A vision board only works if you see it, and most digital ones lose on that one point. They live inside an app, so seeing your goal takes a decision, an unlock and a tap. The picture ends up competing with everything else on the phone, and losing quietly for about a week before you stop opening it.

A widget removes the decision. The picture is on the screen you already look at dozens of times a day, without being asked for, and in this app it is the reveal itself: your photograph under a frosted cover that uncovers one region for every day you check in.

What the widget actually shows

Your own photograph of your own goal, partly uncovered, plus the day count and when your next check-in opens. No motivational text over the top, no badge, no streak number waiting to be broken. You choose whether those few words are white, cream, charcoal or black, so they stay readable on your picture, and that choice is free.

That means a glance answers two questions at once. What am I doing this for, which is the picture. And how far in am I, which is how much of the picture is showing. The reminder and the measurement are the same object, which is the whole reason the app is built around an image.

Tap it and the app opens, ready for the day's check-in. Check in and the widget redraws with one more region uncovered.

On iPhone and iPad

The widget is built with WidgetKit and comes in the small and medium home screen sizes. The medium size is the one worth using if the photograph has anything in it you want to be able to read, since a small square of a wide photo is not much to look at.

It names the time your next check-in opens and counts down to it. On iPhone the same countdown can also sit on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, once you turn that on in Settings. To keep the photo itself on your lock screen, see how to put a vision board on your lock screen.

Each widget is configured to a journey, so if you have more than one running you can point one at each, and nothing has to guess which you meant. Long press, Edit Widget, choose the journey.

There is more about the app itself on the vision board app for iPhone page.

On Android

The Android widget is built with Glance and behaves the way the platform expects. Drop it on the home screen and it asks which journey it should show before it places itself, which means it is never sitting there empty wondering what it is for. You can change that later from the launcher without removing and re-adding it, and it resizes horizontally and vertically so you can give the photograph the room it deserves.

It redraws immediately when you check in, and it keeps its countdown to the next check-in current in the background. With Premium, today's region also softens gradually as the day goes on. That cue uncovers nothing.

The vision board app for Android page covers the rest of it.

On Apple Watch and Wear OS

On Apple Watch there is a real app plus a complication, so the day count can sit on your watch face in the circular, corner, inline or rectangular slots, depending on the face you use. You can check in from your wrist.

On Wear OS there is an app, a tile you can swipe to, and a watch face complication. Same journey, same check-in, and it stays in step with the phone.

A watch is arguably the strongest version of this idea, because the glance is even cheaper than reaching for a phone. It is also the one place where a picture has to earn its space against a clock, which is why the complication shows the count and the app shows the reveal.

On Mac and Windows

On Mac the widget goes in Notification Center or straight onto the desktop, in a small or medium size, and it fills in as you check in on your Mac, iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. There is a Mac page with the detail.

On Windows 11 the reveal is available on the Widgets Board as well as in the app's own mini window, with the day you are on and when your next check-in opens. The app registers it on first run, per user, with nothing to install separately. The mini window is the surface that always works, which is why the Windows page lists it first: widget registration can fail for reasons that have nothing to do with this app, and when it does the app carries on exactly as before.

Why a widget and not a notification

A notification interrupts you, once, at a moment chosen by software. If it arrives while you are doing something else it gets swiped away, and after a week of being swiped away it becomes invisible. That is simply what notifications do, and willpower has nothing to do with it.

A widget waits. It is there when you happen to look, which is many times a day, and it costs you nothing when you are busy. Something you glance at fifty times without noticing works differently from something that demands attention twice and then gets muted.

There is a daily reminder in the app if you want one, at a time you choose. The widget is the part that does the quiet work.

What it does on the day you miss

Nothing dramatic, and that is deliberate. The region for that day stays covered. Everything you already uncovered stays uncovered. No number falls to zero, and the widget does not change its tone to tell you off.

A streak counter is a genuinely motivating thing right up until the evening it breaks, and then it becomes the reason people delete the app. If the twenty three days are gone anyway, there is nothing left to protect tonight. Here the days that happened stay happened, and the widget keeps showing them. There is more on that in what to do when you miss a day and in the habit tracker without streaks.

Choosing a photo that reads at widget size

A widget is small, which changes what makes a good picture.

One subject, large in the frame. A wide landscape with the point of it in the distance turns into texture at this size.
Strong contrast. The cover sits over the photograph, so a picture that was already low contrast has very little left to show through in week one.
Something you recognize in half a second. You are going to catch it on the way to something else.
Yours, not a stock photo. A generic image stops registering within days, and on a home screen that happens faster than anywhere else.

There is a longer version of this in what to put on a vision board.

What the free version includes

The widget is free. So is one journey at a time, seven or thirty day lengths, the Petals reveal style, the watch apps, the countdown, your choice of text color, exporting your finished reveal as an image you can keep, and backup through your own iCloud or Google account. No account is needed and there is no advertising.

Premium adds several journeys at once, custom journey lengths, seven cover colors, the Rings and Arcs reveal styles, your finished photographs as a gallery, per-journey results, rest days, repeating journeys, App Lock, a cover that softens as the day goes on, and sync between Apple, Android and Windows. If you run several journeys, each widget can be pointed at a different one. Premium is here, and the free version keeps working whether you buy it or not.

What people put on it

Sobriety, where the widget is a reason on the home screen.
Saving, where the picture is the thing the money is for.
Training, where the photo is the race, the route or the distance.
Exams and revision, where the reward is months away and invisible until it arrives.

A vision board widget for your home screen