75 Hard tracker apps, compared against a free tool
Five tasks a day for 75 days, with a full reset on a miss. The tracking should not be the hard part.
75 Hard is a mental toughness challenge from Andy Frisella with five daily requirements and one rule that makes it unusual: miss any part of any day and you start again at day one. That rule is what creates the demand for a tracker. Seventy five days of five items is 375 checks, and doing it in your head is how people end up arguing with themselves about whether day 31 counted.
Most of the dedicated apps do roughly the same thing and charge between nothing and about forty euros. They differ on four points worth caring about: whether progress photos stay on the device, whether the reset is automatic or manual, whether you can log retroactively, and whether the whole thing is behind a subscription that outlives the challenge by a lot.
This page compares the current options on those four points, and compares all of them against a free web tool that does the same job without an account. It also covers what to do about the parts a tracker cannot help with, which is most of the difficulty.
One note before the list. 75 Hard includes daily outdoor workouts, a strict diet and no alcohol for eleven weeks. It is demanding, it is not designed by clinicians, and if you have any reason to check with a doctor first, check with a doctor first.
Outline
Status: outline. The introduction above is finished copy. Everything below is the section plan for the full draft, targeted at about 2 000 words.
- What the challenge requires. The five daily items, and the reset rule.
- Why tracking it is awkward. 375 checks, five different data shapes, and a photo every day.
- The four things that separate the apps. Photo storage, reset behaviour, retroactive entry and pricing.
- The dedicated apps, compared. A table of the current options with prices.
- The free tool. What the browser version does, and what it deliberately does not.
- Using a general habit tracker instead. The five habit setup, and where it falls short.
- What no app can help with. The outdoor workout in February, and the diet.