trackers Archives

Medicine Tracker – I Don’t Have to Remember Everything!

February 8, 2018 2 Comments

It’s So Nice to NOT Have to Remember Everything!

A few weeks ago, my baby was not feeling well. I took the poor little guy to the doctor and came home with 3 separate medicines 3 times per day for two weeks. I knew that I would have to wrack my brain to remember when I had given him the last dosage. Then try to remember if I gave him all nine dosages of medicine the day before. I just knew I was going to forget dosages. Then knowing when to stop was the other issue. So what did I do? Created a quick medicine tracker spread in my Bullet Journal of course!

medicine tracking spread, use your bullet journal to remember for you

The Medicine Tracker

Each column has the dosages per day and the rows were the dates. Each day I would mark off the medicine without too much effort to remember what I did or did not do. Except for maybe one day, I successfully administered all the dosages and thankfully, the little guy is feeling better.

Before I started planning with a bullet journal – I would have just tried to remember. Thankfully, now I don’t have to remember everything. I write it down, then out of habit, I check my planner and do the things I am supposed to. What a relief. Medicine tracker to the rescue!

I’d Love to Know: What uncommon trackers do you use in your planner or bullet journal?

Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

Creating Habits: Dishes aren’t a Dirty Word Anymore! + Video

January 20, 2018 5 Comments

Last Month’s Review

For last month I am happy to announce I fulfilled one of my ‘habits’ every day of the month. I posted on Instagram every day! (Lol) I’m so proud of myself. Creating habits is not an easy feat as you can see from my other habits on the tracker.

Dishes – Not a Dirty Word Anymore

One habit surprised me: Dishes. In September, I posted that ‘dishes’ was the d-word and apologized for saying it so many times. Admittedly, as long as I can remember I have hated doing the dishes.

When it was my turn for Sunday dishes growing up, I would spend as much time dawdling as I could. Then I would stand forever and wash the dishes until my legs itched (we went a long time without a dishwasher – so I had to do the dishes by hand for what seemed like most of my life – though it probably wasn’t that long). I HATED doing the dishes.

Patience and Diligence

Months of tracking and trying to improve have paid off. In December, I consistently did the dishes 26 days of 31, and I am happy to say that it has become a habit I do it almost without thinking. My kids are even getting into the habit of checking if the dishes are clean and if not, they load their dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

We Were Both Losers

Defeating this habit of NOT doing the dishes was actually quite the undertaking. Now it is one of the most consistent habits in my tracker. My husband and I used to play a game of who could stand the dishes in the sink the longest. Sometimes I would win and sometimes he would win. But in all honesty, we were both losers in this game. This is a huge reason why I decided to track it in the first place.

A Shift in My View Point – Creating Habits

Another thing that has completely changed the way I do things: 10 Minutes. If you haven’t seen this post, please read it, bookmark it, pin it and put it in your bullet journal. LIFE CHANGING. Unless you have your life completely together and you never have a sock left on the floor by one of your kids or a speck of dust lingering on your furniture – read it. I can tell you that it has completely changed the way I think and the way I do things around my house.

You know that bin full of broken crayons that the kids never use or the shoe bin that never gets cleaned out but is always in the back of your mind as an unfinished task? Oh, wait, those things are now regularly done. I do think I need to create a secondary 10 minutes task list, so I give priority to other tasks.

This idea is not a revolutionary way of thinking as far as the world goes, but for me, the impact was substantial. I included things on my 10-minute mind map that I often neglect. Such as syncing my finances. Self-care has not been so much a burden. I put make-up on more consistently because I feel like I can take a couple of moments just for me.

I signed up for SkillShare and listen to classes as I cook dinner.

This one little switch in my mindset has been utterly fundamental for me to feel more accomplished and to get more done in the day-to-day. I will even use it to calm down if I have dealt with an obstinate 8-year-old or an emotional 6-year-old and my temper is flaring. As you might imagine, I could go on and on.

Habit Check Progress for the Month – Sometimes it’s the Journey Not the Speed

Now then – here’s my habit check for the month. Probably my most favorite design of the month. I LOVE how the moped turned out. And then I am not sure if I read the quote somewhere, and it was in my subconscious – but I thought of it one day when I was creating my habit page. Sometimes it’s the journey, not the speed. I think it pairs perfectly with the moped and with creating habits. Like I said above, I started in September making dishes a habit instead of a fight with my husband.

