The Habit of Habit Tracking
Posted on August 8, 2024 by Aywren
Along with keeping a journal and planner by hand this year, I’ve gotten into writing out daily habit trackers as well. Previously, I used Habitica to do this, but now that I’m going much more analogue with things, I’ve moved away from using an app to using tried and true pen and paper.
My daily planner has a little section for each week that lists out habits along the left side and provides checkmarks for each day of the week. You simply acknowledge if you engaged with the habit that day or not. Mostly, it’s a way for you to look back at your week and see what you did well or what you need to work on more.
You don’t need a planner to keep your own habit tracker, though. Here’s a page with a bunch of different trackers – most of them are by month – that you can print out and use if you’d like! You can also just search for “Habit Tracker” and likely find even more.
Or make your own! Having gridded paper makes it very easy, but you don’t even need that to set up your own habit tracker and get started.
Yes, keeping up with a habit tracker every day is creating a habit of habit tracking. And while there is room to keep up with many, many habits on some of these sheets, I honestly suggest starting out with only a few and working your way up to more habits that you see along the way. You don’t want to overdo it and become overwhelmed, especially at the start.
Also, remember that this is not a to-do list, it’s a guide to help you build a daily habit. While I do make every effort to check off my habits each day, if I fail to do so, it’s not something I beat myself up over. This should never be a forced thing.
I personally use my habit tracker for things like fiddle and uke practice, sketching every day, trying to walk or exercise every day, and in the case of Blaugust, blog every day.
If you want, you can assign rewards for monthly or weekly completion, too. It’s better to reinforce good habits than punish yourself for “failing” to keep up with a habit, after all.
Is habit tracking something you already do? If so, do you have any other tips to give? If not, does this look like a helpful thing to adopt and try?