Goal Apps: Tracking

President Monson has said "When performance is measured performance improves."

I can say I truly believe that. There is something motivation about a graph or calendar or a journal you know you are going to have to face that encourages you to push harder. We've talked about why the iPad can help us with goals, and about apps for writing down goals, now its time to talk about tracking those goals.

Tracking is extremely important if you are setting good goals because you should have some kind of measurement attached to it, but if you are not tracking it, then you are not really measuring it, and you will have no idea when you have achieved it.

There are two types of apps in this field:

1. generic tracking apps
2. goal specific tracking apps 

First Generic tracking apps, I've been looking for a good one of these for a while now, so I've tried out several. I will highlight three here.


Simple Goals
This app is just what it says, it is a clean and simple goals app. You type in the name of your goal, and then every time you do it or don't do it you mark it down. The app lets you know how many times you have accomplished your goal activity this week and this month, so it gives you a nice time table to work in.
It is a really easy to use app and the full version is now free. This app also has the feature that if you shake your device it will give you an inspirational quote to give you an added push.

Way Of Life
This app is more robust than Simple Goals. You put in your goal and then you tell the app is the item is good or bad for you. This allows you to effectively track goals about breaking bad habits as well as positive goals.
Way of Life also has the feature of graphing your goal progress for you in several different ways which can be really helpful in putting you goal in perspective over a long period of time.
You can also add notes your entries in case there is some particular reason you missed a goal or had to skip it and you want to remember. The app does allow you skip days of a goal, so that if, like me, you have a goal to play the piano three times a week, you won't be penalized for the four days you don't.
One of my favorite feature of this app is that it has an alarm you can set to remind you every day to track your goals. It can send you a notification which you can then just tap or swipe to send you right into the app.
I really like the way this app is set up and works. What I do not like about this app is that they give it to you for free and then when you want to set up more than three apps they want to charge you 5 dollars. I just think companies should be straight up with you if they are giving you a lite model.

Lumen Trails 
I mentioned Lumen Trails in my last post as well. This app can do a lot of things. One of the things it can do is track your goals. It is the most robust app I am mentioning today, as such it also has the highest learning curve.
You can set up a category in the app to do whatever you want. For goals you can have it be simple and track yes or no answers, or you can enter a number amount, which can be a simple number or an amount of time, or money. It even has a stop watch feature so you can record the amount of time spent on you goal right from the app (that would be for like an exercise goal or something).
Like Way of Life, Lumen Trails also lets you keep notes for individual entries and also allows you to see a graph of your progress.
By far the versatile goal app I have used it scales to your needs. My favorite part is that you can pick little icons for each category or goal you have.
Last I checked(the day I wrote this) the full version of Lumen Trails was 99cents, but it does seem that the price goes up and down. I've seen it as high as $9.99 and recently at $2.99 as well. I happened to get it the day it was free :) There is also a free Lite version which I definitely recommend checking out before you invest in the full one.

There are lots and lots of other apps that work similarly in the app store. Unfortunately this is not an app  space dominated by quality free apps so most of them involve some money.

Well that's it for today folks. I know tracking your goals will make you far, far more likely to achieve them. Let me know what apps you are using and goals you are tracking, use the comments below or just Tweet to @halduauthor.

If you like this post or Tweet it to help others find it, especially your friends who need to remember, to live better.