What happens to my progress if I miss a day or travel?
A missed day breaks nothing, and neither does a trip: each habit's ocean on your phone is built from the completions you've logged, whenever they happened, so time away leaves its sky exactly where it was. There is no streak counter, so there is nothing to reset.
Why one day off doesn't undo a habit
In the best-known study of how habits form, an occasional skipped day did not seriously set people back: their sense of the habit becoming automatic soon picked up again (Lally et al. 2010). It is one study, but it is the one behind the famous 66 days.
What tends to do more harm is the reaction to the slip. Reading one lapse as proof you can't do it is what can turn a lapse into a relapse (Marlatt and Gordon; Bouton 2000). Meeting a slip with kindness instead of criticism is how the app responds, an approach informed by research on self-compassion (Neff; Kirby et al. 2017).
When you're traveling
Your habits are stored on your devices, never on our servers, and there is no account, so there is nothing to sign in to while you're away. Complete a habit whenever you get to it, and it counts toward that habit's sky like any other completion.
In Rewarding Habits
What the app does
Each habit's sky moves from Night toward Full Glory as completions add up, and time away never dims it. If you like, note what got in the way (Forgot, Too Tired, Too Busy, Craving, Emotional, Environment or Other), and the on-device coach answers with a next step, such as:
Missing once doesn't change who you're becoming. What matters is what you do next.
Two details, so nothing surprises you. On Android, if you haven't opened the app for a few days, the waves at the top of the Home screen settle lower, and they rise again with your next completion; the sky stays where you left it. And the sky on your watch works differently: it tracks the current day or week, not your whole history.
Sources
- Lally, P. et al. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology. A median of ~66 days.
- Marlatt, G. & Gordon, J.; Bouton, M. (2000). Relapse prevention; lapse vs. relapse.
- Neff, K.; Kirby, J. et al. (2017). Self-compassion and its three components; meta-analysis.
Rewarding Habits is a skill-building app informed by psychological science. It isn't therapy or a crisis service. Every source above is also on our science page, with more of the research behind the app.