Everything involved, and what it cost

People assume there is more equipment behind this than there is. There is not, and the total spend across four years is under a hundred pounds, most of it on one thing.

Thing	Cost	Still used?
Spreadsheet	Nothing	Daily, four years
Memory stick for the backup	About £6	Yes, once a year
Kitchen timer, wind-up	About £9	Yes, for the walk and the sessions
Adjustable dumbbells, secondhand	£65	Yes, twice a week
A doorway pull-up bar	£18	Yes, though it groans
Wrist tracker	Borrowed	No — returned after five weeks
Three habit apps	One was paid, about £20 a year	No

On the wind-up timer

The single best nine pounds in the list, and I recommend nothing on this site, so read that as an observation rather than a suggestion. Setting a timer on a phone means picking up a phone, and picking up a phone at the start of a twenty-minute walk decides what the walk is going to be.

On the dumbbells

Bought secondhand from someone two streets away who had used them for a fortnight, which tells you most of what you need to know about buying equipment for a habit you have not started yet. Mine sat unused for five weeks before the twice-a-week routine settled.

What I would not buy again

• The paid habit app. It was well made and it made the sheet worse.
• A yoga mat, still rolled up in a cupboard, bought for a habit I never wanted.
• Anything with a subscription attached to a number about my own body.