How to Use hope. A First Week Walkthrough

You downloaded hope. and now there are tabs. There is a pet on one of them. There is a focus timer. There are meditation methods you have never heard of. Where do you start?

Right here. We wrote this so you do not have to figure it out alone.

Quick answer: pick one pillar per day for your first week. Day 1 meditation, day 2 focus, day 3 sleep, days 4 and 5 habits and challenges, days 6 and 7 review and tune. Do not try to use everything at once. The app is designed to grow with you.

This walkthrough assumes you have just installed hope. on an iPhone running iOS 17 or newer. If you have not yet, the app is free on the App Store, no account required.

Day 1: pet and your first meditation

Open the app. Skip Sign in with Apple for now if you want. You can always add it later. The first thing the app will ask you to do is pick a companion pet.

You have 8 to choose from:

Cat. Reserved. Watches you work.
Panda. The popular pick. Slow movements. Calm vibe.
Bunny. Bouncy. For the people who need energy.
Fox. Curious troublemaker. Best if you do not want a “good” pet.
Koala. Sleepy by design. Pairs well with the sleep tab.
Penguin. Formal. Mildly dramatic.
Hamster. Compact chaos.
Owl. Quiet observer. Best for night users.

Pick one. You can rename it. You cannot lose it. Move on.

Now tap the Meditation tab. You will see 6 core methods. For day 1, pick 4-7-8. It is the gateway. Inhale for 4 seconds through the nose. Hold for 7. Exhale through the mouth for 8. The app counts for you with a soft visual ring, so you do not have to look at numbers.

Do 4 cycles. That is roughly 76 seconds. Then close the app.

That is day 1. Yes, really.

Day 2: focus timer (25-minute pomodoro)

Tomorrow, before you start whatever you have to work on, open hope. and go to the Focus tab. Pick the 25-minute pomodoro mode. There are 9 modes total but pomodoro is the easiest place to start because it has a natural end.

Pick a soundscape. There are 4 ambient options:

Rain. The least distracting. Most people start here.
Cafe. Soft chatter and clinks. Good for solo work that pretends to be group work.
Forest. Birds and wind. Best in the morning.
Distant fire. Crackling without flame. Pairs well with cold weather and slow tasks.

Start the timer. Put your phone face down or, better, on the desk in front of you screen-up so you can see the focus session in progress. Notice that there is a Live Activity on your Lock Screen if you swipe down. That is your active session, visible from anywhere without unlocking.

Work on one thing for 25 minutes. When the timer ends, hope. will give you a small visual reward and your pet will be a little happier. That is the dopamine moment. Take a 5-minute break. Drink water. Repeat if you want, or close the app and come back tomorrow.

Day 3: log your first sleep, try stillness

Sleep is the most underrated tab in the app, and the one most people skip. Do not skip it.

Tonight, before you sleep, open hope. and go to Sleep. Tap Log entry. The app will ask roughly what time you went to bed and what time you woke up. You can also rate sleep quality with a 5-point scale. There is a notes field if you want to write something like “stayed up too late, watched a documentary about cheese.” That note will be there when you look back in 2 weeks.

This data stays on your device. It does not go to Apple’s health systems. It does not get analyzed by a third party. It is yours.

While you are still awake, try one round of Stillness if you have 90 seconds. Go to the Stillness tab. Level 1 is 60 seconds of sitting completely still. The app uses your phone’s motion to detect movement. If you move, the timer pauses. If you sit, it counts up. There are 30 levels. Each is slightly longer than the last. By level 10 you are doing 5 minutes. By level 30 you are doing 20. If you want a deeper look at why this practice matters, our stillness guide covers the philosophy and the progression.

Stillness sounds silly. It is the most surprising feature we built.

Day 4: start a habit streak

Go to the Habits tab. You will see slots for a morning routine, a night routine, and custom habits.

Pick one habit. Just one. Examples that work:

“Drink a glass of water when I wake up.”
“Read 1 page before bed.”
“Do 1 cycle of 4-7-8 after lunch.”
“Step outside for 60 seconds in the morning.”

Tap to log it when you do it today. That is your streak day 1. The app will gently remind you tomorrow if you set a reminder time, which is optional and minimal. We did not build a notification that says “you are failing.” We built one that says, in essence, “hey, here is your habit.”

Day 5: try a weekly challenge

hope. has 10 rotating weekly challenges. They are small and time-boxed. Examples:

“Do 3 box-breathing sessions before noon this week.”
“Sit through 2 levels of stillness.”
“Log 5 nights of sleep.”

Open the Challenges section (it is reachable from the home screen). Pick one that sounds doable. You have until Sunday. If you finish, you earn coins toward cosmetic items if you want them. If you do not finish, nothing happens. The challenge resets next week.

This is the part of the app where the gamification lives. We chose to keep it optional and unobtrusive. You can ignore challenges forever and the app still works perfectly.

Day 6: review your insights

You now have a week of data. Open the Sleep tab and tap Insights. You will see your average bedtime, your average wake time, and any trends. If you have logged at least 3 entries, the trend line gets useful.

Go to the Focus tab and check your weekly focus total. If you did 4 pomodoros this week, that is 100 focused minutes. That is real.

Go to your pet. It should be in a good mood. Tap it. It might say something. We will not spoil it.

If you signed in with Apple at any point, your iCloud private key-value sync should be carrying your data to any other iPhone you use. If you have not signed in, today is a fine day to do it. Go to Settings inside hope. and tap Sign in with Apple. The whole transaction stays in the Apple ecosystem. We do not get a copy.

Day 7: customize notifications and pick what to keep

By now you have tried most of the app. Today, prune.

Open Settings inside hope. and tap Notifications. Decide what you actually want to be reminded about. If part of what you are working on is general phone time and mindful tech use, our guide to dopamine detox without willpower fits naturally into this week’s review. We recommend:

Habit reminders. On, for the one habit you picked on day 4.
Sleep reminder. On, if you tend to forget to log.
Focus break reminder. Off. The timer already handles this.
Daily prompt. Off, unless you genuinely want a “how are you” ping in the evening.

Less is more. We built hope. so it can run silently if you want. Open it when you need it.

Also pick a theme you like. The default dark theme is included. A few extra themes are one-time purchases on the pricing page if you want to support the app or just like the way they look. None of them change functionality.

How long does it take to feel a difference?

Real talk. A week is enough to know if hope. fits your life. It is not enough to “fix” anxiety or sleep. Most people who stick with the app report that sleep logging becomes a quiet ritual after about 3 weeks, and that the 4-7-8 method becomes automatic by week 4. Stillness takes longer because each level is harder than the last.

The pet starts feeling like furniture in a good way. You are not “playing” with it. You just notice it is there.

Where to go from here

Once you have a week under your belt, the app gets deeper without getting more complex. Try:

The other 5 meditation methods. Body Scan is great after a long day. Loving-Kindness is the relationship-repair tool.
The Cognitive Defusion bonus rhythm for intrusive-thought days.
Quests. There are 18, and they unlock as you practice.
Legend stories. There are 100, and they unlock as you progress.
The Lock Screen widgets. There are 8.

For the full feature list, see features. For privacy details, see privacy. For one-time IAPs, see pricing.

That is the first week. Welcome. The pet is fine. You are doing great.