Introducing Focuses

Screenshot of the Focuses appScreenshot of the Focuses app

Focuses is my take on goal and habit tracking. It is inspired by Myke Hurley’s daily themes and Marshall Goldsmith’s daily active questions. The idea is to have a simple and flexible system for scoring yourself on how you do towards your goals each day. There are 3 options, an empty circle, and half-filled circle, and a filled circle. What these mean is up to you.

When SwiftUI was announced at WWDC 2019, I began thinking of projects I could try it out on. An idea for a daily questions app kept coming back to me. It would be an app that asked you the questions you wanted each day. Stuff like How did you do towards eating healthy today?” You would respond with some like Bad” or Good”. I started a version of this app, but abandoned it. I didn’t like that approach. It felt too constrained.

While listening to Cortex, I heard Myke talking about his system of rating himself on a scale of 0, 1, or 2. Those scores would add up to a daily score. I really liked that approach. It felt flexible and easy to track. I tried it on paper, but it didn’t stick. So with the New Year fast approaching, I thought why not try to make a simple app to do it for me? I’m a novice iOS developer at best, so what I thought would be simple was not so simple for me. But after about 3 months of slow and steady work, I’m excited to release the first version of Focuses!

I made the app for myself. I use it everyday. Tracking my effort towards my goals has had a tangible effect on my life. It’s helped me and I hope it can help others.

You can find Focuses on the App Store.



Date
March 23, 2020