With everything that we as students have going on in our lives, it can be difficult to keep track of all of our minor, daily tasks. However, that is no reason why we should not still attempt to maintain a consistent, healthy lifestyle where we track our routines and tendencies. Using a habit tracker in your bullet journal is one of the best and easiest ways to document these habits. And the best part is, you can customize your list of habits to fit your life and anything you have going on at that given time. Personally, I track about 14 different habits each month. In the past, the categories that I would use changed given the time of year and the events I had going on that month. For example, I would track how many times I walked a trail during the summer and then how often I worked on homework during the months while I was at college. I have since then determined only the most necessary habits to track, which are the primary 14 which I track today. Before we go much further though, let’s first understand what a habit tracker is and how it is beneficial. Only then will I be able to provide some ideas for habits which you may want to begin tracking!
What is a Habit Tracker?
A bullet journal habit tracker is a system that allows you to keep track of various activities that you do which you would like to become better aware of. In this space, you are able to note down both good and bad habits to become more mindful of in an effort to continue your positive progress and break any negative ones. Habit trackers come in an array of styles, some people choose to create a habit tracker for the entire month (this is what I do), meanwhile, others will design new ones for each week.
Why Use a Habit Tracker?
I can tell you, from personal experience, that tracking certain actions in your habit tracker makes you much more conscious of your life choices and can actually improve your productivity towards certain tasks. For example, throughout my sophomore year of college, I was really bad at making my bed. I would typically wake up in the morning, get ready for class and leave, telling myself I would make it later in the day. However, that rarely ever happened, and as the result, my side of the room always looked like a mess because my bed was still unmade. This was when I decided to add “make bed” to my habit tracker to see if that would help, and help it did. After just simply adding that task to my habit tracker, I was much more conscious of my behavior and, instead of getting dressed and leaving each morning, I started making my bed as soon as I woke up. That way, I knew I would be able to check that off of my habit tracker for the day, and that was always something that provided me immense satisfaction.
Since that time, “make bed” has remained on my habit tracker and my routine of making my bed prior to starting my day has allowed me to continue my trend of checking that task off my list. It is small motivators, such as the gratification of checking a task off of your list, which make the habit tracker so successful. You can also use this as a way to accomplish your goals. Always remember, small steps in the right direction can turn out to be the biggest step of your life.
What Should I Track?
There are numerous possibilities of habits which you could track, and as I mentioned before, all of these are dependent on you, your life and the actions you want to improve upon or quit entirely. These can come in a number of categories, which I have broken down below. I hope you are able to pull some ideas from these suggestions and tailor them to fit your needs!
Health & Personal Wellness:
- Workout days
- Hit goal steps
- Drink goal glasses of water
- No soda
- Read
- Bullet journal
- Wake up at goal time
- Go to sleep at goal time
- No social media after certain time
- No smoking
- Take birth control
- Brush teeth
- Shower
- Wash face
- Take vitamins
General Tasks:
- Laundry
- Meal prep
- Grocery shopping
- Clean/organize room
- Make bed
- Water plants
- Wash dishes
- Vacuum
- Pay bills
Productive/Creative:
- Write blog post
- Instagram post
- Youtube video
- Respond to emails
- Draw/doodle
- Work on a hobby
How to Design Your Habit Tracker
Throughout my 3.5 years of bullet journaling, I have almost always designed my habit tracker the same. After doing a lot of research into various layouts, I was able to find one that I really liked, and it ended up working perfectly for the way I wanted to use it. However, there are a multitude of layout ideas available, some of which orient their trackers vertically (which it what I use), meanwhile, others choose a horizontal orientation.
My 2019 & 2020 Habit Trackers
As you can see from the above images of my habit tracker from last year and my current habit tracker, the layout is generally the same. I chose to make a grid this year as opposed to leaving the space open, which I prefer more. I also added and changed a few of my habits to better align with my lifestyle and intended behaviors.
When it comes to discovering different layouts, Crystal, aka the Bullet Journal Addict, highlights some great and unique designs in her article, 10 Bullet Journal Habit Trackers to Start Good Habits!
I hope this article helped you to understand the power of habit trackers and how you can use one in your own bullet journal. Do you have any other, unique ideas on habits to track or different ways to design the layout? If so, please leave them in the comments, I am always interested to learn the many ways that others use their bullet journals!
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