The momentum of streaks, without the all-or-nothing.
Six years of refining my own habit tracking, written down. Habit groups, fallback percentages and a monthly check-in keep your momentum when a bad week happens, so a broken streak never erases months of progress. An editorial site and a weekly newsletter, shared to find others who think this way.
In one paragraph.
HabitCycles is the system I’ve used to run my own life for six years, finally written down. Streaks still matter, because they build momentum, but one missed day shouldn’t erase months of progress. So the method keeps streaks and adds what a streak-only approach lacks: habit groups, fallback percentages, and a cycle you reassess. The cycle itself is simple: you commit to a habit, run it for a period (thirty days is my default, but it’s yours to set), then check in to keep, change or end it.
It’s part method, part editorial site, part habit library. The method is the substance. The library and the weekly newsletter exist to help people find it.
The features that matter.
Habit groups
Related habits track toward one goal, and every activity counts equally. Training for a marathon: long runs, intervals, strength, yoga and rest all count toward the same goal, so the group keeps momentum and holds a streak together, instead of six sporadic charts.
Fallback percentages
Streaks are a double-edged sword: lose one and the zero can wipe out how you feel about months of work. When a streak breaks, the fallback takes over: 90% over the last six months, momentum you can still see.
Awareness tracking
Some habits you log without judgement, just to understand them over time before forming an opinion. It’s the antidote to recency bias: a rough fortnight isn’t a broken habit when six months say you’re consistent.
The cycle check-in
At the end of each cycle you pause to keep, change or end a habit, and say why. Ending becomes a clean, deliberate decision rather than a failure. It’s a built-in moment to adapt as you learn what actually serves you.
The motivation.
I’ve tracked habits for years, and the books all stop in the same place. They’re great at getting you started (cue, craving, routine, reward), then go quiet once you’re past the beginner stage. The problems I kept hitting were the intermediate ones nobody wrote about: streaks that punish a bad fortnight, charts that look sporadic when you alternate sensible habits, and the demoralising story you tell yourself when a rough few weeks don’t reflect months of consistency.
So I built the fixes for myself, and they worked. HabitCycles is me putting that system out in public, first as writing, with a growing library of habit guides to help people discover the method. I’m sharing it to see if it resonates and to find the people who think about this the way I do. It’s a passion project. I’m not sure where it goes, and that’s reason enough.