Launching Markd Daily — a place to record, as easy as a memo, built to last

Markd Daily is live on the App Store today.

This app was born from one simple idea: a habit tracker that’s as easy to use as a memo.

Many existing tracking apps come with complex features, limited slots, or data collection of one kind or another. Markd is simply a place where you record how well you did, on your own items, with one tap — nothing more.

Get Markd Daily on the App Store — $3.99 one-time purchase, available in 175 countries.

Why I built this

At the turn of the year, on New Year’s Day, on any milestone — we set goals. I want this kind of life. I want this career. I want to make this dream come true.

But whether we actually achieve those goals — most of the time, we get caught up in everyday busyness and never look back. We forget we even set the goal. And gradually, the life we once pictured drifts further from our awareness.

Behavioral science research shows that simply writing things down and recording them significantly improves goal achievement (see “What the research actually says” below).

So, how do you record? Handwriting is a fine option, but recording as data has its advantages: you can look back visually with graphs, edits are easy, recording takes one tap, and there’s no paper to carry around.

But — an app that lets you record as casually as a memo, in just a few seconds, simply — that didn’t exist. So I made one.

Not just yes / no. How much you did, or didn’t.

Did you sleep five hours, or did you sleep eight? Did you exercise for ten minutes, or for an hour? Did you study with full focus, or did you study while doomscrolling?

Markd Daily uses a 1 to 7 score for each habit instead of a checkbox. For example: 7 is a day you really achieved the habit. 1 is a day you basically didn’t. 4 is a day you at least showed up. N/A is for days when a habit doesn’t apply.

That’s the whole app.

Three things this app deliberately does not have

When I designed Markd, I made a list of things I refused to add.

1. No streaks

Your 47-day streak is broken. — One missed day and the app turns on you.

Markd has no streak concept at all. Miss a day. Miss a week. Come back when you can.

What I wanted was an app that supports you reflecting on the kind of days you’ve had, recording what went well and what didn’t, and feeling — on your own — that “next time I’ll do this” or “I’ll try a bit more.”

2. No badges, no rewards

Gamification works in short bursts, then collapses. Badges stop feeling earned. Rewards stop triggering anything. People lose interest.

I want Markd to be a “tool” that takes the place of your memo.

3. No notifications pushing you to open the app

The whole point of a habit tracker is to support a habit outside the app. A notification that pulls you back into the app is, by definition, working against that goal.

Markd trusts you to remember. If you don’t, that’s also honest data.

(It’s not a notification — but adding “recording in Markd” as one of your tracked habits might, on its own quiet moments, help you remember to record.)

What you can actually do with it

• Track any habits you define — exercise, sleep, diet, study, anything. No limits. No paywall for more slots.
• Score each one daily from 1 (barely) to 7 (great), or N/A.
• See your history in a table view — scan weeks at a glance.
• See your trends in line charts — daily or monthly, totals or averages, up to 90-day windows.

That’s the entire app.

Your data stays yours

Everything is stored locally on your device using SQLite.

• No external servers
• No analytics SDKs
• No third-party services
• No accounts (the app uses no sign-in at all)
• If iCloud Backup is enabled in your iPhone settings, your data gets backed up by Apple — not by us. We never see it.

This is because, for an app that simply takes the place of your own personal memo, there’s no need to let anyone else collect your data.

What the research actually says

I didn’t invent the idea that writing down what you do helps you do more of it. There is a well-known body of research on it:

• A 2015 study by Dr. Gail Matthews at Dominican University tracked 267 participants across five groups. The group that wrote down their goals and sent weekly progress updates achieved them at roughly twice the rate of the group that only thought about them.
• A 2008 study (Hollis et al.) on weight loss at Kaiser Permanente found that people who kept a food diary lost roughly twice as much weight as those who didn’t, with daily logging being the single strongest predictor of success.

The act of writing it down is the lever. Markd is just trying to make that lever as easy to pull as possible — one tap per habit, every day.

A simple place, built to last

I built Markd for myself first.

I wanted somewhere I could log, in five seconds, whether I exercised today, how well I slept, whether I read, whether I studied, whether I had a meal with my family, whether I played with my kids — and honestly reflect on how today went.

I didn’t want a coach. I didn’t want a personality. I didn’t want to be reminded that I broke a streak in 2024.

What I wanted was a quiet place that remembers, for as long as I want to keep using it.

If you also want that, Markd Daily is on the App Store right now.

Pricing

• $3.99 one-time purchase. No subscription. No upgrade tier. No ads. Buy it once, use it for as long as you keep your phone.
• Available in 175 countries through the App Store.

Get Markd Daily on the App Store

What’s next

I’ll keep writing here about how Markd is being built and used — both the product side (what I’m changing based on real use) and the development side (why I made the choices I made).

If you have feedback or run into anything, info@yamakraft.com is the fastest way to reach me.

Thank you for reading. If you decide to try it, thank you for showing up. And I hope you can live the life you envision.

— Yamakraft