The Tyranny of The Streak

[elrhiarhodan]

Unless you've completely eschewed all electronic conveniences, it's almost impossible to avoid becoming subservient to the Power and Might of The Streak.

Your Fitbit does this to you. So does your Apple Watch. And your iPad. And your Kindle. If you do the NYT Crossword Puzzle, you're it's victim. And let's not forget to mention DuoLingo, the biggest StreakMaster of them all.

Somehow, we are now all chasing that tiny bit of serotonin from the notification that we've now added one more day to our Streak, and we're willing to sacrifice our physical and mental well-being to keep the Streak going.

A few years ago, I had a 550+ day streak going on completing the NY Times Crossword puzzle. I had been thinking about breaking that streak for months, resenting the need to keep on going, but I couldn't stop myself. I ended up accidentally missing a day and when I realized what happened, I dropped into a funk so deep I couldn't do the puzzle for weeks. I've never been able to get the rhythm back and the longest streak I've had since has been 130 days.

Similarly, I had a 370+ day Move streak on my Apple Watch - just over a year. I had to break it when I got the flu. I would get up and walk up and down the stairs but nothing I did would get me even close the the minimal goal I'd set and with a 103-degree fever, I finally gave up. I'm still not feel great three weeks later and although I try my best to get my ass moving, it's still hard. Last night, after spending the day wishing I could just crawl into bed and stay there, I gave up. It was 8:30, I was in tears (yeah, a grown-ass woman crying over a sore throat and body aches), and I was 85% to my daily goal, but I just had to give up.

You know what? Fuck the streak.

I do manage to ignore the daily reading goals from the Books app on my iPad. That's meaningless to me. I do a lot of reading that doesn't get calculated.

But the new monster is DuoLingo. Friends are quick to tell me about their streaks. I don't want to hear it. I've just started. I'm trying to re-learn Latin. Why? Because I suspect that Yoda was once a Roman Censor - it's the whole "subject-object-verb" thing.

I know I shouldn't let the fucking owl badger me. I suspect I'll be like everyone else and get glued to my phone for an hour or so every night. Better than surfing "Am I the Asshole" on Reddit for the schadenfreude.

Anyone out there feel the same way? What's your longest streak? Or better, what do you do to avoid the Tyranny of The Streak?

Comments

[tjs_whatnot]

I feel this in my bones. Fucking Duolingo. I would tell you my streak (and my hacks to maintain it) because I am oddly proud of them, but you said you also don't want to hear it.

I never thought I was competitive until I got obsessed with streaks (and there really is so many of them) but at least I'm only competitive with myself. ❤️

[elrhiarhodan]

I may hit you up about those hacks if I'm getting desperate but right now, I'm only 6 days in and doing okay with it. The bubones and pavones and psittaci are annoying, but I can deal with them.

And you're right about being competitive with yourself - it's the only way I am competitive!

[princessofgeeks]

Love your icon!!!!

[elrhiarhodan]

Thank you! It's been my default icon for years. I look nothing like this :D

[vriddy]

My favourite streak system is the one in 4thewords, the writing program/game I use to write. It is so very gentle, and it feels like it's working with me to reach the goals I want. Through quests, you can gain items that let you repair your streak up to 30 days back (or 'book' a streak 30 days ahead, for example if you're going to be travelling and won't be able to write). I love it so much. You can also extend your streak for "free" on the day, which I do a lot for example when I'm editing and can't/won't meet my daily word count minimum. I have a streak several years long now and I feel like it's really working with me, to help me write or at least think about my story (if I'm having an occasional shitty day where all I do is think about the story for 5 minutes even if I don't write a single word, I feeling like I've earned the day anyway, and I feel good about the streak overall).

Meanwhile, my relationship with the DuoLingo streak is a lot more tense haha. During the same travel in which I did end up writing peacefully on a few occasions (without having to worry about whether I'd meet my minimum or not, since it was all already pre-"booked" using the special item), I was trying to get through DuoLingo by doing 5XP/2 minutes worth of Matching Madness a day but squeezing that in felt like an absolute chore, and not really like it was working with me to encourage me to learn or to feel something positive about the language.

I totally get you on being too gutted to continue at all after breaking a long streak, especially when it's due to something beyond your control. This really sucks when you weren't given other options.

