I recently discovered a personal productivity app called Fabulous and have actually used it to improve my life.
Fabulous (I cannot say the word without envisioning a fabulous gay person) brands itself as a digital life coach and is based on the premise that the best way to add good habits to your day is by linking them together as a routine.
After downloading the app, you get asked what area of life you want to improve, such as health or productivity. Fabulous will then slowly introduce specific actions you can take to start working towards your goal, like drinking a glass of water or writing down your to do list.
Nothing Fabulous suggests is rocket science.
Instead, its strength lies in the gamification process it creates. With daily reminders at a specific time of day, the app makes it easy to take the moment from one completed action and immediately apply it to the next.
How I used Fabulous
For example, I decided to create a morning routine to help me be more energized and productive. I designated just a few minutes in the morning to the entire thing, but in those few moments Fabulous reminded me to drink water, make a to do list, exercise and do yoga. You can read more about the routine I created for myself in my post Change Your Life in 60 Seconds.
It helped create an automatically link between each of these separate, positive actions. Now, instead of thinking “I’ve finished my yoga, what should I do next?” which introduces my highly analytical and often unproductive conscious mind, I simply undertake the next task, exercise, automatically. Daniel Pink has an entire book on the subject, called The Power of Habit.
Looking back
I stopped using the app after several weeks, once I got into the habit. But I still have a morning routine which I credit to the app – it basically taught me to “bundle” my meditation, yoga, and exercise into one tidy package to get the maximum benefit of each of these with the minimum amount of thought or willpower to “force” myself to do them.
Fabulous is available to download on Android and the iOS version is coming soon, apparently. There are probably similar apps available on iOS as well, the important thing is the concept behind the app, not the specific tool you use. That said, Fabulous happens to have an extremely user friendly design and intuitive experience that makes forming your daily habits a fun and enjoyable process.
Happy habitting!
