How I Went From 17 Spreadsheets to One Cozy App

I counted them once. Seventeen. Seventeen separate spreadsheets, each one carefully colour-coded, each one representing a different corner of my life I was trying to get a handle on.

There was the habit tracker. The mood log. The budget sheet (actually three sheets — income, expenses, and net worth). The reading list. The yarn stash inventory. The project log for my cardmaking. The junk journal supply list. The fitness log. And somehow, despite all of this, I still felt like I had no idea where my time, money, or energy was actually going.

Sound familiar?

The spreadsheet spiral

I love spreadsheets. I genuinely do. There's something deeply satisfying about a well-built formula and a colour-coded tab. But maintaining seventeen of them — across different devices, different Google accounts, some in Excel, some in Sheets — was becoming a part-time job.

The worst part wasn't the maintenance. It was the disconnection. My mood log and my habit tracker lived in completely separate places, so I had no idea whether my mood was better on days I exercised or on days I meditated. My budget and my craft spending were in different files, so I couldn't see what my hobbies were actually costing me. Everything was siloed.

"I had all the data. I had none of the insight."

I knew there had to be a better way. So I went looking.

The app problem

Here's what I found: great habit apps. Great mood apps. Great budget apps. Each one excellent at its one thing, each one charging a monthly subscription, and none of them talking to each other.

I tried combining them. At one point I had four apps running simultaneously, each sending me different notifications, each with its own design language, each storing my data in its own silo. I was paying around $40 a month for the privilege of still not having a clear picture of my life.

And the streak mechanics drove me absolutely mad. Miss one day of your habit? Start over. Forget to log your mood on Tuesday? The week's ruined. Apps that were supposed to help me feel better were making me feel worse every time life got in the way — which, as it turns out, is frequently.

Building something different

I'm a builder at heart. So I built Trackers Unite.

The brief I gave myself was simple: one app, one login, one payment, no subscription, and it has to feel kind. Not punishing. Not gamified in a way that makes you feel guilty. Just a cozy, organised place where you can see your whole life at a glance.

I added a Life Snapshot that pulls data from all your trackers and shows you actual correlations — does your mood go up on days you work out? Do you spend more when you're having a rough week? These are the insights I always wanted from my seventeen spreadsheets and never got.

I added a craft tracker because I couldn't find a single decent app for managing yarn stash, project logs, pattern libraries, and wishlists across multiple crafts. I built a social media planner because I needed one and the existing ones all charged £15 a month. I kept adding things because I kept having the same realisation: this exists for a reason, and that reason is me.

What I learned

Building Trackers Unite taught me that most productivity tools are designed for productivity's sake rather than for people's sake. They optimise for streaks, not for wellbeing. They optimise for data capture, not for clarity.

The apps I love most are the ones that feel like a friendly notebook rather than a surveillance system. Calm rather than urgent. Encouraging rather than competitive.

That's what I wanted to build. I hope it feels that way to use.

The mood tracker is completely free — no card needed. If you've ever found yourself maintaining a spreadsheet collection that's spiralled slightly out of control, I think you'll feel right at home. 💛