It didn’t change overnight. Creating habits takes time. Since I have been patient with myself and my progress, the speed has increased. But the journey was enjoyable – and that may be the best part.

Circle Mood Tracker

The circle mood tracker is one of my most favorite creations ever. I’ve tried out several compasses and tools for creating circles, and the helix tool is my favorite – because it has the degrees around the outside. I realized that a lot of people out there who may not know how to create a circle. Guess what? I am working on some supplies for you. I’ve decided to scale back my weekly posts so I can create some additional resources for you.

I like the circle tracker because it takes up less space. I added a weigh-in result (TWI) and a weekly tracker for cleaning those spaces that need a little more care. Then I added a blog & video post tracker to the side. Next month, I plan on keeping the blog post tracker but moving the weekly tracked off the tracker page and to the weeklies.

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

What I’m Going to Change

After I tabulated last month’s results, I decided that for March I may switch back to a color instead of a number; only because it was not easy to count and average all the numbers. But I do like the look of using gray/black to complete the trackers.

Creating habits takes a lot of work! I’ve decided that I need a plan to carry out the habit. A when, why, where – questionnaire of habits. For instance: what do I mean by ‘water intake’? I have worked on drinking more water, but I didn’t define whether it’s one cup or 8 to mark it off. It’s easy to ‘cheat’ and just mark something off if I do it half-way, but I try to acknowledge my true intentions.

I have learned that I have to be patient with myself and developing a specific routine around forming the habit is essential. For February, I think I may remove dishes from my tracker – just to see if it is a real habit now or if I still need the thrill of marking it off in my habit tracker.

So…Have 10 Minutes? A Challenge.

Using my 10-minute method, before I start next month’s habit tracker, I will: write down expectations of the habit defining the when, where, and what so I can honestly improve and make it into a habit.

Here is my challenge for you:

Do something for you or do something that has nagged at you. You don’t have to get it done, just spend 10 minutes and do part of it. Then when you have dinner in the oven, and there are 10 minutes on the timer, do a little more. Do you have a habit that you are trying to form? As you can see, I have lots to work on, but with a plan and around 10 planned minutes, I bet it would make a difference in how full my tracker is. We will see what happens next mid-month habit check – creating habits is a long-term investment.

By the way, I have had people tag me on Instagram after seeing my post on Pinterest and tell me that it changed their lives too. If you try it out, use #InMy10Minutes and tag me @ChocolateMusingsCreates either on Instagram and completely change the way you task. I’d love to see it and feature you.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully and don’t be afraid to find your inner muse.

~Tricia

December Mid-Month Habit Check

December 17, 2017 4 Comments

I started the mid-month habit check a couple of months ago, without thinking it would become a thing, but it was quite by accident. I’ve made a habit of checking up on my habits mid-month. I almost hesitate to call it a habit because me and habits (except the bad ones) don’t get along in the best way. Though I am trying to make friends with them. You know, start with casual conversation and work up to the ‘friends’ thing. I’d like to be friends, but they seem snobbish. Did I just seriously go there? I guess it’s a good analogy.

Here’s the video of putting together the Habit Tracker for the month:

November’s Result

Soooooo… You might be wondering what happened last month (and if you sneak down to the mid-month check… you might wonder about this month too!) I wonder what happened too. But the thing that I have learned when I fall off the wagon per se, I have to hop back on as though nothing happened. I recently read a book (ok, I listened) on habits – “Better Than Before” (the link is below) in keeping with my “Things to Work on” goal list – to read or listen to more books. So I requested it again. There were so many good things she talked about, but she did say that if you take a break from habits, it is generally harder to keep with it again. If you need a break, define the break and then start-up again like you never stopped. So I was just on a break with my November tracking.

What to do when you habit-fail at your habit tracker

November Habit Tracker: We Were on a Break!

After listening to those words, they really resounded with me. How many times have I tried to lose weight or tried to start exercising or all the things that we intend to do, but stop? It is so much harder the next time! I am just telling myself that ‘we were on a break’ and that I never really stopped, I will just resume where I was before and keep going. I’ll have to report back next month to see how that goes.

Summertime and holiday time are the hardest times for consistancy – because life is anything but consistent during those times. I probably should have taken that into consideration when I created this month’s habit tracker and scaled it down a bit. So here’s the habit check for the month – I kept the same habits from the last couple of months and added a couple of extras.

