Getting started with Well Lived

Well Lived is a log of where your time goes, plus a few small rituals that help you notice what that time is doing for you. This guide takes you from your invite to your first logged hour, then points you at the pages worth opening next.

When to use it

Read it once, on your first day. Everything here takes about five minutes, and you can change any of it later.

How to use it

1. Create your account

Open the invite link you were sent. It goes to Create your account, with your email already filled in.
Choose a password of at least 12 characters, type it again, and press Create account.
Your time zone is taken from the device you sign up on. If that's wrong (say you signed up on a trip), fix it later in Settings → Profile.

If the link says This invite can't be used, it has already been used or has expired. If you made your account with it, press Sign in. Otherwise, ask for a new invite.

2. Pick a starting point

After signing up you land on Welcome to Well Lived, step 1 of 3. The only real decision here is how you'd like to divide your life into areas, the big buckets like work, health and the people you care about. Everything you log falls under one of them.

You'll see three sets:

Work and life (marked Where most people start): Work, Health, People, Learning, Home and Rest.
Keep it simple: four broad areas, Self, People, Work and Money.
Wheel of life: the eight areas life coaches use, good if you want to see how balanced things are across all of them.

Press Start with this on the one that feels closest. Picking one also sets up a project for each area (like Work or Home) and a list of everyday activities (Meetings, Exercise, Meals, Sleep and so on), so you can log straight away.

Prefer to build your own? Press Set up my own under Start from scratch. That opens Settings → Life areas; you'll then need to add at least one project and one activity before the Log will take an entry. See Projects, activities and life areas.

3. Log your first hour

You land on the Log with a note: Now log your first hour.

Under Start my day, set the date and time this first stretch began (when you woke up is a good choice).
Set Until to when it ended. Now fills in the current time.
Pick a Project (what the time was for) and an Activity (what you were doing).
Add notes if you like, then press Log it.

That's the only time you'll be asked for a start time. From now on, each entry starts where the last one ended, so logging is just "until when, and what."

4. See your Home

After the first save, the note changes to That's the whole habit. Press See your Home to finish the welcome. Home is where the app opens from now on.

5. Work through the Getting started list

For your first two weeks, Home opens with a Getting started list: ten small things worth trying, split into Your first day (your first hour, a logging reminder, your values and balance, an evening review) and Your first week (a morning journal, this month's priorities, your health targets, a look at what else to track, and a weekly review). Each one ticks itself off once you've done it; there's nothing to check by hand.

When every item is done, the list says You're all set. Press Close this list and it's gone for good.

If you hide the list before you're finished, bring it back from the account menu (your initials, at the foot of the menu or top right on a phone): choose Getting started. It comes back for another two weeks.

Where to go next

Home: today as a ribbon, your week by life area, and one button to log what you just did.
Log: the full day, where you fix, fill in and insert entries.
Morning, Evening and Week: short rituals that set a focus for the day, look back on it, and review the week. The daily and weekly rhythm shows how they fit together.
Time spent: after a few days of logging, this starts showing where your week goes and what gives you energy.

Tips

Log as you go, or catch up a few times a day. Both work. Gaps are fine too; a stretch you didn't log simply stays out of your totals.
Rename anything that came with your starting point. "Personal" might be better as "Side project", and that's a two-second change in Settings.
Rate your energy on a few entries each day. It's optional, but it's what lets the app tell you what lifts you and what drains you.
If you plan to use the Evening page, open Settings → Values and Settings → Balance and pick a starting set, so there's something to score at night.
A small ⓘ beside a field explains it. Tap or click it to read. Using a keyboard? Tab skips the ⓘ so you go straight from field to field; press Alt + / (Option + / on a Mac) in a field to show its explanation, and again to hide it. Screen readers read the explanation when you reach the field.

Questions

Can I change my starting point later? Yes. Rename, recolour, add or remove life areas, projects and activities whenever you like in Settings. Revisiting the welcome page only adds what you don't already have, so it never overwrites your changes.

I skipped the welcome. Why can't I log anything? The Log needs at least one project and one activity to pick from. It shows Pick a starting point when they're missing, which sets them up in one tap, or you can add them yourself in Settings → Projects and Settings → Activities.

Why does the Log only ask for an end time? Your log is a chain: each entry begins where the previous one ended. You set the very first start once, and after that the start fills itself in.

My Getting started list has fewer items. It only lists what's turned on for your account. Without the Body page, for instance, there's no health targets item.

I don't see some pages mentioned in this help. Some parts of the app are only on for some accounts. If you don't see a page in the menu, it isn't turned on for your account.

What happens to my data? It's yours. You can download all of it, or delete your account, from Settings → Data & account. See Your data.