App review: Finch self-care app

I love to use technology to make my life easier. My husband is an engineer and he keeps telling me that I'm more tech savvy when it comes to mobile devices and apps than he is. It is true. Starting from dog monitoring when we leave our little Bennie home alone, all the way to to-do lists and reminders, digital journaling, yoga app, I'm all for trying different apps out. In this app review we will cover Finch, the self-care app.

About one and a half years ago I came across an app called Finch self-care app. I fell in love with it immediately. Have you ever had a Tamagotchi as a kid? It is like that just without having to swipe away the poop three times a day. Finch promises that with their app daily self-care will become finally fun as you are taking care of your pet while taking care of yourself. And they don't underdeliver. There's a whole range of functionality that ultimately supports you to focus on yourself, to reflect, to set goals and actions to take better care of yourself, helps to stay more mindful and cherish every day. Here's an overview of the app.

The basics

The idea of this app is pretty simple, yet very smart. You hatch a baby bird egg that you are evolving and growing day by day by completing various tasks, exercises, reflections, quests and journeys. Ultimately, the more you do for yourself, the happier your bird gets and the faster it grows. You can dress the bird up, change its look, which makes it feel like a real pet and gets you attached and curious how it will evolve and grow and what the next possibilities are. By taking care of the pet there is this extra motivation to complete tasks. The tasks are all about being kinder to yourself, caring for your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing and setting goals for yourself to build towards a happier and more fulfilling life.

Journeys and goals

The core of the app is to set goals for yourself. The app itself gives a wide range of ideas what you can do if you're not sure where to start. These goals can be set on repeat, perhaps daily, or on particular days of the week or month. Few examples from the app library:

• Hug a loved one

• Just be

• Cook a meal for the family

• Take out trash

You can also come up with your own goals, ones that are important for you on your self-care journey. I've set a few for myself:

• Shake off worries: repeating daily. This is a little morning routine to get rid of minor or bigger anxieties I'm having about a particular thing I need to do during the day (e.g. visit the dentist or have to do a speech at work). I would just do something similar like stage actors to 'transition' into their roles. Except I use it to shake my fears off of me.

• Working out: I do this 5 times a week on specific days. I already have a good routine around it, but when it doesn't work out, it is easy to move the goal to a different day or skip it altogether.

• Bennie training: I've just recently added this as I wanted to build up a habit to spend 5 minutes every day with my dog to learn and practice tricks. Unfortunately, my dog is very insecure and I had an accident with him where he bit me, so I'm keen on working on our 'relationship' and create a better sense of pack order. Having the goal in the app just reminds me to do this every day. (Unfortunately the app assumed Bennie was a person, so it pre-selected an icon of a guy – it is a premium feature to change the icon.)

Going beyond random tasks, you can create a journey, a set of goals that tie together to a bigger purpose. Here as well you can select from a range of built-in journeys or you can create your own. In a later blog post, I will share a custom-made journey created for introverts, so stay tuned. Overall, the journeys help to pick different activities and tasks that ultimately address one of your bigger goals, for instance this built in one (although you can add, change or replace any of the pre-built items):

• Journey: start moving and get healthy

• Repeating goals with various frequencies:

  • Perform a 3 minute exercise I enjoy

  • Take the stairs on the way back home

  • 3 min wind down before bed

  • Walk for 10 minutes while listening to a podcast

Other self-care tools

There are a wide range of additional possibilities in the app that helps with focusing on self-care, mindfulness and dealing with stress:

• Breathe: Wide range of breathing exercising starting from relaxation to calming down due to stress, anxiety or panic. The length can be customized.

• Movements: many ideas for daily goals to facilitate more movement during the day

• Act of kindness: Ideas to give back to the (Finch) community

• Reflections: A whole range of prompts to reflect and write down thoughts and feelings.

• Soundscapes: Sort of unguided meditation with nature or other sounds to listen to. Customizable in terms of length and sounds.

• First aid kit: Have you had a rough day? Something unexpected happened? Are you upset, anxious or scared? These are nice tools to help you anchor, calm down or process these emotions.

• And many more nice possibilities

The positives

While I hatched my first pet 1,5 years ago, after changing phones, I couldn't retrieve my pet (see negatives). I hatched my Fifi 5 months ago, but only recently started actively using the app. Nevertheless, Finch didn't disappoint me. There's even more features then the previous time I used it. Even on the free plan, you have access to a wide range of functionality and can use the app almost to the fullest. Having this extra twist of taking care of a pet just naturally stimulates to check in more and connect emotionally with. While you can get inspiration from the pre-built goals, journeys and exercises (slightly limited in the free plan), you have the option to create your own steps and tailor it to your personal needs. It doesn't require you to be on the app 24/7, but helps you to be reminded of the goals you've set for the day and sticking to them. The apps design is simple, yet compelling. I really love it. If you have the means you can become a Guardian, basically donating to the developers to keep providing good functionality for the free plan users and you can opt for a premium plan that enables all functionalities (the price I'm offered here in NL is 70 EUR per year, 6 EUR/month). I haven't signed up for the premium, as I'm pretty OK with the functionality the free plan offers, however I support the app as a Guardian, because I truly see its benefit for anyone wanting to dedicate more attention to themselves.

The negatives

There's really not a whole lot to say on the negative side. Because I didn't make a backup of my first pet, I couldn't retrieve it when I wanted to resume using the app. I also find it unfortunate that you can't use it simultaneously on multiple devices, although I am under the impression there's a beta feature available for that. I honestly think it is super user friendly and straightforward with tiny tricks to get you more hooked up and they are there for good reason. It is worthwhile to get hooked up on Finch and replace 10 minutes of scrolling by checking off a few self-care tasks and doing some reflections and perhaps a breathing exercise. I find it is enough to check in to the app 2-4 times a day for a few minutes to make progress and get a little self-care boost. So not much negatives, really.

Final thoughts

It really doesn't matter on which life stage you are at, or in what ways you are struggling with self-love or self-care, the app can be a good solution to get you in the habit of doing something nice to yourself every day, build your awareness, pride and self-love. Use my friend code (J3TBCKWF1J) to hatch an egg and meet your self-care pet!