Three gratitudes, three wins.
Nothing else.
Your brain reliably files away everything that went wrong - and what went right slips straight through. Three & Three turns that around in two minutes a day.
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Why these two questions
Two simple questions in the evening. Both are there for a reason.
What am I grateful for?
Your brain reliably files away what went wrong - and what went right slips through. Three specific things a day turn that around: after a few weeks you start noticing them automatically. And your life satisfaction grows with it.
Really?
Emmons and McCullough (2003) had hundreds of people spend several weeks writing down what they were grateful for. Compared with a group that wrote about their hassles instead, they reported higher positive mood and a more optimistic outlook on the week ahead. Positive affect was the most reliable result across all three studies.
Seligman and colleagues (2005) tested the “three good things” exercise - every evening, write down three things that went well and why. One week was enough to raise participants' happiness and lower depressive symptoms. For people who kept going on their own, the effect still held six months later.
Emmons & McCullough, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(2), 2003 · Seligman et al., American Psychologist 60(5), 2005
What went well?
In one day you pull off plenty of small things and wins that pass by completely unnoticed. Writing them down is not bragging - it is the only way to register them at all. That is what builds healthy self-worth.
Is that true?
Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer went through more than 12,000 daily diary entries from 238 people across 26 teams in seven companies. Of everything that happened on good days, one thing beat all the rest: the feeling that something had moved forward. They called it the progress principle - and it holds for small steps too, not just big wins.
The catch is that we normally do not notice a small step at all - it passes through the day and by evening we cannot recall it. Writing it down is therefore mostly a way of noticing it. Not bragging, but feedback to yourself.
The “three good things” exercise above lands in the same place: the task was not only to write down what went well, but also why it went well. That second part is what helps you see your own share in a good day.
Amabile & Kramer, The Progress Principle, Harvard Business Review Press, 2011 · Seligman et al., American Psychologist 60(5), 2005
What the app does
No clutter, no distractions. Only what helps you keep the habit and nudge your life somewhere better.
Streak
How many days in a row you have at least one entry. A single sentence a day is enough - it is about regularity, not volume.
Momentum
The streak measures whether you write. Momentum measures how hard you are going. Unlike a streak it never resets - it only drops, so a bad week can be caught up.
Calendar
A whole month on one screen. How solid the dot is shows the number of gratitudes, the blue arc around it the number of wins.
Timeline
Every entry stacked up, newest at the bottom. Tapping a day in the calendar takes you straight to it.
Flashback
A random old entry every time you open the app - a reminder that there is more of it than you happen to remember.
Backup
One tap saves every entry as a file. Restoring never overwrites a day that already has content.
Your journal is yours alone
Three & Three has no accounts, no server and no analytics.
Your entries never leave your phone.
Nobody reads them, they sync nowhere and they are analysed nowhere - not even by us. The only way out is a backup you create yourself and store yourself.
Come early, keep it free
Download Three & Three today and it stays free for you in the future.
Even if a paid version ever shows up, it will not touch you. Nothing to activate, nothing to sign up for, nothing to prove - the App Store remembers when you first downloaded the app, and the app works it out on its own.
Start tonight
Three things you are grateful for and three that went well. Two minutes a day - and after a month the calendar shows you how your year is actually going.