A private practice history, not a feed

A history of practice is useful when it answers a dull question: did I sit, and what did I actually do? It becomes a problem when it answers a different question: how do I look, to myself or to anyone else?

Mantra Time keeps a Practice screen with two tabs: History and Stats. This is a description of those screens as they are, not a pitch for tracking as a lifestyle.

What a history row is

On History, a session is a small card. It holds a mantra name, a date and time, and a japa count. In the screenshot we ship with the site, that looks like "Om", "18 Aug, 12:17", and "16 japa". The number is whatever you finished, not a round figure the app invents.

That is the whole row. There is no caption for how you felt, no photograph, no public comment. You can delete one session, Clear all, or Share if you want to send the list to a note, a teacher, or a file you control. Share is an export of your own trace. It is not a post.

If that sounds small, it is supposed to. Counting japa honestly already argued that a count is a boundary, not a score. The history is that boundary written down.

What Stats is allowed to say

The Stats tab is a glance, not a cockpit. It can show a current rhythm of days, this week's malas, this week's minutes, and seven-day completed sessions.

Rhythm is the word on the home screen too: "1 saved session · 0 day rhythm." We did not call it a streak in the product copy, on purpose. A streak is a drama. A rhythm is weather. If the number is zero after a travel week, the practice is not expired. The next sitting is still a sitting.

This week's malas and minutes are sums of what you logged, not targets the app set for you. Seven-day completed sessions is a short window: enough to notice that Thursday vanished, not enough to become a personality.

You can ignore the whole tab. Many people should. A daily prayer habit asks for one glance a week, without scoring it. Stats is that glance if you want it on the phone. It is not a reason to open the app.

If a stats screen in some other tool shows a flame, treat even our rhythm the same way you would treat that flame: as optional local memory, not a public score. Nothing here ranks you against anyone. Nothing here ranks you against a better version of yourself that never missed a Tuesday.

What this screen refuses

No feed. Other people's practice does not belong next to yours. A feed turns a sitting into content. Content wants a caption. A caption wants an audience. An audience wants a streak.

No rankings. There is no board, no weekly winner, no comparison in a household. Someone cooking through a recitation is not less present than someone with a free hour.

No public streak. The product story does not require a leaderboard. If you see a number of days, it lives on the device. It does not need to be performed. It does not need to be recovered after a miss. There is no "repair your flame" copy, because we did not build a flame.

No account required to have a history. Practice can live on the phone. If you later want a copy elsewhere, optional encrypted backup uses a recovery key you keep. Backup is a finishing line for the data, not a social layer. The history is still yours.

These refusals are the same bias as small systems that solve the whole problem. The job is: remember, practise, know that it happened, come back without a scolding. A feed starts a different job.

Honesty in the row

The history is only as honest as the sitting. If you rounded 40 beads up to 108, delete the row. Undo on the japa counter exists so a double tap does not become a wrong 109. If you used fingers on a bus, log what you did, or log nothing. How to use a japa mala is the mechanics of a circuit. The history should not pretend a circuit happened.

When to look, and when to stop looking

Look when you are adjusting the life, not when you are avoiding the sitting.

A useful look is a messy week, or a choice between morning and evening that needs evidence rather than a vibe. A useless look is every night, to see if the rhythm moved, or after a miss, to confirm you have failed.

If the log starts to feel like homework, stop logging for a fortnight and keep the practice. Clear all is a legitimate tool. Some people need a blank list more than they need a graph.

Share without performing

Share exists because a private list still sometimes needs to leave the phone: a backup you make yourself, a note to a teacher, a record you already keep on paper and want to reconcile. Use it that way.

Do not share a sitting to prove a day. The moment a rhythm number is shown as evidence of devotion, it has become a public score, even if the app never built a leaderboard. A household does not need to see your cards.

A small policy for the Practice screen

Try this for a month:

• Log what happened, or log nothing. No rounding.
• Delete a row you know is false.
• Open Stats at most once a week, or not at all.
• Treat rhythm as weather.
• If you miss, return at the next chosen time. Do not pay the list back.

The home screen already says there is no feed, ranking, or pressure — a counter, a timer, and the trace of returning. The Practice screen is that trace. It records a name, a date, a count. It will show you a local rhythm if you ask. It will not make a story out of you.

If you already keep a line in a notebook — date, practice, number — keep the notebook. Software is optional. Privacy is not a feature we added on top of a social product. It is the shape of the product. The sitting closes. The phone stays quiet. The history, if you want it, is a list you can throw away.