Stephen King is one of the most popular and prolific authors of all time, and if you love to write fiction of any genre, whether the most bone-chilling horror, the sweetest and fluffiest romance, or the most artfully written and insightful literary fiction, his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Amazon | Bookshop) should be on your bookshelves. The first half is a fascinating memoir; the second, full of tried-and-true advice on the writing life.

King’s “Great Commandment” for would-be writers is this: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

He goes on to share:

I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie. […] The truth is that when I’m writing, I write every day. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday.

Of course, not everybody is going to be as prolific as King. Not everybody even wants to be as prolific as King. You may or may not find that writing every single day works for your personal writing routine, and even King takes breaks from his daily writing habit in between projects.

However, building a regular writing habit not only makes you more prolific and produces more finished material that you can publish, it also improves your writing skills through regular practice and it can even increase your creativity. The famous choreographer Twyla Tharp, author of The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life (Amazon | Bookshop), another must-read for creatives of all types, from dancers to writers to musicians to software programmers, writes:

Creativity is a habit and the best creativity is the result of good work habits. That’s it in a nutshell.

King and Tharp both have lots of good advice in their books about the best ways to set yourself up for success in building a creative habit, including how to develop rituals to get you in the mindset for creativity, how to set up your environment to make it easy to focus, and more. I won’t repeat their advice here.

What I will talk about is how to use some tools to build a regular writing habit that weren’t available at the time King and Tharp wrote their books in the early 2000s: habit-tracking apps.

In the years since the Apple iPhone was introduced in 2007, the number of apps designed to help you track and build good habits of all sorts has exploded. The most common type of habit-tracking app is based on the “Don’t Break the Chain” principle.

Don’t Break the Chain

“Don’t Break the Chain” is a productivity technique that’s attributed to the comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Supposedly, Seinfeld was asked for his productivity secret and he replied that he used a large calendar and crossed out every day that he managed to write new material with a big red letter “X”. Not wishing to “break the chain” of crossed-off days pushed him to write every day.

Seinfeld himself has denied this story, but the idea has nevertheless taken off as a productivity method, because many people find that it works, and works well, to motivate them to build better habits.

Some task management/to-do list apps offer habit-tracking features based on the “Don’t Break the Chain” method, including Todoist, Toodledo, and my personal favorite, TickTick. Templates or plug-ins for “Don’t Break the Chain”-style habit-tracking are also available for the popular personal productivity apps Notion and Obsidian.

Another option is to use a specialized habit-tracking app. Using specialized habit-tracking apps has advantages and disadvantages over a more generalized tool. If you already use apps like TickTick or Notion, you may prefer not to add another app to your phone and daily routine. On the other hand, specialized habit-tracking apps may have better features or require less set-up than apps that have habit-tracking as an optional feature instead of the focus.

There are dozens of habit-tracking apps available for both iOS and Android. Some of the most popular habit-tracking apps based on the “Don’t Break the Chain” method of habit-tracking include:

• (Not Boring) Habits (iOS)
• Disciplined (iOS, Android)
• Do (iOS)
• Everyday (iOS, Android)
• Habitify (Mac, iOS, Android)
• HabitKit (iOS, Android)
• Habit Tracker (iOS)
• Loop (Android)
• Productive (iOS, Android)
• Routinery (web, iOS, Android)
• Streaks (iOS)
• Way of Life (iOS, Android)

Most apps of this type have relatively similar features, so the choice of which one is right for you might come down to aesthetics and price.

Alternatives To Don’t Break the Chain

Some people, however, find that the “Don’t Break the Chain” method creates feelings of guilt and avoidance if they break the chain. They might begin to “cheat” to avoid breaking it, or to stop checking-in on their habit-tracking apps entirely. For people like this, there are some interesting alternatives.

Strides (iOS, but let them know if you’d be interested in an Android version) is a habit-tracking app that might be of particular interest to writers hoping to build a regular writing habit because it offers four different types of habit tracking:

• Habit – a “don’t break the chain”-style habit tracker if your goal is simply to write consistently
• Track – for setting a goal number to achieve by a certain date, perfect if if you have a word count goal with a deadline and want to visualize your progress towards meeting it
• Average – if you want to track your average word count or time spent writing
• Project – for actions to achieve by a certain date, use this if you’re working on a large project with a deadline, like a novel or thesis, and want to set milestones instead of word counts to track your progress

Polar Habits (web) offers another alternative to the “don’t break the chain” style of habit-tracking. It uses “momentum” rather than streaks to help you build habits, and assigns habits to categories of “solid”, “consistent”, and “challenging” based on how frequently you miss them.

Habitica (web, iOS, Android) is one of the most fully gamified habit tracking apps on the market, and is especially beloved by gamers and fantasy lovers. It’s set up like a fantasy role-playing (RPG) game. By checking habits and tasks off your lists, you gain experience to level up and earn gold and gems to buy pets, mounts, weapons, clothing, and more. There are quests, community challenges, and even parties that allow you to join forces with friends or strangers to meet your goals together. A similar, but newer, app is TaskHero, or if you’d like an RPG-style productivity app designed specifically for writers, check out 4thewords!

Another category of habit-tracking apps that writers can use to gamify and build a consistent writing habit is self-care apps such as Finch (iOS, Android). Finch has many users with ADHD, chronic illness, anxiety, and other physical and mental challenges that may make the “don’t break the chain” method of habit-tracking difficult and frustrating to maintain. It has the option to track daily check-in streaks, but it focuses on gentle, positive reinforcement and celebration of small victories. Instead of crossing off days on a calendar, you have a cute digital pet finch. By checking off your daily habits and to-dos, which can be customized or selected from the app’s lengthy list of suggestions, you can energize your finch to set off on adventures and earn “rainbow stones” to dress your finch in cute outfits, decorate their house, collect micropets, and send your finch to explore beautiful real-world locations. (My finch is currently exploring Bergen, Norway.) Finch has a bunch of other activities for self-care, including breathing exercises, timers, soundscapes to help you focus or relax, inspirational quotes and affirmations, and lots of optional opportunities for reflective journaling. You can also connect with friends on the app to send each other good vibes and presents for your finches.

If you’d prefer something that’s a little less cute and a little more scientific in its approach, consider Fabulous (web, iOS, Android), which was developed by the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. I personally haven’t made it as far in Fabulous because I find the constant reminders to upgrade off-putting on the free plan, but I was immediately impressed by the app’s emphasis on practical actions you can take to change your environment and routines to promote your goals.

Setting Goals to Build a Writing Habit

Once you’ve settled on a habit-tracking app that suits your budget, is visually appealing, and has the features you need and want, it’s time to create a writing goal for yourself. You might find the S.M.A.R.T goal criteria helpful at this stage. Originally developed by George T. Doran, S.M.A.R.T is an acronym for effective goal setting that recommends that goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

There’s no shame in starting small and working your way up to stronger habits if it makes your goals more achievable. For example, if finding time to write is an issue for you, you might start with a goal of writing just two or three times per week. If you’re a slow writer like me, start with small, achievable word count goals: 250 words per day, for example, or about one page of a mass market paperback book.

Once you’ve successfully established a writing habit that works for you, you can start to challenge yourself. You may even find that higher word counts start to come naturally to you, because you’ve developed not only a habit of sitting down and putting words on paper, but also a habit of sitting down and being ready for the creativity to flow.

Did I miss your favorite habit-tracking tool? Tell me about it in comments below!

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Image Credit: VD Photography