Smallest Steps
A free habit tracker that starts embarrassingly small. Map your life as planets, build tiny routines, and launch ever-bigger rockets as you show up.
Smallest Steps is the daily companion to The Smallest Version. Every routine is a ladder: the bottom rung is so small it's a little embarrassing (put on your shoes, read one sentence, floss one tooth), and the top rung is the ambitious version you're working towards. You start at the bottom, and you only climb when the rung you're on has become boring.
Your cosmos
Six areas of your life (Body, Mind, Craft, Home, People and Rest) are drawn as planets around you. Rate each from 1 to 10 and its planet grows and lights up to match; the quietest planets get suggestions for a tiny routine. Every day you show up adds a part to that routine's rocket. Seven days launch a Mk I Firecracker into orbit around its planet, and each rocket after that is a bigger model, up to the Mk VII Starship. Parts are never taken away: a missed day just means the next part comes a little later.
The rules it keeps
- Any rung counts. Doing the smallest version is showing up, fully. A day you did more is a bonus, never a new obligation.
- Never miss twice. The thread forgives a single missed day. Only two in a row break it, and a broken thread is just a new one starting. The total of days you've shown up never goes down.
- Coming back smaller is still coming back. After a couple of missed days the notebook offers a smaller rung instead of a guilt trip, and Rough patch mode drops every routine to its smallest in one tap and remembers where you were.
- Grow when it's boring. After two steady weeks on a rung it asks whether you're ready for the next one. You can always say not yet.
How to use it
- Map your cosmos: rate the six areas of your life, then tap a dim planet to see small routines that would help there.
- Pick a starting ladder from the templates (movement, reading, meditation, writing, flossing, money, calling a friend and more) or write your own. Change any word: the rungs, the cue it follows ("after I pour my coffee") and why it matters to you.
- Each day, tap the circle on a routine to tick it at your rung. Tap "Smaller or more?" to record a different rung, or add a line about the day. Watch the rocket on the card fill in.
- Open Journey to see each routine's ladder, its rocket on the launch pad, a month of ticks and the story so far. Tap any rung to move there: down is as fine as up.
- If you saved habits in The Smallest Version on this device, the app offers to bring them over on the rungs you chose.
Your data
The notebook is kept in this browser's local storage. There is no account and nothing is uploaded unless you turn on cloud sync, which saves it as a file in your own Google Drive or OneDrive so your phone and computer share it. It syncs when you open the app, after each change and when you come back online. Without a cloud, Notebook → Backup file saves the notebook as a JSON file you can open on another device, which merges it without losing anything already there.
For a daily nudge, Notebook → A daily reminder downloads a calendar event that repeats every day with an alert, so the reminder lives in the calendar you already trust.
Install it
Smallest Steps works offline and can be installed as an app from your browser's menu (Add to Home Screen on iPhone). It opens straight to Today.