Habit Settings: Ability to Change the Unit of a Habit After Creation
The option to change the unit of a habit after it has been created would be highly useful.
Currently, if the wrong unit is selected (e.g., minutes instead of hours), the habit must be recreated.
Allowing the unit to be updated would save time and prevent data loss.
Example: A habit set as “Read for 30 minutes” could later be adjusted to “Read 2 chapters” without starting over.
This feature would make habit management more flexible and user-friendly.
This request was merged into another request
Comments5
Jordan Dayton
Feb 25
First off… I’m digging into the app and really loving the whole UX overall!
But this Feature Request is more of an oversight of something that should have been added at the beginning.
This has become an issue that’s affected me several times as I’m a new user and adding habits and am not sure the best way to track them. i.e. I have one habit that has a goal of 18 minutes a day… but I want to checkin with my progress at 10 distinct times during the day. Intuitively (so i thought) I chose minutes to manage this habit, but quickly realized that the “times” method of tracking was a better UX for me. However this was something that caught me off guard…
The UI is different when you choose a goal Unit of times vs. mins…
# times per period → will provide user with a [+ 1] button to add increments representing the number of times you’ve done the goal.
# min per period → will provide user with a [⏱️ Timer] button and UI to assist in accomplishing your timed goal.
I recognize that these tracking units might not be compatible… but consider that if someone needs to change the tracking unit… they will usually realize this early on… just as a new habit has been created and they quickly realize the selected method of tracking is not ideal.
So a simple resolution for this is to allow the tracking unit types to be changed, but with a critical modal or extra step that tells the user that in order to change the unit type, all past tracked data will be lost. I would click YES to that, in a heartbeat!
The alternative we’re faced with right now is… Rebuild the entire task!!! and for me that includes manually addding again… TEN different reminders to go off throughout the day… and I think we can all agree that this is a horrible user experience.
Also consider this feature request as another interim solution… If we had the ability to
DUPLICATE HABITS (see existing feature request) and immediately throw us into the initial habit creation flow, it could allow us to change the tracking unit type… save… and VOILA!
FrAnKy Hwiki
Sep 11, 2025
It was mentioned in another post that changing a unit is only possible when the units are interchangeable, such as hours and minutes. However, a habit I have created with the unit set to “minutes”, and when attempting to edit it to change the unit to hours, that option was not available — the only selectable unit remained minutes.
Minh Thư
Sep 11, 2025
Hello! Thank you for your feedback.
Did you create this habit from the pre-built template? A permanent list of units is set for each template so it may be limited when you change the unit even if you want to change a new one with the same type.
We will highlight this to the team when they work on the improvement for this part. Meanwhile, you may consider to create a new habit with Custom option. You can choose the habit type and later flexibly switch between the units with the same type.
FrAnKy Hwiki
Sep 13, 2025
Thank you for your response.
Regarding the habit, i did not use the pre-builts ones and created a custom habit!
Minh Thư
Sep 15, 2025
Hi Franky! Thanks for your update. I can see it now. I will work further with the team to check.
Meanwhile, as I also tested, you may use the Meditate template to create habits to track duration. It lets you flexibly change between minutes and hours.