Hi, I'm Shingo Suzuki, also known as Suzushin.
I've released Caltrilo, a web app for reviewing chess games. Its main feature is that it turns positions from your own games into tactics puzzles you can solve. As part of an update, I've added a daily streak feature—a record of consecutive days of practice. The idea is to help people keep practicing each day.
In this post, I'd like to give you a quick introduction to the feature.
I've added daily streaks to Caltrilo
Caltrilo has a dashboard, and I've added a streak display at the top. Here's what it looks like.
In this example, the “0 consecutive days” label shows the current streak.
In Caltrilo, you meet the daily goal by spending at least one minute practicing: playing games, analyzing them, or solving puzzles. Each consecutive day you meet that goal adds one day to your streak. If you miss a day without completing that minute of practice, the streak resets to zero.
In other words, it shows how many days in a row you've kept practicing.
You can take a look at Caltrilo here. If you're interested, give it a try.
Caltrilo | Chess game analysis and practice
Why add a streak feature?
You might be wondering why I decided to add streaks.
The immediate reason was that I wanted a system to help keep practice going. Watching a streak grow can bring a small sense of achievement. And as it grows, you may start to feel that it would be a shame to let it reset. I'm hoping that feeling will help encourage daily practice.
I also study chess on Duolingo, and recently my streak finally reached 300 days! That means I've used Duolingo to study for 300 days in a row.
I tend to lose interest in things after just a few days. Without some way to keep myself going, I often get bored and give up.
Duolingo's streak system made me want to do at least a little studying every day, even if I only had a short amount of time. That experience made me think streaks might be a useful source of motivation.
So I decided to draw on that experience and implement a streak feature in Caltrilo too.
How to build and check your streak
Caltrilo tracks the time you spend playing games, analyzing games, and solving puzzles. The time you spend on each of those activities is recorded internally. When the combined total reaches at least one minute in a day, you've met that day's streak goal.
So all you need is at least a minute of those practice activities. The daily tracking period changes at midnight in your local time. If a day goes by without that minute of practice, the streak resets to zero.
As mentioned earlier, you can check your streak at the top of the dashboard. You can see your practice time for each day on the Review page.
What do I think after trying it?
I only implemented the streak feature today, so I don't know yet how effective it will be.
Still, looking at the streak count makes me want to add even one more day. Since the goal is just a minute of practice a day, it feels easy to reach. A little spare time is enough to fit it in.
I'd like to build a habit of studying a little each day to improve at chess. I'm hoping this streak feature can play a part in that.
I'd like to keep practicing with Caltrilo
I've added daily streaks to my chess review app, Caltrilo. I'm hoping the feature will help support regular practice and make it a habit.
I'll be using Caltrilo myself and trying to build up my streak. Then I'll see whether daily practice becomes a habit, as I hope it will.
I've covered Caltrilo's other features in a separate article. If you're interested, you can find it here.
Caltrilo can do quite a bit more now than it could in its earliest version. I'd like to keep adding features that seem useful. I'd also love to hear your feedback, so please give Caltrilo a try!