habit tracking Archives

My Muses #3: Favorite Reasons for Habit Tracking & May Mid-Month Habit Check

May 17, 2018 1 Comment

Favorite Reasons for Habit Tracking, Creating Habits & Favorite Quotes for My Habit Tracker

I’m going to combine two topics this week. Usually, I post a mid-month habit-check for my accountability and hopefully providing a little inspiration for you too! I decided to combine My Muses (favorites) with my habit check this month. Here are a few of my favorite reasons for habit tracking, creating habits, and favorite quotes to use in my habit tracker.

We Manage What We Monitor - handlettered quote #change #habits #handletter #quote #handlettered

-Gretchen Rubin

Why I Track My Habits

Every month I post my progress on forming habits. To date, I think I’ve posted just one true habit success story- “dishes aren’t a dirty word anymore” (FYI, it’s still a success). Other than that at a glance and in comparison to other’s progression, my habits seem to go nowhere. Just looking at the data, there’s little progression. But that’s not how I see it. I’m still trying, and that makes all the difference. I know I am trying to make a positive change in my life. This is why I track my habits. We manage what we monitor – one of my favorite chapters from Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. To paraphrase: monitoring doesn’t require change but often leads to it.

I know I write a lot about not making improvements or lack of progress, the truth is: creating a habit is hard. If it were easy, there wouldn’t be more than 30,000 books on Amazon with the word ‘habit’ in the title (with more added all the time). I’ve read a few, and many have helped me in my journey here are a few of my favorites:

Other Habits in “the Works”

Right now I am working on decluttering my house using the KonMari method, and if that’s not a change of habits, I don’t know what is. If I don’t change my shopping habits, I could end up where I was before I started. And I never realized how much stuff I have! Getting rid of it is exhilarating and completely exhausting, but what’s more amazing to see the other members of my family follow my lead, that payoff is thrilling.

If habits weren’t hard to create or break, there wouldn’t be a need to track them. (Do a search on Habit Tracking at Pinterest – it’s a fun rabbit hole – I’ve got a board dedicated just to tracking with all kinds of tracking ideas). Round, Square, linear, weekly, box grid, dots, patterns, there’s a lot of variety in tracking methods.

Percentage calculator for monthly habit trackers

Success Rate Percentages

Want to figure percentages in your habit tracker at the end of a month? I’ve done the calculations for you, so you can quickly jot down how you did.

Gretchen Rubin says in her book Better Than Before, “It’s simple to change habits, but it’s not easy”. And I couldn’t agree more!

The principle of getting up at 5:30 in the morning is simple, and the reason is genuine. It’s so I can have some much-needed time to think, write, and read before the chaos of the morning starts, but getting up at the appointed time is difficult. Well, as you can see below (personal #5), I’ve not succeeded in many instances (just once so far this month). I keep it on my habit tracker because I want to form this habit, even though I know I am not ready to commit to the actions needed to create the pattern (yet).

creating habits, mid-month habit check, sometimes it's the journey not the speed, favorite reasons for habit tracking

One thing I love on my habit tracker is a good quote. January 2018 featured one of my favorites – Sometimes it’s the Journey, not the speed.

Habit Tracker Quotes

Here are some other great quotes for your habit tracker. I love finding inspirational quotes from Brainy Quote. Goodreads surprised me with a fun quote database. If you’re on twitter, check out @Inspire_us for some great and inspirational quotes, they influence my feed for good.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a snippet of my inspiration my favorite reasons for habit tracking and some resources I enjoy using on a regular basis. If you have any resources you use, drop me a line below in the comments! I’d love to hear about them.

Question:

What’s your favorite quote to use in your habit tracker?

~Tricia

March Mid-Month Habit Check

March 19, 2018 3 Comments

It’s been a busy month! February for me was unproductive and slump-ish. March has been the complete opposite. This month has been very productive, with the results so far are delightful (though you may not know it from my Habit-Tracker). Here’s the March mid-month habit check.

The Results

The result of the mid-month habit check (so far) is that I haven’t been tracking them. I’ve done them more than I’ve indicated. The last half of the month I am definitely going to put more effort in marking them if nothing else than just to keep the habit of tracking.

The Layout

There are some fresh, clean, fantastic layouts tracking habits individually and not in a big block like I usually do. The quote took over the minimal look and the thing just…does not work the way I imagined. Next month I am going to track my habits in a block style again. The quote is a great one though!

Additional Habits

You may have heard (or read) that I love Skillshare. (Here’s one reference: My Muses: Sources of Inspiration). One of the classes I took was about creating a 365-day project. Well, that seemed to fit in very nicely with my habit tracking. But which habits do I want to track for a whole year?

