If you’ve tried or looked into using a bullet journal, you’ll know that habit trackers are all the rage right now. If I had known habit trackers were going to be this popular, I probably would have shared mine back in 2011, ha! Mine was actually more of a task tracker that I had made for work. There were several tasks I had to make sure to do first thing in the morning, so I needed a way to keep track of them. I needed something better than a normal to-do list, because I was tired of writing the same to-do list everyday. So I basically made a little grid using Excel, printed it out and colored in the boxes with a highlighter when I had finished each task. This ensured that I always got my tasks done every single day without fail. Soon, even my co-workers were asking for a copy so that they could track their tasks too!
This is what the tracker looks like. As you can see it’s very clean-cut and minimalistic. Instead of work tasks I just wrote the habits that I wanted to track. Some people like to draw their own lines in their journals, but to be honest I draw enough lines in my life already because I have to draw guidelines every time I practice calligraphy. Plus it’s a pain trying to get all the lines parallel so things don’t look crooked, so I prefer to print mine out. If you’d like to use this tracker to keep track of your tasks at work or just to keep track of your habits, you can download the excel file for free here!
Back in the day, I used to fill in the squares with the neon yellow and pink highlighters that I had at work, but this time around I decided to use a colored pencil. Highlighters make it quick and easy to fill in the squares, but I hate how fast highlighters tend to dry out. Because the page was looking a little plain, I decided to decorate it with some washi tape and stickers. My friend had given me a cute little tin of stickers for Christmas and this ones reads: “I sleep late every night and regret it every morning.” Perfect for my habit tracker page!
The secret to using the habit tracker is to have a good number of super easy habits that you can knock out in a couple minutes. For example, taking vitamins only takes a minute or two and pinning something on Pinterest is quick and easy. The easy habits let you fill in some squares, so you’ll feel more motivated to fill in the others! I literally practiced calligraphy that day just so that I could finish that last square. For those of you who are wondering, Kip Dental is a reminder for me to brush my dog’s teeth. I’ve been very bad about it, so I’m trying to make sure I do it everyday this year!
Your Turn ♥ What habits are you working on this new year? Have you tried using a habit tracker before?
