I want a streak counter. Why isn't there one?
Plenty of people find a streak motivating, and ask for one. The answer is a deliberate no, not an oversight, and there is something else to look at instead.
The short answer
TimeSince has no streaks on purpose. A streak is a number you can only lose, and when it breaks most people do not lose one day, they abandon the habit entirely. Instead every counter shows the time since you last logged it, and the Stats tab shows your real rhythm: your average interval and how it is trending. That answers the same question, am I keeping this up, without creating something to protect.
A small setup
- 1
Log the thing once
The counter starts from that moment. There is nothing to set up and no target to miss.
- 2
Open Stats after a couple of weeks
Your average interval appears once there is enough history. That number is the one to watch, not a chain.
- 3
Let a gap be a gap
If it has been longer than usual, the counter says so plainly and nothing is lost. Log it again and the interval absorbs it.
The situation
A streak is the only number in a habit app you can lose outright. It rewards an unbroken chain rather than the habit, so the day you are ill, travelling, or simply busy, the thing you were building resets to zero.
What gets difficult
Losing the chain tends not to cost one day. With nothing left to protect, people stop opening the app at all, and the mechanism meant to build consistency becomes the reason it collapses.
How TimeSince helps
TimeSince counts up from your last log and never resets on its own. Missing a day moves a number; it does not erase anything. Stats then shows the interval you actually keep, which is the honest version of the question a streak was answering badly.
Someone asked for this on the feedback board, in as many words: seeing a current streak would be more motivating, and not wanting to break it is what keeps them going.
That is a real description of how streaks work for a lot of people, and it is not wrong.
The reply was a no, and it explains itself
The developer's answer is the clearest statement of what this app is for:
TimeSince intentionally avoids daily streaks for habits you're building. I want you to be able to come back after a day or a week without feeling like you've lost what you already did.
That is a product decision, not a missing feature. A streak is the one number in a habit app you can lose outright, and losing it tends to take the habit with it, which is the problem streaks were supposed to solve.
What you get instead
The counter is the headline: time since you last did it, climbing. It never resets itself.
Underneath that, Stats does the job a streak was doing badly. It calculates the average interval you actually keep for each counter and charts how that interval trends over weeks. If you water the plants every five days, it says five days. If that drifts to nine, you can see the drift, which is information rather than a penalty.
If the streak was genuinely what helped
Then be honest that this app is arguing with you, and try Quitting mode for anything you are stopping rather than starting. The counter climbs for as long as you stay away, which is a chain in everything but name, except that a slip restarts the count instead of erasing it.
For habits you are building, there is no equivalent, and there is not going to be one.
What TimeSince helps with
- Removes the failure state, so a gap costs nothing but time
- Shows your real average interval instead of a perfect-attendance score
- Lets you return after a day or a month with your history intact
What TimeSince will not fix
- It will not give you a streak counter, which is the whole point
- It will not gamify or reward you for showing up daily
- It cannot make a habit feel urgent if the urgency was what helped
Explore the feature: Rhythm analytics
Frequently asked questions
Will streaks ever be added?+
People have asked, and the answer so far is no. The developer's reply on the feedback board puts it plainly: the aim is that you can come back after a day or a week without feeling like you have lost what you already did.
What do I look at instead?+
The counter itself, and the Stats tab. Stats calculates your average logging interval and charts how it trends, so you can see whether you are keeping something up without a chain to protect.
Does Quitting mode work differently?+
Yes, and it is the closest thing to a streak here. In Quitting mode the counter climbs for as long as you stay away from something. If you slip, logging a reset starts the count again with no penalty and no lost history.
What this is based on
- Streaks on habits dashboard, feature request and reply — TimeSince feedback board
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