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Marking what actually happened

The whole point of a habit tracker is what you write down. If that part has any friction at all, you stop using it, and a few weeks later you have an app full of pretty plans and no actual data.

Vita's recording flow is designed around one rule: logging a habit should be faster than the habit itself. If marking the walk takes longer than the walk, you'll only mark half of them.

The screens in this post are sketches, not screenshots — the ideas stay right even when we polish the UI.

The shortest path

When you open Vita, the Today list is right there: every activity scheduled for today, in order. Each one has a single button — Record.

Today Mon · May 20 2 of 4 Movement & mind Morning walk 07:30 · 30 min · 3.2 km · Drink 2 L water throughout the day Record · Deep work · writing 09:00 · 90 min Record · Stretch · evening 21:30 · 15 min
Today's list, mid-morning. Two done already; two waiting for you. The last one is dimmed because its time hasn't come yet.

Tap Record and you're on the recording screen for that activity. If "did it / didn't" is all you need, tap Done and Save — three taps from launch to logged.

If you set up fields like distance, mood, or a note, they appear too — but every one is optional. Fill what matters today; skip the rest.

"Skipped" isn't failing

Vita keeps track of three outcomes, not two:

  • Done. You did it.
  • Skipped. You chose not to today — travelling, sick, deliberately resting. Honest decision, recorded honestly.
  • Missed. The day ended and the activity was scheduled but never marked. Forgotten, not chosen.

The distinction matters. A skipped run while you're recovering from a cold is not the same kind of data as a run you forgot about — and the charts shouldn't pretend they are.

? Done you did it Skipped honest "not today" Missed day passed, nothing marked
Three outcomes. Skipped is a choice; missed is the absence of one.

Logging after the fact

You don't have to record in the moment. Past activities show up in the week view, and you can tap any past day to mark or edit a record — useful when you remember at bedtime that you actually did meditate this morning.

Same for fixing things. Got the distance wrong? Tap the record, change the field, save. The history isn't sacred — it's a notebook, not a ledger.

A few honest notes

  • There are no notifications. Vita doesn't ping you on the hour. The app opens to the Today list and that's the reminder — we'd rather you check it on your terms than have your phone buzz at you. (We may add opt-in reminders later; they will always be off by default.)
  • The Today list order is whatever order you set the activities up in. If something matters in a specific sequence — meditate before walk — drag the activities into that order in Settings.
  • A field you skip is genuinely skipped, not zero. If you don't enter a distance, the record stores "no distance for today" — not "0 km". Summaries respect that distinction.

A small habit-tracker tip

When you first add an activity, just tap Done and Save for a week. Don't bother with the fields. Once you've actually been doing the habit consistently, ask yourself which extra detail would tell you something interesting — and only then add a field for it. Tracking data you never look at is just busy-work.


Up next: Seeing how you're doing — once you've got a week or two of records, what does Vita show you, and how should you read it?