How RetroPals works. Six things, one routine.
Only one of them is a routine, and it happens once a week.
Pick a companion, then make it yours
You start by choosing a companion from a set of four starters. From there it is yours to shape: give it a name and a role, write its personality, set how warm or how direct it is, choose its colours and appearance, and pick which AI model sits behind it.
Make as many as you like. Each one keeps separate conversations and separate memory, so a companion you use for goal check-ins does not know about last week's reflection unless it was there for it.
Prefer no AI at all? Turn AI features off in settings and the app carries on working. Everything below still happens, just without the written analysis.
Set a direction, not just a destination
Most goal apps start with a target. RetroPals starts with an aspiration: the kind of person you want to be, or the direction you want your life to move.
If you do not know yet, there are low-pressure ways to find one. Sketch a few possible futures, swipe through identity cards to see what lands, or browse a library of examples.
- Goals, measurable outcomes with a target date.
- Habits, small weekly behaviours. Both the ones you are building and the ones you are cutting back on.
- Barriers, the things that actually get in the way, named honestly.
None of it is required. A goal that links to no aspiration is still a goal, and someone who only ever logs habits is using the app correctly.
Reflect, once a week
This is the core of it. A short, gentle, multi-step check-in.
- Wellbeing. Rate eight categories: Sun, Sleep, Nutrition, Exercise, Rest, Socialising, Expression and Comfort.
- Feelings. How happy, calm, sad or angry the week was.
- Motivation and stress. Plus energy and anxiety, each one switchable.
- Sleep. How the week actually slept.
- Notes. Free text, as much or as little as you want.
- Attachments. Optionally pull in real context: sleep, steps, exercise, or the weather where you were.
Every single step can be turned off in settings. Someone who only wants to rate wellbeing and write a few notes gets a two-step flow, and that is a completely valid way to use the app. The ratings come before the writing on purpose, so a blank page is never the first thing you face.
Get help making sense of it, if you want it
When you submit, your companion can turn the week into a written reflection: plain language, personal to you, connecting what you rated to what you wrote and to whatever context you attached.
- Deep dive, a guided set of questions about the week, which works with or without a model attached.
- Quick dive, the short version when you have five minutes.
- Keep talking, carry the reflection straight into a conversation with your companion.
- Monthly analysis, a wider look back once enough weeks have stacked up.
The reflection itself is the point. The AI is the optional part.
Check in on goals, without the nagging
When a goal needs attention, you can do a motivation check-in. It can be a conversation with your companion or a plain form, whichever you prefer, and it is built on real behavioural science rather than vibes.
You choose which frameworks are switched on. They are all off until you turn them on, and each comes with a short plain-language explainer, so you are never handed jargon.
Nothing here records a failure. There is no streak to break and no history of misses to feel bad about.
Watch the patterns build
The Insights tab turns your weeks into something you can actually read: a wellbeing radar across the eight categories, how your emotions moved, motivation against stress over time, and how it all shifts month to month.
The goal is self-awareness, not metric obsession. There is no score to optimise, because there is no score.
What it actually looks like
Sunday evening, seven minutes. You open the Reflect tab. You rate the eight categories (Exercise low, Socialising surprisingly high). You skip feelings because you turned that step off months ago. You write four sentences about a difficult work week. You tap attach and the app pulls in your sleep and step data.
Your companion writes back. It notices that the two weeks where you rated Rest lowest were both weeks you slept under six hours, and asks whether the deadline or the sleep came first. You talk about it for a couple of minutes. It suggests one thing: move your Wednesday walk to the morning.
That's it. Nothing to maintain until next Sunday.
A calmer way to keep going.
One reflection a week. No streaks to break, no scores to chase, no pressure to perform.