Skillshare Mini-Overview
Ok, let’s stop for a minute and talk about Skillshare classes. ‘Classes’ is a strong word. Many people think they don’t have time for ‘classes’ because they think it is a time commitment and think that they have assignments and blah blah blah.
No! Not like that at all. The ‘classes’ are broken down into hour-long courses but what’s better is that each one is then broken down into 5-10 minutes, you can download them to your phone and watch them when you can.
Infact, the 365-Day Project is just 34 minutes long. (Sign up for a FREE Trial and check it out!)
While drying my hair or cooking dinner, I stick my headphones in and watch a video and learn how to paint or draw or manage my time or learn how to cook a fantastic meal. I even watch while grocery shopping. It’s some great ‘me’ time.

365-Day Project

Like most things I do, I usually can’t settle on just one thing (the bane of my existence.) So I chose 6 items for my yearly project – where I’ll spend at least 10 minutes per day (or other designated time) doing these projects.

Work on my blog
Products
Spiritual reading
Prayers (am/pm)
Laundry
Workout

Thinking back, I probably should have left laundry and workout off the list, but I want to create a habit of washing and working out that just ‘exists’ in my life and I don’t have to think about it anymore. So I’ll keep working on those.

365 day project is like a giant habit tracker

Betterment to the Core

Looking at the results for the first month and a half, I can tell that the first two are high on my priority list. I work on them regularly and put in at least 10 minutes per day. The shocker to me is the spiritual study and the prayers. I think of this as the self-betterment to the very core. You may have practices where you work towards a similar goal, regardless of your theological point of view.

Not Expected

Why is it so hard for me to study my scriptures or read a spiritual thought or get down on my knees twice per day? Another thing I didn’t expect is how hard it is for me to write about it. This is my personal journey, and I have invited you along for the ride, hoping that we can strengthen each other along the way, but this is something that I hold dear to my heart – or so I thought. The results say otherwise, and I didn’t expect that at all.

The Way I Use Habit Trackers

The way I use habit trackers sometimes is just as an assessment as I like to do a ‘status check’ with tasks that I want to turn into a habit, and this 365-day project was eye-opening. I am going to reassess my mindset because the reality is that I am not really committed to these tasks on my tracker, and that is where I need to start to make a change.

Question:

What would you track in a 365-day project?

Mid-Month Habit Check – October

October 17, 2017 4 Comments

Need some re-motivation in the middle of the month? Do a Mid-Month Habit Check.

In a habit slump? Do a mid-month habit check to reignite your motivation

I started doing a mid-month habit check a couple of months ago. The beginning of the month I am completely motivated and know that I am going to conquer all of my desires and do all the things. Well, that’s what I intended to do anyway. By the middle of the month, it seems that I have lost steam and I need a boost of motivation.

So the middle of the month, I do a quick assessment of my habits which re-motivates me to keep going to the end of the month. I find this 5-minute assessment does wonders for reigniting the flame that I felt at the beginning of the month.

Questions to ask yourself for re-motivation:

Once I reassess where I am, I spend a couple of minutes thinking of what motivated me in the first place.

I ask:

Why did I start this habit?
What is the end goal?
Do I need to change the time of day for this habit?

A little meditation goes a long way.

Make a Change & Get It Done:

If I find a neglected habit, it probably means that I am not planning for it or I am letting other ‘fluff’ get in the way – things that don’t really matter occupy the time that I would spend on that habit. So I need to refocus and eliminate some of that fluff. If I need to move the habit to the beginning of the day, I do it.

For instance, the I’ve neglected the Show Me Your Letters habit this month. Last month, I missed maybe one day. This month so far, I’ve missed 7 of 17.

Supercharge your habits:

If you notice at the end of this tracker, I have numbers and a blank column on the right side. Th blank column is for the end of the month and I will calculate the percentage of days that I completed that habit. The other column that already has numbers recorded shows how many days of the month I completed the last month. For instance, the show me your letters had 23 days of September that I completed that habit. If I put it as a priority for the rest of the month, I could still meet or beat that number from last month.

I created a post a couple of months ago to “Super-Charge Your Habit Tracker” that talks more about these columns in the habit tracker. You can read it here.

I created a percentage chart so you don’t have to figure it out. Pin for reference later! In October, you would use the 31 days column to figure your percentages. At the end of the month, count the number of days you completed a habit. For instance – if your total days completing a habit was 21, and the month had 31 days, your percentage would be 68%.

For instance – if your total days completing a habit was 21, and the month had 31 days, your percentage would be 68%.

Calculating the percentage helps me really see if I need to change the time of day for that habit if I need to move it to the morning or evening. I love seeing the real numbers so I can give that habit a ‘grade’.

Two Categories of Habits:

I actually have two categories of habits that I track. It’s not indicated anywhere except in my mind.

Habits I am actively trying to pursue, and usually the ones I spend the most time on.
Habits I am assessing – these are ‘test subjects’ if you will – things I want to include in my life and are important, I just may not have set goals for them yet. These will most likely become the next set of habits I am actively trying to pursue. Maybe they need a little tweaking, or I need to plan them into my day. It’s like they are getting a trial run on my habit tracker.

Doing a mid-month habit check has been a great ‘habit’ to start, and it gives that extra boost of motivation for the last half of the month.

**Do you do anything during the month to re-motivate yourself? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.