Comments on: The Habit Tracker: Draft Release

By: Personal Kanban

Personal Kanban — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:10:51 +0000

By: James

James — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 07:27:04 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Charlene. Currently developing a new draft of the habit tracker. Considering whether to just have it cover one long period of 31 days (a month) rather than the slightly confusing seven boxes, fourteen lines approach at the moment. It might suit your approach of filling in the boxes better. Would love your thoughts on that.

By: Charlene

Charlene — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:14:11 +0000

I’ve been using it for about ten days. It is a great tool. Some habits are easier to develop than others, but I keep trying. I fill in the box with a black pen when I have accomplished the action and if I don’t accomplish the action then I put a big red X in the box. I put a starting date on the top along with the name of the habit. I check off everything at the end of each day. Really hate to put that red X, but since I am a visual person it works for me.

By: Benton

Benton — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:00:17 +0000

Had a further thought about this form and marking days off. By de-emphasizing the day-for-day aspect, you allow for counting not-per-day events successfully accomplished. I try to not leave the clean laundry basket sitting, waiting for unloading into the dressers more than a half day, but this is only a concern every couple of days so a not-per-day setup would work usefully here. The form could also be used for remembering my night to cook, including inspiration, shopping and preparing. I generally cover Fridays to give the wife a night’s reprieve, so that’s another irregular schedule.

By: James

James — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:07:11 +0000

That’s a good point Rich.

Benton, you’ve brought up the problems I’ve personally had using it. Actually, rather than crossing off each box I now put the day in. Of course the boxes aren’t particularly big for this. It’s something to consider, particularly the point about adding instructions to it.

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:29:14 +0000

Could also use this in reverse for de-habiting. To follow your example, you could mark off the number of pints you’re drinking and aim for a personal best without. Would work with avoiding Twitter, checking e-mails, etc.

By: Scoobie

Scoobie — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:47:08 +0000

There are a lot of iPhone/ iPod Touch applications that do this sort of thing and are pretty powerful and give useful feedback and reminders. Habitcheck is one such application, as is Sciral Consistency (also available in Mac and PC versions) and Touch Goal. All four have their merits and are very powerful. Worth buying a iPod Touch for in my opinion.

By: Benton

Benton — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:02:00 +0000

Neat. At first read without actually using it, I wish it had a date area for when the string started. I may go a few days without updating, then remember that I back-slid on my first habit two days ago, but have been steadfast on my second habit. Just don’t remember whether it was four or five days since I updated, so don’t know how many boxes to credit. Or since you’ve got the tallies in weeks, a place to note which day of the week the string started perhaps? Maybe a habit to track is how many days in a row I can remember to update the habit tracker!

Something else to consider is that if I just handed the sheet to, say, my kid, it wouldn’t be intuitively obvious to him what he’s supposed to do with it. Consider adding your little how-to text from the webpage to the template. If it’s a distraction, once you know how to use it, format extra versions without the instructions.

By: James

James — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:00:37 +0000

The seven boxes have no significance to be honest. When designing it, it could have been any number but I decided to have it cover a weekly period so it’s less random and a user can make use of it if they want. If you break the chain midway through the week (say, Wednesday), you have to start again on a new row from Thursday anyway so it doesn’t really have much effect on how you use the form.

By: Daryl Furuyama

Daryl Furuyama — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:25:40 +0000

Hi James, I noticed that there’s seven boxes per item per sheet. Does this work in conjunction with your weekly planner?