A short vocabulary for a quieter kind of tracking.

Non-goal tracking

Self-tracking without a target to hit. You log what happens; you don't grade it against a plan. The noticing is the deliverable, not the "better number." Compare: observational tracking.

Observational tracking

Tracking that aims at understanding rather than improvement. Change, if any, tends to follow on its own — you don't need to pressure it. See also: What tracking means, if it's not for optimising.

Optimisation tracking

Tracking that evaluates every number against a target. Weight down: good. Weight up: bad. The accounting-ledger model of a body. Useful for a specific narrow task — rarely the right default.

Cross-domain correlation

Looking for patterns across multiple life domains at once — weight × cycle × mood × food — rather than in isolation. The reason a weight spike on cycle day 26 is information, not failure. The product thesis of Today.

Luteal-phase weight gain

The 1–3 kg rise in body weight that typically appears in the 5–7 days before a menstrual period, driven by progesterone-linked fluid retention — not fat. Drops 1–3 days after the period starts. See also: Your scale is reading your hormones.

Streak counter

A retention-design pattern that awards consecutive-day completions and resets to zero on a miss. Effective for keeping users opening an app; weak-to-harmful for building durable health habits. See also: The problem with streaks.

Retention mechanic

A product-design pattern whose primary job is to bring a user back tomorrow, usually framed as a behaviour-change tool. Streaks, daily rings, and notification nudges are the three most common.

Quiet software

Apps that end the session as soon as the useful work is done, send no proactive notifications, and make no claim on your attention between sessions. The opposite of engagement-optimised software. Today is designed this way on purpose.

Moralising food

Assigning moral value to what someone ate — "good day / bad day" around macros or calories. A category error that most calorie-tracking apps build directly into their interface, often unintentionally.

All-or-nothing tracking

A thinking pattern, reinforced by streak apps and strict targets, where a single missed day is treated as a full failure. Strongly associated with quitting rather than resuming.

Quantified self

The broad practice of routinely measuring aspects of one's own body or behaviour. Today is a quantified-self tool with a specific stance: observational, non-goal, cross-domain.

Cycle-aware weight interpretation

Reading scale numbers in the context of where the user is in their menstrual cycle, so that normal late-luteal fluid retention isn't misread as fat gain or lack of discipline.

Narrative food log

A food entry written as a sentence — "pizza with blue cheese, felt heavy after" — rather than broken into macros. Preserves context the numbers lose.

AI health partner

An AI whose role is to notice patterns in a user's own logged data and surface them briefly when useful — as opposed to a coach (prescribes), an assistant (performs tasks), or a chatbot (converses). Today's term for what the app actually does.