This self-care virtual pet is helping me get my act together

I wish I could say that I’m the type of person who has tried-and-true routines to carry me through all the things that need to be done in a day, but the reality is far from that. As someone with overlapping chronic illnesses trying to juggle a full-time job and a life outside of that, just getting out of bed often feels like a major feat. I’m caught in the tug of war between perpetual exhaustion and lack of motivation, and whether I’m able to cross anything off my to-do list is generally a gamble.

A few months ago, though, a friend recommended that I try the Finch app to help me establish some gentle structure and get a little more of what I want out of each day. I’d already been seeing ads for this “self-care pet” all over Instagram, and this was the tiny push I needed to actually give it a go. Now here we are, some four months later, and I’m still using...