thank you for considering these. This message was edited Jan 02, 2015. |
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AA |
Hi again, Jake & team,
If I may, I'd like to elucidate my request #6, above, a bit further. I believe that a crucial principle of GTD (Getting Things Done) is Inbox Zero. And I'm afraid that the way Toodledo Habits are set up now, they violate the Inbox Zero method of work. Illustration: I have 68 Habits in Toodledo set up right now. Yesterday, I managed to perform 43 of them. But 25 of my Habits remain stuck uncompleted in my Inbox for yesterday. I believe that this is wrong, from the point of view of GTD. If GTD teaches us anything, it's that our Inbox needs to be empty at the end of every day. It's not imperative for you to perform all tasks you planned to perform on a particular day – but it's imperative for you to reach Inbox Zero at the end of every day. Those tasks that you did not manage to do today, should be moved to/stored in some other place. In the case of Toodledo Habits, I believe that that other place could be something like a FAILED or MISSED basket. As soon as midnight strikes, I believe Toodledo's server should (for those Toodledo users who would prefer this mode of operation) automatically move any scheduled Habits not completed, to the FAILED basket. Even more crucially, we should be given the ability to move any Habit to the FAILED basket manually, at any time of the day, even on the previous (!) day, if we're well aware we won't be able to perform a particular Habit tomorrow. If I know today I won't be able to perform a particular Habit tomorrow, why should it land in my Inbox tomorrow at all, cluttering it needlessly? Let's put it in the FAILED/MISSED basket right away, right now, so that tomorrow in my Inbox, I'll only get to see those Habits which I can, realistically, perform on that day. Please consider one of your default suggested Habits, "Don't Smoke". What if I smoke a cigarette the first thing in the morning, despite my original resolve to the contrary? Why should the "Don't Smoke" Habit then remain sticking in my Inbox, cluttering it for the entire rest of that day? It doesn't make sense, does it? I can no longer check off that Habit today, after all, because I already failed in the morning. The only thing that that "Don't Smoke" Habit does in my Inbox now, is obstructing the clear view for me of those Habits that I still can successfully complete today. In my Inbox, I'd only like to see those Habits in which I can still be successful today, so that I can clearly focus on them. Instead, what's happening to me every day now, is that my Habits Inbox in Toodledo is overflowing with Habits that I know I can no longer complete today... And this makes it very difficult for me to clearly see those Habits in my Inbox on which I should focus my energy and attention as I move through my day. Thank you for considering these concerns. This message was edited Jan 02, 2015. |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Being able to intentionally fail a habit for today is a good idea. I'll put it on our todo list.
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AA |
Thank you very much, Jake.
Being able to intentionally fail a habit for today is a good idea. Or for any day in the future, in fact. I know: [15)] the drop-down menu in Habits currently doesn't allow us to switch to any day in the future, but I believe it would be useful to allow us to do so. Especially for tomorrow. It's been a useful habit [heh!] of mine for many years, just before bedtime, to open Toodledo Tasks and look at upcoming tasks for tomorrow. I believe this is a recommended procedure by psychologists and productivity experts. Apparently, if you give your subconscious mind "something to think about" while you're asleep in nighttime, you might wake up in the morning with some of the issues for the upcoming day already resolved in your mind; they "resolved themselves" all the while you were asleep. ;-) For this reason, it might be useful if the Habits interface allowed us to take a peek at the full list of tomorrow's (and not only tomorrow's), upcoming Habits, so that we can see, at a glance, what's "on our menu" for tomorrow. Or any future day – there could be a drop-down menu (perhaps a secondary, not as centrally placed drop-down menu) to allow us to switch to any future date. And, we should be allowed to check off any items for any future day, too, as well as "intentionally fail" them, as you put it. Real-life example for a Habit "completed in future": it may be my target to earn $200 every day. But, if I earned $400 today, I may no longer need to earn $200 tomorrow – I've already earned them today, in advance, so I may safely check off tomorrow's Habit of "Earn $200", because it's already completed today. Real-life example for a Habit "intentionally failed in future": I