Habit trackers

I made a monthly habit tracker spread in my bullet journal this morning for April. Even though I've been using the bullet journal format since late 2019, I've only created and used a handful of monthly habit trackers spreads.

This is my very first one in December 2019:

It really helped me boil down what are critical things to do everyday and it gave me the tiny reward of getting to check off a box / color it in.

I used it one more time in January of 2020 and then drastically simplified it in March of 2020 to something like this:

Haha that was so cute of me to do a sleep tracker. It's the only time I did it but I thought it looked cool in someone else's bujo. I think at that time I was really struggling with feeling rested when I woke up, so I was trying to figure out patterns.

In the tracker above I must have been focusing on the habits that pertained most to mental and physical health. (David remember those DIY kettlebells you made me when the yoga place shut down??) 

I didn't seem to keep it up much tracking the rest of the year (probably pandemic related?).

In January of 2021, I brought back the habit tracking but more in a micro format, focusing on absolute essentials to guide me each week.

I created this habit "widget" for the the first time I tried a weekly spread, rather than just letting my day take as much space as it needed. It helped for that time, but I didn't keep it up for too long. I think after only two weeks, I got bored and/or felt too limited by the weekly spread. (Some weeks I need to write a lot, and others I don't need to. Having only two pages per week just didn't work for me for long.)

Incidentally, I recently picked up weekly spreads for a second time, and this time it seems to be working a bit better. I think it partly helps that I've found a way to make it vertical rather than horizontal. And also I think I'm in a season where it's good for me to see the limits of my time.

I had a couple weeks in February of 2021 where I somewhat continued the weekly habit tracker interspersed into my daily logs. 

When the kids were doing remote learning at home it was nice to have some routines, something that was just for me to do and didn't have to do with anyone else's anything.

That leads me to today, more than one year later. It was surprisingly fun to put together.

I could give more details on this if you're interested, but one thing to note is that these things are roughly in chronological order for the day. Some are habits for which I need to get back on the wagon (e.g, I've been sliding towards at 5:45/6 am wake time lately), and others are ones that are pretty habitual and yet I'd like to reward myself with a checkmark nonetheless (e.g., making the bed). Others are just cues to my schedule, such as switching over laundry (and a super new habit of using the Delay Start option on the washer to prep a load the night before). The timed items are just minimums; I find it helps me just to get started.

When I sat down with my journal this morning I wasn't expecting to make a habit tracker; rather, it had been on my list to think about my April goals/foci. I had been mulling over it for the past few days, and while I had some ideas, I also felt really overwhelmed by the thought of tackling my goals. 

The habit tracker seemed like just the right thing to keep me moving forward and balanced into spring. My goals can't be accomplished if my sanity isn't in tact, and my tiny habits every day are a huge part of maintaining my sanity.

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Do you use a habit tracker? Please text or email me a picture if you do! I'd be so curious to see what you're working on.