December Mid-Month Habit Check:

The results as of the 15th of December: I must still be on a break. If I get up earlier, I tend to get things done in the morning and don’t procrastinate doing them and just not get them done at all because I don’t feel like it in the evening. So I have learned, if I have a lot of tasks to do, I need to get up early and get them done. I told my husband that I wanted to be in bed at 11 – and he has reminded me a couple of times to wrap things up at night so I can mark it on my tracker. I appreciate him knowing me so well.

Overall, I am not too concerned with the {lack of} this habit tracker, giving myself a set break and a date to return in full-force is comforting to me.

Mood Tracker Ratings

Moods are on a scale from 1-5 – partly because I didn’t have colors on hand, partly because I filled up the page and didn’t leave room for a key so I decided to do the tracker in black and gray, but with a little pattern filling up the boxes. Attaching a little key to the outside of the sheet with washi tape is another way to extend your page if you run out of space. I may try that next time.

December Habit & Mood Tracker goes perfect with A Christmas Story "I can't put my arms down" quote - Vertical layout

How I Use My Habit Tracker:

One way is to actively track the habits I am trying to form. I always try to turn it into something positive. ‘No spend’ is a money management tool and not a ‘don’t do that’. The other way that I use my habit tracker is an assessment tool. I’ll include habits that I have not yet decided to change or that I am thinking of changing, but I need to get a realistic idea of where I actually stand. I could be a lot worse or perhaps a lot better than where I was before. This method also makes my habit tracker less intimidating. It provides an interesting mix. I don’t indicate which, I just kind of know in my own head but it has helped me actually use the tracker.

Yes, I realize that I spelled ‘horrible’ wrong. I discovered it after I took the picture. But It just kind of adds to how ‘horrible’ the day would have been. There are certain mistakes that you just have to shrug and move on. I just hope the internet doesn’t scold me too much for a simple mistake. If it does, it must be having a ‘horible’ day too.

How I track moods:

It wasn’t until recently that I started tracking moods. I could never classify one mood per day. Some days were like a rollercoaster ride and all over the place. To track moods, I knew I needed to break the days into sections of time or regular events, so I track by Before Work, Work, After Work, Dinner, After Dinner, and Sleep Categories and I rate by the time of the day. Sleep isn’t really a mood, but it’s nice to know how well I felt I slept.

Question for you:

I am curious for those who track just one or two moods per day how you classify your moods. I can have a crappy day at work, but be fine at home. Let me know if you track your moods and how in the comments below. I’d love to know! If you have an Instagram post or a Pinterest pin or a blog post – feel free to leave a link to your habit tracker/mood tracker. I’d love to do a feature post!

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

November Mid-Month Habit and Mood Tracker Check

November 19, 2017 4 Comments

November Mid-Month Habit Check + Mood Tracker Update

When I sat down to start writing this post, I realized this is the monthly insight into my life. There are so many emotions tied to habits, so many excuses, so many passions. I can’t write about my habit tracker {and now added mood tracker} without being a little more personal. Of all the things I have in my bullet journal, my habits and my moods show the most insight into my life on a day-to-day basis.

So here is a monthly update on my Habit and Mood Trackers.

Half Circle Habit Tracker in my bullet journal - mid month checkup

November 2017 – Mid-Month Summary

Whew! This month has been – well – different. There were some major things happening at work that made the rest of my life feel like it was spinning out of control. I couldn’t separate my personal life from my work life. It’s not that I didn’t want to or didn’t try. I could not separate them. My friend from work (who got me my job) moved to another company. My employer was very unhappy with this. Alright – I could have gotten around this and helped everyone make peace with it if needed. But we were in the middle of a loan for my friend. There were confusion and so many emotions swirling and information that none of us knew what was true (I am a home loan processor by day, by night I blog, but I am superwoman all day).

I tried to remove myself from the situation, I even banned both parties from speaking further about each other and would not participate if I didn’t agree with a conversation. But being in the middle of the loan where I had to know details so I could do my job made things even more complicated. Every conversation, innocent in intent, kept stirring up more and more. And I couldn’t get away. It was as though dark swirling clouds circled my head.

How All This Affected Me

The stress was taking a toll on my body. The muscles in my back were tight, I had to remember to unclench my jaw regularly and my stomach was so upset for about a week. That coupled with my husband having a cold for two weeks straight and the coughing that kept me up just as I would drift off to sleep wreaked havoc on everything I tried to do this month to improve myself. Thank goodness I tried to get ahead the beginning of the month because, by the middle of the month, I was struggling in more than one way.