may have a Habit to visit my parents every Saturday. But, the upcoming Saturday, I'm on a business trip that will keep me out of town until the following week. So, even though it may only be Wednesday today, I may wish to (with regret!) "intentionally fail" the "Visit Ma & Pa" Habit for the upcoming Saturday right now, so that that Habit (that I just cannot complete, much as I'd like to) doesn't clutter my Habits Inbox when next Saturday comes around. This is an analogy to Toodledo's main user interface, Tasks. If I have a recurring Task scheduled for the upcoming weekend, but I know I won't be able to perform that Task on this particular weekend, Toodledo allows us to check off that recurring Task in advance, so that the recurring Task gets rescheduled for a later weekend. I believe you should allow us to manage our Habits in much the same way – after all, as a fellow forum poster noted above, Habits are nothing but Tasks, but perhaps very brief/trivial ones, that it wouldn't make sense to keep track of in the main Tasks interface. I think it would be inconsistent from Toodledo as a software package if it allowed us to check off/delete Tasks in future, but not Habits. I see no reason for imposing such limitation on Habits management, if no such limitation exists for Tasks. Similarly, besides switching to any future date in the Habits interface, [16)] please allow us to switch to any past date in the Habits interface. Currently on the Dashboard, we're only allowed to go back 7 days. I think this should be unlimited, though, so that we can switch to any day from the past or the future. Errors might creep into our Habits records, and what if I wish to correct an error in Habits that lies in more distant past than the last 7 days? I can see no way to accomplish this right now in Habits. Finally, please allow me to submit a suggestion as to how that "intentionally failed Habit" idea might perhaps be usefully implemented in the user interface. Right now, Habits offer us 2 boxes for every day: * RED box = INBOX, listing Habits still to be completed on this day * GREEN box = COMPLETED, listing Habits already completed on this day My suggestion is to add a third such box to the current Habits user interface: * ORANGE box = MISSED, listing Habits I already failed on this day, or that I know [in advance] I just won't be able to complete on this day (although I'd like to!) Now, how to move Habits in and out of the ORANGE "MISSED" box? I think this could be set up very simply and straightforwardly. In our RED "INBOX", you might add a small button (not too intrusive) next to every Habit. For example, right-aligned on the same line where the Habit's text label is. The button could be, for example, shaped like a little circle with an X inside it. (A common software symbol for "Cancel", I think.) If you pressed that button for a Habit, that Habit would be moved from the RED "INBOX" to the ORANGE "MISSED" box. Now, how to move a Habit out of the ORANGE "MISSED" box? Again, very simply, in an analogy to the RED "INBOX". You could put a small button next to each Habit in the ORANGE "MISSED" box, except that this button might be shaped like a circular arrow – a common software symbol for "Reload". If you pressed that button, the Habit would be restored in the RED "INBOX". And, of course, if you entered a value for a Habit, or checked off a Habit in the ORANGE "MISSED" box, it would be automatically moved to the GREEN "COMPLETED" box (same as it works in RED "INBOX"). This would allow users to "retroactively complete" Habits that they originally thought they'd fail, but eventually didn't. To reverse the example mentioned earlier: if I failed to earn $200 yesterday, but then I manage to earn $400 today... well, I might as well go back to yesterday's Habits list, and check off the "Earn $200" Habit there. Although I didn't complete the Habit yesterday... I did "catch up with it" (you might say) today, so, for all intents and purposes, the "Earn $200" Habit may be retrospectively viewed as completed on both days. :-) Further, I propose that as soon as midnight strikes, Toodledo's server automatically cleans the user's RED "INBOX" for the day that has just finished, moving any uncompleted Habits still left there, from the RED "INBOX" to the ORANGE "MISSED" box automatically. This appears entirely logical, doesn't it? Of course, you could still move any Habit from the ORANGE "MISSED" box, even for a day lying in the past, as explained above. Thank you for giving these ideas a thought. This message was edited Jan 03, 2015. |
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cj |
I just started using "Habits" and am quite excited about the possibilities. For the past 2-3 years I have been trying to get toodledo to perform like this (the Goal-chains were very lacking), and also have a homegrown spreadsheet to do something similar.
While I have many of the same observations others have had - here are a few (hopefully) new and useful ones ... (please comment or correct me on anything that might already have a solution etc - it might benefit others to know, too). #1 - some sort of integration with my tasks. ie.. the daily habits appearing as a category or something (ie... under "show" - a checkmark for "habits") this way they can appear every day in my todo list 2. Habit reminders Working like task reminders - or even better, with some sort of period reminder (remind me 3x a day .. etc) 3. For numeric habits ... while I am sure there is a roadmap and improvements planned - I would find this more useful if A. the goal chain was BROKEN for the habit - if I did not reach the minimum numeric goal (or max) ie... if my goal was to write 1,000 words per day - I might enter 650. While I want the habit to be logged, I did not achieve the goal for the day, and it should be reflected. ie... if my goal was to eat less than 1,800 calories per day - and I entered 2,000 - I still want to log the number but the goal chain should be broken. from my observations - the goal chain (and associated metrics) are not broken as long as I enter ANY number. Even when I enter 0 - the habit is marked as completed! (obviously it was not). B. Do more with numbers in the charts. ie... allow me to see average/day, min.max etc... (I personally would pay for this as a premium feature) 4. wish-list the ability to email to complete a habit for the day. (ie like the way I can email and create a task). ---- |
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AA |
Posted by cj:
B. Do more with numbers in the charts. ie... allow me to see average/day, min.max etc... (I personally would pay for this as a premium feature) Absolutely, me as well. That's basically #13 on my wishlist, see above. Posted by cj: from my observations - the goal chain (and associated metrics) are not broken as long as I enter ANY number. Even when I enter 0 - the habit is marked as completed! (obviously it was not). I disagree with you on this. This would have to be a per-user preference setting, possibly. For me, 0 (zero) is just as valid a number as any other number. I distinguish between 0 as a number actively entered in the field (= chain not broken), and leaving the field empty for the day (= chain broken). For some of my numeric Habits, I also employ negative numbers, so 0 (zero) is definitely a valid value for my numeric Habits. Here are 2 more bugs I have noticed: 17) Even though in my Toodledo Preferences, the first day of week is set to be Monday (not Sunday), Habits are already displaying a new week for me today (Sunday morning). 18) Still no Habits in the iOS app, but in the Android app, Habits look weird on the tablet in portrait mode. They look fine on my Android phone, and also on my Android tablet in landscape mode, but in portrait mode, the column listing the Habits is so narrow it only shows the first few letters (only rarely, the first word) of each Habit title. It's almost impossible to go down the list of Habits to check them off, if you can't even read the Habits' text labels. Please consider that Android tablets typically feature the 9:16 screen aspect ratio, which makes them even narrower than an iPad (3:4 aspect ratio) in portrait mode. I'm not sure what the solution here might be, but Habits usability in portrait mode on an Android tablet is pretty bad currently, I'd say. (And I almost always use my tablets in portrait mode, and have them locked in it.) This message was edited Jan 04, 2015. |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. This will help guide us to make the Habits section more useful in the near future.
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theodorekaouk |
I just downloaded an updated mobile app and do not see the habit section available. How can I use it on the mobile app?
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AA |
Apple's App Store right now isn't offering me a newer Toodledo version than 3.2.8, and in that version, Habits aren't yet available. I guess the new iOS version will be here any day (any hour) now.
Habits already are available in the Android app. (By the way: I'd like to see "Lists" in both the iOS and Android app!) |
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New_Day |
This is great! Thank you!
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