Open the App Store and search for “brain training.” Almost every result will show you a streak counter on its marketing screenshot. A flame icon, a number, “12 days in a row!” The streak is the most visible feature of the category. It is also, in my view, the most harmful.

What a streak counter is actually doing

A streak counter is a behavioural commitment device. The number goes up when you open the app. The number goes back to zero when you do not. The number, once it is non-zero, exerts a continuous pull: every day you open the app is a day you are protecting the streak. Every day you do not is a day you lose it.

This works. That is the problem.

It works in the short term: you open the app more often. It works in the medium term: you feel guilty when you do not. It works in the long term: you abandon the app, because the cost of missing a day eventually exceeds the benefit of opening it, and the streak is no longer recoverable. The most common failure mode of a habit tracker is the day you miss and never come back.

The practice is the point

A Schulte-table practice is a perceptual training tool. The point is to do the grids, with attention, frequently enough that the underlying visual-attention circuits adapt. The point is not to maintain a number. The number is, at best, a weak proxy for the thing you actually want.

When the streak counter is in the room, two things happen. First, you optimize for the streak: you open the app on a day you do not really have time, and you tap through a grid without engaging. The number goes up. The training does not. Second, you miss a day, the streak breaks, and now the next session carries the weight of having failed. You are not training your peripheral vision. You are managing a number.

What the app does instead

Schulte Table Game has a calendar. The calendar shows you what you did and when. It does not scold you for taking Tuesday off. It does not reward you for a week of perfect adherence. It is information, not a commitment device.

The free tier has a daily cap of three sessions. The cap is a different kind of structure — it exists to keep the practice honest, not to make you feel guilty. You cannot grind your way to a “win.” You can do the work, or you can take the day off, and the app will not have an opinion about it.

A practice that demands 100% adherence is not a practice. It is a hostage situation. The cost of a streak counter, in the end, is the practice it eventually costs you.