How Momentum Works

Understand whether your daily activities are investments in your future—or just consuming the present. Track your day's archetype matches to build a balanced lifestyle.

Prevent Exhaustion & Burnout

Recognize the true toll of your daily routines. Momentum is designed to help you balance draining obligations with restorative activities, protecting your baseline energy before you hit a wall.

Everything is a Scale

Impact and engagement are sliding scales. Even activities like gaming or ordering food can be a healthy part of your day if your engagement level reflects balance rather than excess.

Escape Has a Purpose

Activities categorized as 'Escape' aren't inherently bad. When chosen consciously, they provide necessary relief, diffuse daily tension, and make your long-term goals sustainable.

Awareness Over Perfection

The goal isn't to construct a flawlessly productive day, but to observe patterns honestly. Realizing how activities actually affect you is the first step toward a thriving life.

Getting Started

  1. Add activities — Log what you do each day and rate effort, short-term reward, and long-term reward.
  2. Set engagement — Slide to reflect how much you actually did each activity. Intentions don't count.
  3. Read your match scores — The dashboard speedometers update live to show what type of day you're having based on your engaged activities.

Core Concepts

Effort Score

Physical or mental energy required

  • 0-3: Effortless
  • 4-7: Moderate
  • 8-10: Very demanding

Short-term Reward

How good it feels right now

  • 0-3: Draining
  • 4-7: Pleasant
  • 8-10: Highly enjoyable

Long-term Reward

How it helps your future self

  • Negative: Harmful consequences
  • Positive: Future benefits
  • Example: Exercise (+5), Junk food (-3)

Autonomy

How much choice/control you felt

  • -10 to -4: Felt forced or obligatory
  • -3 to +3: Mixed choice and obligation
  • +4 to +10: Freely chosen

Activity Categories

Activities are automatically grouped into categories based on your ratings:

Investment

Building skills, health, or relationships for future benefit

Taxing

Necessary obligations that don't provide personal reward

Escape

Temporary relief or avoidance (often low short-term reward despite enjoyment)

Bonus

Easy, enjoyable, and rewarding activities (e.g., Catch up with coworker)

Mixed

Activities with multiple category characteristics

Understanding Your Match Scores

The speedometers at the bottom of your dashboard show how your overall day—weighted by the activities you actually engaged in—matches our four core archetypes. A 100% match means your day entirely mirrors that specific prototype.

Investment Match

How closely your day aligns with high effort and high long-term reward.

  • Points towards future growth.
  • Usually lower in immediate short-term reward.
  • Example shape: High Effort, High Long-term, Neutral Autonomy.

Taxing Match

How much of your day felt obligatory and draining without long-term payoff.

  • High effort combined with low autonomy.
  • Can lead to burnout if it dominates your days.
  • Example shape: High Effort, Low Autonomy, Low Rewards.

Escape Match

How much your day leaned toward immediate relief with negative long-term consequences.

  • Low effort with high short-term payoff.
  • Usually neutral or harmful to your long-term goals.
  • Example shape: Low Effort, High Short-term, Negative Long-term.

Bonus Match

How much of your day was naturally engaging and rewarding on all fronts.

  • High autonomy, low effort, high rewards.
  • A sign of flow, connection, or easy enjoyable tasks.
  • Example shape: Low Effort, High Autonomy, High Rewards.