Don't Use Numbers To Track Your Progress, Use Stories

Welcome to the 1-2-Read letter! Every issue will give you a practical idea and two journal prompts to transform how you read & think. If you're enjoying these letters, consider upgrading to the Double-Shot tier to receive an extra letter on Mondays. Your contributions keep the lights on around here, and thank you so much for your support!

(1) The Idea: The Fatal Flaw In Most Habit Tracking Systems

For most of 2025, I tracked my habits using an app called Atoms (named after James Clear’s best-selling Atomic Habits). The app is simple to use and the layout’s pleasant, but like many habit tracking devices/apps, it suffers from a fatal flaw:

Using numbers to track your progress.

See, a lot of habit tracking is based on the philosophy that more repetitions = a better life. But when it was my turn to review a year’s progress, though I’ve journaled for 200 days straight, read 30 minutes a day for 6 months and worked out 4 times a week for a year, I felt nothing while I looked at the number of reps I’ve completed.

In this case, a number is too crude a tool to capture real progress. It doesn’t report the change in our relationships with people, the joy derived from meaningful work, or the mental impacts of exercise. It assumes that we’re automatons where an input guarantees a positive output, but eventually, we’ll still feel stagnant and empty about our lives while staring down at a perfect habit tracker.

This is because, unlike automatons, humans don’t respond to numbers to feel a sense of accomplishment. We respond to stories.