In Control or Out of Control

There were many things out of my control – but I used those things to negatively affect my goals and daily life outside of work, which made my life feel even more chaotic. So for the rest of this month, I am going to make an effort to go to bed earlier, wake up earlier and check off my goals before the rest of my family wakes up. When things are out of control in your life, taking command of the things that you can control makes all the difference in having a bad day vs. a good day and a bad month vs. a good month.

New This Month

I created a mood tracker this month – my first. I saw what other people were doing, and knew that I couldn’t group my days into one mood. Both designs are very functional – I am not the biggest fan of the overall look as it is very utilitarian, but like most utilitarian designs, it gets the job done. The more yellow, green, or purple, the better in this case. This month there are a lot more ‘frustrated’ and ‘anxious’ times than I expected.

I classify the moods/sleep by these categories:

Mood:

Sad
Content
Happy
Productive
Frustrated
Angry
Excited
Blah
Anxious

For Sleep:

Refreshing
Good
Restless
Bad Night

Half Circle Mood Tracker with sections of the day in my bullet journal - mid month check-up

Design Assessment vs. Functionality

I would like to make a ‘pretty’ mood tracker that is aesthetically pleasing (like the mandalas or feathers or the endless myriad of designs I’ve seen) and still include the times of day to help me see where the problem lies. If I like it by the end of the month, I will figure out a way to make it pretty and functional. The times of day are broken into chunks (you can see it if you scroll down on the graphic):

Before – before work, getting kids ready for school (on weekends, I consider this to just be morning vs afternoon)
Work – which I blocked off during the weekends
After – afternoons when I get off work and the kids are home from school
Dinner – often a time of angst because of picky eaters
After – after dinner as the kids are going to bed and the time that my husband and I have together afterward
Sleep – track how well I slept

For the most part, I feel like this has provided great information into my days, so I think I will keep it! I will be thinking of different ideas to make it prettier for the future. I thought of using this general layout and turning it into angel wings, I would like to do flowers or I saw a hot air balloon idea that may work but I will keep the segmented times of the day.

My habits – well they suffered this month as well. I finally read The Miracle Morning and loved it. It is very motivational I started getting up early and enjoying morning yoga and reading. I would get so much done in that short hour, and many of my habits would be checked off in the morning. I discovered that if I am going to do this, I need to go to bed earlier.

If you are curious – these are the habits I track

Study – usually scriptures
Kid Time – time where I put my phone down and play with my kids, we go to a park, play outside, watch a movie together
Exercise – I count yoga in the morning as exercise, a walk, etc
Journal – Writing in my journal, even if it is a one-liner or one word in my gratitude log
Kind words – speaking kindly to everyone around me and not losing my temper
Words – it’s my swear jar in reverse – I fill in a square if I don’t swear all day. Last month I had just 5 days where one of those pesky words slipped out but I’ve already passed up that quantity this month.
Healthy Choice – consciously choosing to eat healthily vs. not. Taking a side of veggies instead of seconds of pasta etc – this one will be more developed in the future, but I included it so I could become aware of it before fully developing what I wanted to do.
Dishes – do the *&%$ dishes
Straighten – choose a room and straighten it
Clean a room – vacuum, dust, wipe down, clean it.
No Spend – frivolous spending, eating out, extra spending (I don’t count grocery shopping or getting gas)
IG – Instagram – keeping up with my challenge!
Show Me Your Letters – Hosted by the Happy Ever After Crafter – a great place to start if you want to start modern calligraphy (I will be doing a post later with my favorite lettering resources)
Prayers – I will probably separate this into AM & PM later
Laundry – ugh this task and dishes are never-ending. Only checked off if I have completed one full load – not just put it in the washer or taken out of the dryer but put away.

I put habits on my tracker to assess how I am doing before making loads (haha I’m punny) of changes.

Other things I’ve done this month

I read a new book this month on habits. Read is a relative term, I listened to it. But hey! According to “things I am going to do” I wanted to read/listen to more books. I have consumed two books already this month – Better Than Before & The Miracle Morning. Thank you library. I will do a book review of these books later – spoiler: I liked both.

Habits and Moods mirror each other & provide daily insight, half-circled mirrored bullet journal layout, Habit and Mood Tracker

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia