Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started

What is Activities Matter?

Activities Matter is your personal guide to building a life of purpose and fulfillment. Through intuitive journaling, intelligent insights across five essential pillars, and a powerful connection between daily actions and long-term goals, we empower you to discover your authentic self, bridge the gap between aspiration and reality, and feel the momentum of consciously designing the life you truly desire.

We help purpose-driven individuals accomplish a truly intentional and balanced life by connecting their daily activities to deeper insights and goals.

Who is this app for?

Activities Matter is designed for thoughtful and purpose-driven individuals who want to live a more intentional and balanced life. This includes:

Data-driven professionals who want to quantify personal growth and see how daily actions contribute to long-term development
Reflective creatives seeking to understand emotional patterns and align their inner world with daily actions
Dedicated parents juggling multiple life demands and ensuring balance across family, health, and personal well-being
Curious students desiring deep self-understanding beyond surface-level introspection
Ambitious professionals aligning intense daily activities with business and personal goals

If you’ve ever felt constantly active but not truly fulfilled or purposeful, Activities Matter is built for you.

How is this different from a to-do list or a habit tracker?

Activities Matter is fundamentally different from productivity tools:

Unlike a to-do list: We’re not about simply completing tasks. Activities Matter focuses on the reflection that comes after an activity and connecting it to your long-term goals to see the bigger picture. It’s about understanding why you do what you do, not just checking items off a list.
Unlike a simple habit tracker: While our Commitments feature helps you build consistent habits, it’s integrated within the larger framework of your life’s balance across the Five Pillars. The goal isn’t just to build a habit in isolation, but to see how that habit contributes to a balanced, fulfilling life.

Activities Matter is a reflective tool that provides the clarity and insight you need to consciously design a life aligned with what truly matters, one intentional activity at a time.

Is this a therapy app?

No. Activities Matter is a tool for empowered self-discovery, not a medical or therapeutic service. It’s designed to provide you with personalized insights and guidance for reflection based on the data you provide.

While it can help you understand your emotional patterns and support your well-being journey, it does not and cannot provide medical diagnoses or replace professional therapy. Think of it as a modern, technologically-enhanced replacement for a physical journal, with intelligent features to help you gain deeper self-awareness.

Understanding the Framework

What are the Five Pillars?

The Five Pillars are the foundational framework of Activities Matter. They represent the five essential dimensions of a complete, balanced life:

Mental Wellbeing: To cultivate mental clarity, emotional balance, and resilience
Physical Wellbeing: To nourish your body for energy, health, and vitality
Relationships: To foster meaningful connections with others
Pursuits: To engage in activities that bring joy, meaning, and a sense of accomplishment
Environment: To create a positive environment and contribute meaningfully to the world around you

This structure helps you gain a balanced perspective on your life and see where you’re investing your time and energy. It’s designed to ensure you’re not over-investing in one area (like work) at the expense of others (like relationships or health).

Can I edit the Five Pillars?

Currently, the Five Pillars are a core, non-editable part of the app’s framework. They were carefully chosen to represent the essential dimensions of holistic well-being: mental, physical, relational, personal pursuits, and environmental impact.

This ensures every user starts with a comprehensive framework for a balanced life. By keeping them consistent, you can be confident you’re addressing all the fundamental aspects of well-being.

How does the Pillar > Category > Activity system work?

The app uses a simple three-tiered structure to make logging both easy and insightful:

Pillars are the five main areas of your life
Each Pillar is broken down into specific Categories. For example, the Physical Wellbeing pillar includes categories like “Movement & Activity” and “Nutrition & Hydration”
You log your specific, daily Activities. When you log an activity like “Running,” the app automatically knows it belongs to the Movement & Activity category, which contributes to your Physical Wellbeing pillar

This structure allows you to log a simple activity and have it automatically contribute to the bigger picture of your life’s balance. It’s powerful because it transforms everyday actions into meaningful data about how you’re living.

Tracking Your Journey

How do I start logging my activities?

Activity Logging provides a structured, centralized journal for your entire life. To create a journal entry:

Create a new journal entry for any activity you want to record
Add details like comments and photos for rich, contextual memories
The entry is automatically linked to a specific category and pillar for powerful organization
Browse and search your complete, chronological history of entries anytime

This creates a rich personal history that enables you to reflect on your journey, celebrate progress, and preserve meaningful moments and insights.

How does Mood Tracking work?

Mood Tracking helps you understand your emotional patterns. Here’s how it works:

Select a daily mood value on a scale of -2 to 2 (where 0 is neutral)
Optionally add a day summary to provide context
View a historical chart of your mood fluctuations over time
Correlate your mood with specific logged activities to identify patterns

By logging your mood alongside your daily activities, you can discover what truly impacts your emotional health. You’ll move from feeling subject to your moods to understanding their underlying triggers and managing your well-being proactively.

What are Reminders and how do they help?

Reminders provide timely, customizable notifications that gently prompt you to engage with your intentions. They help you:

Set one-time or recurring reminders for any activity or reflection prompt
Customize notification times and frequencies (daily, weekly, specific days)
Link reminders directly to specific goals or commitments to encourage consistent progress
Receive discreet, actionable notifications that lead directly into the relevant section of the app

In the rush of daily life, Reminders act as a supportive nudge to help you maintain consistency, build positive habits, and stay on track with your personal goals.

