For a person who has approximately ZERO percent artistic ability, last year I became obsessed with started a Bullet Journal. I was going to chart, journal, and track EVERYTHING- from bills, the daily weather, bills, my garden, you name it, and I was going to record it in my bullet journal. Sometime around fall of 2017, I began creating the pages I was going to begin on January 1st of 2018, and that’s exactly what I did.
Was it pointless? Um, yeah. Kinda. It has been a nice creative outlet at times, but overall, I would’ve been better off just buying a journal that already had its templates, grids, and calendars and saved myself a lot of heartache!
But the one thing I’ve enjoyed the most this year was tracking my habits, something I’ve never done before. Not only did I learn a ton about myself, but I could actually see month to month how much I was actually accomplishing, hold myself accountable, and improve on a few areas I felt were lacking.
Each month, I came up with habit categories to record each night- they didn’t vary much month to month. Things like bedtime, flossing, devotions, and vitamins were included in there, as well as tracking days I lifted, did yoga, or went for a run. I tracked items for my business, such as landing new clients or creating content.
Each month I would assess how I did and whether or not to track it the next month, or add on new goals.
A couple things I found- tracking my habits didn’t have any effect on my workouts- either I could or could not that day. With flossing, it did help, but once I got into the habit and stopping tracking it, I became lax in keeping up the habit.
For the most part, it did hold me accountable, and it was fun in the beginning. But I learned that maybe 20 items a day to track was far too many…and tracking the same things every day for a year wasn’t realistic. I think setting 90 day goals makes much more sense.
So what about you? Have you ever done a habit tracker?
Erin Shepherd Fitness 