I’ve long been a believer in the practice of habit-tracking. Ten years ago, I first came across the concept through an app called Way of Life. I eventually moved on to the category-leading Streaks, spent a brief time with Grow, and ultimately landed on Awesome Habits, which I’ve been using for nearly two years now. Regardless of the tools we use to do so, I think it’s a good idea to consciously choose meaningful routines and intentionally keep ourselves accountable for sticking to them.

The funny thing about a habit tracker, though, is that its purpose is to eventually make itself obsolete. By nature, habits are habitual, meaning we don’t need external forces to keep them going. We just do them. The point of these tools is to turn our desired behaviors into regular parts of our everyday lives through repetition.

At a certain point, the tracking part becomes unnecessary, and that’s a victory. It means we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. But still, I’ve found it hard to stop tracking these habits even when I know I don’t need to anymore.

After all, the entire premise of habit-tracking is built on the idea of positive reinforcement, and that can become a habit in and of itself. I like seeing my progress bar for the day fill up, and I love the feeling I get when it hits 100%. Don’t get me started on how much joy I get out of building up a long daily streak for each goal.

It really is a fun process, but I have to remind myself that the process isn’t the point. I’m not doing these things to check them off a list; I’m doing them because they’re important to me. It’s not about the tracking at the end of day.

I recently realized that many of the habits I’d been keeping tabs on had become regular parts of my routine. I didn’t need the app to remind me anymore. I was just logging them out of… well, habit.

And so I decided to get back to the true purpose of habit-tracking by removing the items that are now fully-formed. I cut my list of daily tasks in Awesome Habits down from ten to five. This allows me to focus on the habits that truly need my attention instead of just logging data for the sake of it.

I’ve been able to keep up all of my deleted habits naturally, without the use of the app, which only proves how effective the app has really been. Now, I have a much shorter list of habits I’m trying to integrate into my daily routine, and the others are just a normal part of everyday life.

Do I miss the ridiculously long streaks when I check the app? A little. But I have to remind myself that the tracking isn’t the point. It’s forming good habits that matters, and in that sense, this move is a win.

I’m thankful for tools like Awesome Habits that help me live a more intentional life every day. Even more so, I’m happy that I can rely on these sorts of tools less and less over time as I become better at living out my desired habits on my own. There’s no way to quantify personal growth, but I think my list of archived habits is at least an indication that I’m moving in the direction I want to go.