We all want to improve the quality of our lives. Doing it is, however, not easy. We often don’t even realize where we go wrong. Habit tracking aims to change that — by tracking your good and bad habits, you can keep yourself accountable and reward good behavior. In this article, I will share with you 15 Habit Tracker ideas for 2020 and beyond.
Habits You Should Track
I will start by stating something that might be obvious: what you track is up to you. We are all different, which is why habit trackers can, and should, vary a lot. Still, I know from personal experience that it’s easy to get drawn to tracking what “everyone else” is tracking. Instead, try to focus on yourself and your needs.
Typically, people want to track habits that they think could use some extra attention. Everybody can, however, use some inspiration once in a while. Here’s a list of things many people track using a monthly habit tracker.
Habit Tracker Idea #1: Wake Up Before A Certain Hour
If you are self-employed and have a rather flexible schedule, it is easy to fall into the trap of wasting one’s mornings by sleeping late. Habit tracking can help you get rid of this. If you want to wake up no later than 8am, reward yourself when you have reached this goal for 10/15/20 days in a row (or whatever feels motivating).
Habit Tracker Idea #2: Track Your Sleep
We know that we should sleep for around 7-8 hours a night (although experts disagree on how much is needed). If you feel tired every day, you probably should consider doing something about it. My tip: track how long you sleep and reward yourself when you reach your goal!
Habit Tracker Idea #3: Take Your Medicine
Do you need to take medicine daily and want to make sure you don’t forget? If you tick a box in your habit tracker every time you take your medicine, you will know when you have taken your medicine and when you haven’t. You can choose to track each pill separately or all together.
Habit Tracker Idea #4: Make Your Bed in The Morning
Ever heard of William H. McCraven? He is the retired U.S. Navy Seal Admiral who believes that making your bed can impact your life more than you could ever imagine. Why? Because if you make your bed every morning, it will “give you a small sense of pride”, which McCraven believes will encourage you to finish other tasks throughout the day, making you more efficient and productive. Making the bed will simply get the snowball rolling. By tracking how often you make your bed, you will be encouraged to do it more often, hopefully turning it into a positive daily routine.
Habit Tracker Idea #5: Daily Stretching Exercises
If you are like me, you know that stretching is good for you. After stretching, I always feel a few pounds lighter and there’s again that spring in my step 🙂 Unfortunately, it is easy to simply forget to stretch. Tracking your stretching habits can therefore be a smart move and help you keep up with this healthy habit.
If you find this idea interesting, you can find my monthly stretching tracker here for totally free 🙂
Habit Tracker Idea #6: Daily Exercise
How often did you exercise last week? How about two months ago? If you don’t use a habit tracker, you are likely not to be able to answer this question. This is why tracking exercise habits is something everyone should do. If you also track your overall mood each day, you might even notice that your mood is better after exercising, say, 3 times a week — and worse if you exercise fewer times than that. Finding these patters might help you understand yourself better and help you improve your quality of life. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?
Interested? Download my FREE monthly exercise tracker tp help you stay on track towards reaching your exercise goals!
Habit Tracker Idea #7: Drink Enough Water
Do you stay hydrated? If you seldom feel thirsty and your urine is colorless or only slightly yellow, you probably are well-hydrated. If not, then you should consider doing something about it. An old rule of thumb is that you should drink 8 glasses of water a day. Do you think you drink that much water in a day? If you aren’t sure, a habit tracker will help you.
If you are looking for a way to track your water intake, I have a free, high-quality daily planner with a field for how much water you have drunk during the day. This planner is very versatile and is perfect for both work and leisure. Apart from tracking your water intake, you can write down your schedule, to-do-list, self-care & exercise and plan your meals for the day in the planner!
Habit Tracker Idea #8: No Smoking
Trying to quit smoking? Good. To make sure you stay on top of how things are going, you can write down every time you have a smoke-free day and reward yourself generously after a smoke-free month. After all, imagine how much money you just saved!
Habit Tracker Idea #9: No Alcohol
Are you trying to quit alcohol? If you are, tracking your alcohol intake is advisable to prevent you from relapsing. Tick the box when you have been one day without alcohol so that you can follow your progress. You’re doing great!
Habit Tracker Idea #10: Water the Plants
Do you often ask yourself if anyone watered the plants this week? If everybody in the family fills in the habit tracker when the plants have been watered, there will be no over- or underwatering of plants.
Habit Tracker Idea #11: Clean your Room/House
If you are like me, you don’t automatically start vacuuming and washing the floors every Friday evening. Instead, you might do the cleaning when you have time time or when you feel motivated enough. If you want to change this and become better-organized, keeping a track of when you clean might help you establish a more regular cleaning routine.
Habit Tracker Idea #12: Spend Time Outside
Working from home, I sometimes realize that I haven’t been outside much for days. This happens particularly when I am really excited about what I am working on and just feel like working all day. By tracking when I have last been outside (over 30/60/90 minutes, or whatever you want to make your goal), you can help yourself remember to take that much-needed break from work.
Habit Tracker Idea #13: Cook Dinner
How often do you cook at home? Not sure? If you use a habit tracker, you will know exactly how often you cook at home and reward yourself when you have reached your goal.
Habit Tracker Idea #14: Self-Care
In today’s hectic world, taking care of your mental, emotional and physical health is more important than perhaps ever before. I would recommend that you set a goal for yourself and when you reach that goal, you allow yourself to do something you rarely do. This reward can be anything: dining out, going to the movies, go shopping etc. It might sound odd, but I believe we need to reward ourselves for having taken care of ourselves.
Habit Tracker Idea #15: No Social Media
Social media can be both time-consuming and emotionally draining. The bad news and the negative energy easily negates any positive effects. Try to take days off social media and see how it affects your overall mood. If the results are positive, you can try to do it more regularly. If you think that being totally without social media is difficult, you can also simply try to have days when you stay off certain social media that you can do without (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest and so on).
Free Download: Monthly Habit Tracker
When you know what habits to track, all that’s left is to get that habit tracker, print it out and start tracking! The easiest and quickest way for you to get started is to go and download my monthly habit tracker that has a lovely, elegant gold accent. My monthly habit tracker with gold accent comes as a high-resolution PDF that is perfect for printing. It looks fantastic and will look great anywhere. Download it here.
If you like my FREE designs and want to be updated when there are new products, you can follow me on Twitter and Pinterest. If you want to see what digital products you can buy from me, you can find my Etsy shop here.
Happy tracking!
