Success Tip: Keep a Habit Tracker

Have you heard of a habit tracker? While the concept is one that’s been around for ages, it’s recently begun to gain traction among people who are trying to stay on track with making positive changes. There are various types of trackers, but the point of these tools is the same. They provide a place for you to record the habits you’re currently working on and to keep track of your daily progress toward making those new routines stick. Tracking your desired activities can ensure you are completing them. With repetition, they will soon become automatic actions you don’t even have to think about. Let me share with you more about what this useful resource is and just how to keep a habit tracker.

About Habit Trackers

Your habit tracker can be in paper form, online, or in an app. The format you choose is up to you. It should fit your preferences and your lifestyle. Many people like to create their own record keeping system in a journal so that they can customize the setup and use their creativity. This may be ideal for you, especially if you prefer to use pen and paper to record your thoughts. If you’re someone who enjoys organization, you may wish to use a spreadsheet to keep track of things. You’re likely to be able to find an easy program online for habit tracking if you want to be able to access electronic data on any device. For those who live by their handheld devices, a mobile app could be the best choice.

Six of us from my business mastermind group are sharing a Google spreadsheet where we are each tracking a list of personal goals. We made sure each can be answered with a yes or no or a number. I find it easy to do a quick update from my phone even each night as I go to bed. I think it would work for me even without the extra accountability of knowing the group can see both if I’m tracking and my responses, however, the group got me actually doing it!

Using Your Tracker

If you’re making your own habit tracker on paper, you can structure the format any way you want. However, I can give you some general guidelines to get you started. Consider adding the month and the year at the top of your page as your title. Your top row of content could contain a space for each day of the month. Down the side of the page is where you should list each habit you intend to track.

You could color code your habits or tasks to assist in the organizing process or use stickers to add emphasis to important milestones. Making your own record keeping system can be fun and unique. If you go with a digital system, you will follow the guidelines already in place with your program. Experiment with different ones to see which you like best.

Tips for Tracking

Be sure not to attempt to track too many habits at once. As we’ve mentioned, it can become overwhelming to try to manage too many changes. The key to forming habits that become automatic is repetition. You’ll be more apt to seamlessly adopt a new task into your routine if you can do it every day. Keeping your new habits to a manageable number can improve your odds of doing this. Keep going for at least a month before revising habits or adding a new one. This is a good amount of time to let your new routine sink in. Another tip is to do each habit at the same time each day. This will cause new neural pathways to form in your brain that make the action begin to seem easier. Add triggers or cues such as an alarm or action like getting out of bed to help remind you.

A habit tracker can be your new best friend on the road to keeping your resolution. Give this method a shot if you want your new activities to become ingrained into your routine and to have a record of your progress.

Stryv App

Note: The image I shared is a sneak peak of the Stryv app one of my mentors is developing. I can’t wait until it becomes available as I’m in an advance testers/feedback group and have seen all the awesome stuff they are building into it including a habit tracker and so many more tools to help people who are serious about taking charge of their lives and making their goals a reality. The programmer actually lives a few miles from me and I got to have lunch with him this week. I’ll be sure to update this once it becomes available!