[elrhiarhodan]

I wish there was a way to park the NYT Crossword puzzle streak - it is honestly the most meaningless streak of all of them!

And oddly enough, for all the writing that I do, I don't sweat the days that I don't write. I've had years that I've written 400k and more, and I've had years where I've barely written anything, due to health issues, and writing is such a heart and mind intensive activity and one that involves a lot of self-love and care that when I'm unwell (all too frequently this past decade) that I can't worry about it. The story lives in my brain until it's ready to commit (and since my writing is the completely free fanfic kind, I don't lose anything from not writing).

[vriddy]

Oh yeah, less than the writing itself as a goal, I mostly wanted to explain how happy I was to find a streak system that allows the space for life to actually happen too, rather than imagine you can purse everything in a straight line and do the exact same thing in the exact same way every day forever no matter what.

Glad you've got a system that works well for you for writing!!

[seleneheart]

Duolingo keeps asking me to put the reminder widget on my home screen. Hell to the no to that!

I don't wear my Apple watch on the weekends for the most part, and thus it's impossible for me to get any kind of a streak going.

Besides Duolingo, my biggest streak is on Snapchat with my daughter. I don't want to disappoint her by breaking it. So there's that.

[elrhiarhodan]

Yeah, no reminder widgets for me. But I do put my watch on - have a heart condition and I got it to monitor that problem, so I do wear it all day (can't sleep with it on).

But chatting with your daughter every day is a good thing, no?

[potentiality_26]

I guess I avoid the Tyranny of the Streak because I am one of those people who doesn't use any of these kind of tracking apps.

If anything, I have the opposite problem. Anything I like to do (or think I should) I want to make a habit of, and as soon as I don't do it for a day my brain goes, "Well, I guess we've failed at that completely and probably won't ever do it again." Is that the Tyranny of Inertia? Idk.

[elrhiarhodan]

Heeheheehee

[mrshamill]

There are three games I play on my tablet, one of which is Candy Crush and I am guilty of doing this with all three, but esp Candy. I hates it, precious, I hates it so much but I can't stop.

[elrhiarhodan]

Hugs you tight.

[princessofgeeks]

I am not chasing the streak. I loathe anything that tries to make me gamify my life. I cringe at my Kindle app that chirpily suggests I need to keep reading and keep my streak going! That is the only thing in this category I ever see and it is just so wrong. I don't need inanimate devices giving me homework or assignments. Or cheering me on through artificial and meaningless milestones.

Just. No.

[minoanmiss]

points to this comment

Would say more but life, ahaha

[elrhiarhodan]

And wise you are, too.

[elrhiarhodan]

You are very, very wise, my friend.

[dizzydrea]

I love word games on my phone... they keep my brain sharp. Because my Mom has dementia, I live in fear of it happening to me, so I probably spend more time than is wise playing these word games (there are three of them, plus a Candy Crush-style game that I'm less invested in).

Only one of these (Cody Cross) has me INVESTED in my streak. I'm up to 315 days. I'm aiming for 365, and then I can decide whether to give up. The nice thing about this game is that it has a feature where you can recover your streak, so I never feel terrible when I've missed a day. The fact that I'm even worried about that streak is terrible, but I haven't found a way to let it go yet.

[elrhiarhodan]

I'm glad that someone is able to keep control of their tiny electronic fiend!

But I do agree with doing puzzles to keep your brain sharp. My grandmothers on both my mother and father's side had Alzheimer's. It's why I do the crossword and the ancillary daily word puzzles on the NYT, and the DuoLingo is also a good way to keep my brain sharp. The fic writing helps, too.

[krait]

I did Duolingo for a few months, but haven't logged in for the last year or so after getting frustrated with a set of lessons that I thought was poorly designed. (Along with the "game-ification" aspects.)

Other than that, I don't think I have any Streaks in my life? I suspect being far behind the times when it comes to tech is the main factor; I use a laptop for the internet and my phone for calls and texts. I don't have a Kindle, I don't have a Fitbit, I don't have any iProducts, and I don't use apps, so I mostly avoid the kind of electronic monitoring that creates and pushes The Almighty Streak as a goal. I guess that safeguarding data privacy and being paranoid about tracking is a good anti-Streak tactic!