Discovering Insights

What is the Insights screen?

The Insights screen is your personal analytics dashboard. It transforms the data you log into clear, interactive visualizations that help you discover hidden connections and gain a new perspective on your life.

You can:

View dynamic charts for your mood trends, goal progress, and commitment consistency
Analyze your life balance calculated across your five pillars over the last 35 days
Explore data visualizations to discover how specific activities correlate with your mood
Launch a guided reflection session directly from any chart to explore its meaning
Identify trends and patterns in your behavior and well-being at a glance

It’s designed to help you see the bigger picture—the patterns and relationships between your actions, moods, and goals that remain hidden within individual entries.

How does the AI Reflections feature work?

AI Reflections acts as an intelligent journaling partner to help you understand the “why” behind your data. Here’s how it works:

Start an AI Reflection from a chart, a goal, or a set of journal entries
The AI analyzes the provided data context (like your mood trend or goal progress)
Receive a selection of personalized, thought-provoking questions designed to encourage deep reflection
Choose a prompt that resonates with you to begin writing your reflection
Your reflection is saved as a new, insightful entry in your journal

This feature helps you overcome the “blank page problem”—you might see a pattern in your data but not know what questions to ask yourself. The AI provides guidance to help you move from observation to meaningful insight.

Building Towards Your Future

What are Goals and how do I use them?

Goals provide a framework to define long-term aspirations and directly link your daily journal entries to them. This creates a clear, visual connection between today’s actions and future achievements.

With Goals, you can:

Set long-term goals and link them to a core life pillar
Connect specific journal entries and activities as progress towards a goal
Track the goal’s status (Active, On Hold, Achieved) over time
Add timestamped comments to reflect on the journey
Receive a guided “Annual Review” to reflect on, adapt, and renew goals

Goals help you feel that your daily efforts are connected to your long-term aspirations, providing purpose and motivation.

What are Commitments?

Commitments help you build and maintain the consistent, positive habits that underpin daily well-being. Here’s how they work:

Create a commitment by selecting an activity, a target frequency, and a time period (e.g., “Meditate 3 times a week”)
Log activities in your journal as normal to automatically track progress towards your target
View historical performance with a snapshot log that remains accurate even if targets change
Set commitments across different pillars to proactively manage your overall life balance

Commitments transform abstract intentions (like “I should exercise more”) into concrete, actionable routines with built-in tracking and motivation.

What’s the difference between Goals and Commitments?

Goals are for your long-term aspirations—they’re about achieving a future state. For example, a goal could be “Run a 5k” or “Finish a creative project.” You manually link specific journal entries to a goal to track your progress toward that destination.
Commitments are for building consistent, positive habits—they’re about recurring actions. For example, a commitment could be “Meditate 3 times a week” or “Call a family member once a week.” Progress is tracked automatically when you log the associated activity.

Think of it this way: Commitments help you build the daily routines that make achieving your Goals possible.

Staying Focused

What are Time Shields?

Time Shields empower you to create dedicated periods of uninterrupted focus by temporarily blocking access to distracting applications. Here’s how they work:

Set specific time intervals during the day when certain apps are inaccessible (e.g., social media blocked before 12 PM)
Select which applications to include in a “shield” based on your personal distraction triggers
Receive a clear indication that a Time Shield is active when attempting to open a blocked app
View a summary of how frequently Time Shields were activated and time spent in focus

By proactively designing your digital environment, you can cultivate greater concentration, reduce digital clutter, and dedicate your attention to activities that promote your well-being and progress towards your aspirations.

Note: Time Shields integrate with Screen Time on iOS. Android does not currently support blocking other apps at the system level.

Privacy & Your Data

Is my data private and secure?

Absolutely. Privacy and trust are core values of Activities Matter. We believe your user data is sacred.

How we protect your privacy:

Local-first storage: All your data—journal entries, goals, media—is stored directly on your device in a local database. You have complete ownership and control.
No cloud requirement: Your data doesn’t leave your device unless you choose to back it up.
Optional backups: If you choose to back up your data, it creates a single archive that syncs using your personal cloud storage (iCloud for Apple, Google Drive for Android), staying within your private ecosystem.
No social features: Activities Matter is a purely private experience—there are no social or community features that could compromise your privacy.

We are steadfast in our commitment to privacy, ensuring that your personal reflections and insights remain secure and are used solely for your benefit, fostering a relationship built on absolute trust.

Where is my data stored?

Your data is stored locally on your device in a SQLite database. This means:

You have full control and ownership of your information
The app works offline—you don’t need an internet connection to journal or view insights
Your sensitive reflections never leave your device unless you initiate a backup
Fast performance and instant search across all your entries

How do backups work?

Backups are completely optional and user-initiated:

When you choose to back up, the app creates a single .zip archive containing your database, preferences, and all media
This archive syncs to your personal cloud storage (iCloud on iOS, Google Drive on Android)
Your data stays within your own private cloud ecosystem—we never have access to it
You can restore from a backup anytime to recover your data on a new device

Is the app free?

Activities Matter operates on a Freemium Model:

Free version: There is a fully functional free version of the app that provides core value
Premium subscription: We offer a premium subscription that unlocks more advanced features

This model allows you to experience the transformative power of the app and ensure it’s right for you, with the option to upgrade to enhance your experience and unlock deeper insights.