All About Habit Trackers

Habit trackers can be a useful tool to help you to cultivate new habits or even break bad habits. A lot of habit trackers are linked to bullet journaling. This is where I first discovered what habit trackers were and now, I use them to improve my daily life.

A habit is settled or regular practice. Habits will be different to each individual and will depend on what they are trying to achieve. There are plenty of theories you can find online about how long it takes to form a good habit or break a bad habit. So, there are plenty of methods you can try. Using a habit tracker works as a physical reminder which can be extremely beneficial for some.

It is important to set yourself regular habits in order to help you reach your goal. Habits are behaviours you can achieve easily to improve your confidence and success when tackling your goals. In addition, habits can have a positive impact on all areas of your life and can help you grow and develop.

What are habit trackers?

Habit trackers are exactly as they sound; they are trackers of your daily and weekly habits. It is a simple way to measure whether you have completed a habit. It is a process that helps you to hold yourself accountable. There are many ways that you can design a habit tracker to fit your needs.

Why should you track your habits?

Tracking your habits is an ideal way to feel more confident and more in control of your day-to-day tasks. When you track your habits on a daily basis, it gives you a sense of accomplishment. It can be really helpful to start and repeat new habits. Having this visual and the art of checking off a habit enable me to not only feel productive but motivates me to complete more of my habits.

What are the benefits of tracking?

1. Gives you a sense of instant achievement
2. Motivates you to fulfil the tasks
3. Acts as reminder to complete the habits
4. Helps to build a routine and structure
5. They hold you accountable
6. You learn more about yourself
7. Gives you a log of all previous times, so you can reflect if needed

Types of habit trackers

There are 3 types of habit trackers that you can use to manage your tasks. You can use daily habit trackers, weekly or monthly trackers. What you choose a daily, weekly or monthly habit can be tailored to your needs and life goals. I usually use a daily habit tracker, but I will be starting a weekly habit tracker for cleaning and household chores.

Daily habits you can track:

• Medication
• Skincare (AM/PM)
• X numbers of steps each day
• Hair wash days
• Made your bed
• Watered plants
• Tidy up your space
• Journaled/Morning pages
• Reading pages
• Vitamins
• Sleep X amount of hours a night
• No takeaways
• No fizzy drink
• Drink X amount of water a day
• Gym visits
• Shower/baths had a day

Weekly habits you can track:

• Hoover your space
• Take out rubbish/recycling
• Cleaning
• Water plants
• Tidy up your space
• Change your bed sheets
• Weekly declutter
• File paper work
• Washing
• Clean car
• Email declutter
• Meal prep

Monthly habits you can track:

• Pay bills
• Money into savings
• Review your finances
• Manage your subscriptions
• Family time
• Date nights
• Family outings
• Studied X amount of hours
• Sex – can be helpful for couples wanting to conceive
• Your period
• Work on a hobby
• Your monthly spending

Check out this list of 86 things you can track in your bullet journal for more ideas to stay organised and productive with your time.

How can I create a habit tracker?

There are a variety of different layouts you can choose from when it comes to displaying your tracker. I have used a variety of layouts depending on my theme for the monthly spread. You can have it as simple as a list in a notebook or your bullet journal. However, if you want to use more colourful and creative designs that is okay too! It is about what is going to help you to be successful in finishing your habits.

If you do not have time to design your own or you have a different style of planner you can try habit tracker printable inserts. I have some habit tracker inserts in my a5 rings planner and love how quick and easy they are to set up and start using.

Here are some different ways you can design a habit tracker in your bullet journal:

This is a habit tracker printable insert that you can either put into a ring planner or stick into your bullet journal or notebook. Habit trackers like these can save you a lot of time designing one yourself, but also can have a minimalistic look if that is what you prefer in your planner or bullet journal.

I use these habit tracker inserts from Planit Papers on Etsy in my A5 ring planner, this tracker is what I use for my blog and soon to be studying habits. If you like the look of these, you can use code LAUREN for 15% off their planner inserts.

This is a style I used in my 2020 bullet journal for the month of May. As it was May I did a bumble bee theme for that month. If you do themes in your bullet journal you can also mirror that theme in your habit trackers.

I love how this turned out, but because of the design I chose to just focus on a few habits this month, as this could not only be time consuming but take up more than a couple of pages. Maybe next time I could reduce the size of each hexagon.

This layout I LOVED because it gives me a bit more space having a double page spread in my bullet journal. You can use a variety of ways to check off each habit including X, • or //. You can also use different colours to make your spread more colourful.

Using a vertical spread can like I said before give you more space, especially if you want to do monthly trackers that may mean a bigger list of habits, so a vertical spread may work better.

This is a style of bullet journal I tried out for the month of February in my bullet journal back in 2020.

Writing out each of the monthly dates can be a bit time consuming, but I do like the symmetry of this layout though. Luckily I have tried different layouts and developed my bullet journal skills, I think!

You can do so many other layouts too, when I first started bullet journaling I used to design a table which I could check off using different colours and designs in each square. Each month you can trial different ideas to find what you like best to record your habits.

Do you use a habit tracker? What design do you like best? I’d love to hear in the comments.